Celebrating an Outstanding Year of Releases A Wrap-up of the

nominated for. Elden Ring very deservedly picked up ‘Game of the Year’, as well as ‘Best Game Direction’, ‘Art Direction’ and ‘Role-Playing Game (RPG)’. The categories of ‘Best Narrative’, ‘Score’, ‘Audio Design’, ‘Performance’, ‘Accessibility’ and ‘Action/Adventure Game’ went to God of War: Ragnarök, rewarding the development team’s efforts in making a truly cinematic game. The majority of games featured in the same categories as either of these two did not receive any recognition, notably the triple-A game Horizon: Forbidden West arguably coming out as the biggest loser, considering its size and financial backing. If reviews of the game are to be trusted, this is not its own fault, but simply due to the misfortune of having released days before the behemoth that is Elden Ring, which has dominated mainstream gaming discourse throughout the year despite having released all the way back in March. The critical and commercial success of these two winners is very promising for the gaming industry, showing that developers will continue to be rewarded for artistically engaging design and storytelling. Just like Breath of the Wild a few years ago, Elden Ring has definitively raised the bar for open-world game design, which has been plagued by lazy and repetitive design from big name studios such as Ubisoft for years at this point.

The big winner of this year’s independent game categories was Stray, a delightful game in which the player plays as a cat, designed to play as similarly as possible to an actual cat, while still being fun and engaging. There was a ton of buzz surrounding the game upon release, becoming a surprise hit that felt refreshingly simple to those who might find big name games to be too repetitive or complicated. Nintendo also picked up a few awards in different genres, as well as ‘Most Anticipated Game’ for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel to Breath of the Wild. If the previous game is anything to judge by, this is a well-deserved win that will hopefully translate into some more victories at next year’s awards. Other games that were officially revealed during the show included Death Stranding 2, Final Fantasy XVI and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, among many others.

As with all awards shows, the awards themselves are not the only draw for the audience. Like other years, there was a slew of big-name presenters and musical performances present, as well as a couple of awkward moments. Presenters for awards and trailers included familiar figures in gaming such as voice actor Troy Baker, as well as mainstream celebrities such as Daniel Craig, Pedro Pascal and most bizarrely of all, Al Pacino presenting the award for Best Performance. Hozier and Halsey were among the musical performers during the show, with Hozier performing a song that he and lead composer for Ragnarök, Bear McCreary, collaborated on for the game’s soundtrack. This wrap-up would also be remiss if it did not mention the hijacking of the ‘Game of the Year’ award’s speech by a mysterious fifteen year old, who followed the FromSoftware team up on stage. Following game director Hidetaka Miyazaki’s acceptance speech, the boy took the microphone and made a joke nomination. There is ongoing debate as to whether or not his joke was in fact antisemitic, but either way it was in poor taste and unfortunately undercut Elden Ring’s big moment. Needless to say, it was this year’s most talked-about moment from the show. However, all in all, this year’s ceremony was a good one, with otherwise relatively few awkward incidents and plenty of recognition for some truly spectacular games.