Game of the Year Award - Baldur’s Gate 3
VR Game of the Year Award - Labyrinthine
Labor of Love Award - Red Dead Redemption 2
Best Game on Steam Deck Award - Hogwarts Legacy
Better With Friends Award - Lethal Company
Outstanding Visual Style Award - Atomic Heart
Most Innovative Gameplay Award - Starfield
Best Game You Suck At Award - SIFU
Best Soundtrack Award - The Last of Us Part I
Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award - Baldur’s Gate 3
Sit Back and Relax Award - Dave the Diver
Anyone who didn’t expect BG3 to win Game of the Year has been under a rock since it launched O.o Anyone who expected Starfield to win Most Innovative Gameplay, are you offering divination services to the public?
Damn, I know some people are dead-set on insisting that Starfield isn’t that bad but… innovative?? Really??? Most innovative?!?? Baffling!
It’s probably an ironic award, though I stand by the statement that Starfield isn’t any worse than Bethesda’s other mainstream titles post-Morrowind, except for the fact that it can’t ride on the writing of much better writers who either left the company or made the IP they acquired.
Starfield is the first pure creation of Modern Bethesda, and they can’t rely on the excellent lore and world building of other games like Fallout 1 and 2, Morrowind, etc.
That being said, 90% of issues can be solved by halving the radius for POI generation, adding a huge number of new POIs for the pool, and adding a survival mode to make shipbuilding important, space travel require fuel, and spacesuits necessary for environmental protection.
When Starfield wins most innovative, that’s when you can disregard the rest.
TLOU Part 1 was a 2023 release, even though it’s just a remake but at least I can let that slide. Even SIFU was a 2023 Steam release so I can let that slide. RDR2 is in a category that specifically built for games before 2023. What I can’t let slide is giving it the labor of love award. It hasn’t been touched since launch and the online component is a gong-show because of it’s bugs and cheaters. Even the singleplayer mode had a huge audio bug that affected many people (including myself) and the only work around was getting some guys script that you have to run before launching the game.
It’s completely abandoned by Rockstar and does not deserve to come anywhere close to the “Labor of Love” award.
