The Golden Joystick Awards took place in London on November 17, the 35th edition of an event that has been going on since the early 80’s. What makes the Golden Joystick Awards special is that video game fans themselves get to vote in each category, letting the gaming public decide which video games were truly the year’s best.
Voting took place across a series of categories this year, with Nintendo and its games bagging the most awards (a total of 5). It is also interesting that a major AAA game like Resident Evil 7 won in the “Best VR Game” category, proving that perhaps virtual reality could become a standard part of major game releases in the future.
Also, two people working in the video game industry right now were in the spotlight this year. One is voice actress Ashly Burch, whose part in Horizon: Zero Dawn earned her the “Breakthrough Award” and “Best Gaming Performance” awards, while industry legend Sid Meier was the recipient of the “Lifetime Achievement” award, surely a well-deserved honour for the guy behind games like Civilization and Pirates!
Of course, most people will be focused on the all-important Game of the Year award, and it was a Nintendo game that bagged the prestigious award this year – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This game mixed Nintendo’s talent for creating addictive and engaging games with a lush, beautiful open-world, so it’s not surprising that it was many gamers’ favourite this year.
Hard as it may be to believe though, there are other high-profile games to be released this year, games that did not make it in time for this year’s Golden Joystick Awards. These include a remastered edition of video game legend Okami, and also VR game The Inpatient by the makers of Until Dawn, and hopefully these will be as engaging and fun to play as the best we’ve seen this year when they hit shelves in late 2017.
Here follows the full list of winners from this year’s Golden Joystick Awards (via PC Gamer):
- Best Storytelling – Horizon Zero Dawn
- Best Visual Design – Cuphead
- Best Audio – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Best Gaming Performance sponsored by The Sun – Ashly Burch (Horizon Zero Dawn)
- Best Indie Game in collaboration with Square Enix Collective – Friday the 13th: The Game
- Best Multiplayer Game sponsored by GT Omega – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Studio of the Year – Nintendo EPD
- Best VR Game – Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
- Esports Play of the Year sponsored by Intel – Agilities
- Esports Team of the Year – Lunatic-Hai
- Esports Game of the Year sponsored by Omen by HP – Overwatch
- Best Streamer / Broadcaster – Markiplier
- Handheld / Mobile Game of the Year sponsored by Bespoke Arcades – Pokémon Sun and Moon
- Nintendo Game of the Year – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- PlayStation Game of the Year – Horizon Zero Dawn
- Xbox Game of the Year – Cuphead
- PC Game of the Year – PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
- Critics’ Choice Award – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Breakthrough Award sponsored by Badfly – Ashly Burch
- Hall of Fame – Final Fantasy
- Most Wanted Award – The Last of Us Part 2
- Still Playing Award – World of Tanks
- Outstanding Contribution to the UK Games Industry sponsored by The Telegraph – Debbie Bestwick MBE
- Lifetime Achievement – Sid Meier
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Ultimate Game of the Year – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild