In a result just about everyone who has been playing videogames this year saw coming, The Last of Us Part 2 dominated the Game Awards Thursday night with the most awards taken home. Winning awards in seven different categories including the much coveted “Game Of The Year”. Among Us, Hades, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Ghost of Tsushima also trailed behind with two awards each. Geoff Keighley, renowned videogame journalist and a 20+ year veteran of the gaming industry , has been hosting and directing the Game Awards for the last seven years. This year marks the first time the entire show was presented virtually due to the ongoing Covid pandemic.
Each consecutive year has seen the live viewership of the show increase with last year’s show pulling in over 45,200,000 live viewers! With these viewership gains the awards show was able to pull in some major celebrities to virtually present awards this year. Gal Gadot, Tom Holland, Brie Larson, Ralph Macchio, and Keanu Reeves were just a handful of last night’s presenters. Here are some of the big winners (and nominees) of the major categories down below.
Geoff Keighley with the Game Awards logo. Photo from Dualshockers
Game of the Year
- Doom Eternal
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Final Fantasy VII Remake
- Ghost of Tsushima
- Hades
- The Last of Us Part 2
The Last of US Part 2 rose to the top and won. I think it absolutely deserved to win the award and I’m glad it did. TLOU2 is a technical feat in terms of story telling, graphical fidelity, and even in-game physics. It really is an all-around well polished experience! Having played everything on this list (except for Animal Crossing) I really feel like it was a very close contest this year. The rest of the nominees were no jokes and I wouldn’t have been shocked to see any of them win.
Best Art Direction
- Hades
- Final Fantasy VII Remake
- Ghost of Tsushima
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- The Last of Us Part 2
Just about every game in this category deserved to win for different reasons. Hades art style is very original and unique. FFVII is amazingly beautiful but more so in a graphical-fidelity way rather than for a true art style. TLOU2 had incredible facial animation and water physics. Ori was whimsical and enchanting. That said, Ghost‘s haunting landscapes and seas of flowing grass are quite breathtaking and pushed it just above the rest. The fact that I sunk several hours into the game’s photo mode, took dozens of screenshots, and fiddled with the in-game filters is a testament to the game’s beauty. The judges chose wisely here.
An in-game screenshot of Ghost of Tsushima using photo mode, no this is not a cutscene.
Best Mobile Game
- Call of Duty: Mobile
- Among Us
- Genshin Impact
- Legends of Runeterra
- Pokémon Café Mix
Among Us took the top spot for this award as most critics suspected it would. The simple mobile game about deception has taken the gaming world by storm. Despite the game being released two years ago it entered the zeitgeist just this past fall. I am a bit biased in thinking Call of Duty: Mobile should have won since I sunk several hours into it this past year and enjoyed it. But in reality Among Us deserved to take the win for it’s addictive gameplay and it’s massive reach. I have cousins who don’t even play videogames who actually play Among Us, it’s popularity is unfathomable.
Best Role Playing
- Genshin Impact
- Final Fantasy VII Remake
- Persona 5 Royal
- Wasteland 3
- Yakuza: like A Dragon
This year’s nominees were all worthy selections, but Final Fantasy VII Remake really does stand head and shoulders above the rest. A game that fans had been clamoring for since literally the early days of the PS3, and that patience paid off. The game has sold 5,000,000 copies since launching back in April of this year and was the 3rd best selling game of the year. The game has a respectable 87/100 on Metacritic based on 126 reviews. Part of me was a bit torn about it since Yakuza: Like A Dragon is such a welcome breath of fresh air into the RPG genre, but not enough people have played it yet and the production value isn’t on par with FF7R.
Final Fantasy VII Remake‘s protagonist, and my boy, Cloud Strife in the heat of battle.
Best Performance
- Ashley Johnson as Ellie in The Last of Us Part 2
- Laura Bailey as Abby in The Last of US Part 2
- Logan Cunningham as Hades in Hades
- Nadji Jeter as Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Daisuke Tsuji as Jin Sakai in Ghost of Tsushima
Best Performance is a combination of best voice-over work with motion capture and delivery. Laura Bailey winning this award for playing Abby is a bit confusing to me. First because many critics assumed that having two nominees from the same game would split the vote down the middle allowing another game to win. Secondly I felt Ashley Johnson’s Ellie performance was much better between the two. Ellie goes through way more turmoil and anguish and she REALLY nailed that performance. Apparently I was very mistaken though considering the results. Laura would have been my second choice though.
Voice actress Laura Bailey on the left, on the right is Abby her character in the game.
Most Anticipated Game
- God Of War sequel
- Halo Infinite
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Resident Evil Village
- Elden Ring
- Breath Of Wild
This is one of the strangest and, frankly, silliest of awards given out through the night. The award is simply given to the game that people are the most eager to see. No one has played it or even seen it in action yet. It’s also one of only two awards that are solely voted by gamers with everything else being mostly decided by media outlets and critics. Elden Ring was first shown at E3 last year and is being developed by From Software (creators of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro) in conjunction with George R.R. Martin. That’s right, THAT George R.R. Martin (creator of Game of Thrones). The combination of these two creative forces has fans very excited. So here you go, Elden Ring is rewarded for not being out yet essentially but possibly being amazing one day.
Best Ongoing Game
- Destiny 2
- Call Of Duty: Warzone
- Fortnite
- No Man’s Sky
- Apex Legends
Probably the most shocking award of the night went to Hello Games for their game, No Man’s Sky. The shock was so apparent that even studio founder, Sean Murray, visibly hurried to put his drink down as he heard the news of his studio’s win mid-drink. The story of No Man’s Sky’s turn-around from being a disappointment and borderline fraudulent product to becoming one of the biggest and most content packed games is one of gaming’s best comeback stories. Seeing Sean Murray accept the award on behalf of the studio was one of the genuine feel good moments of the show.
No Man’s Sky
For the rest of the winners, nominees, and categories you can read the complete results here. What games were you hoping to see win in their respective categories? Comment down below. GNN cuts through the noise to get you the best gaming news; follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
