By Lewis Empson
Geoff Keighly graced our screens and warmed our hearts once again this year with a celebration of this year of gaming alongside a plethora of A-list guest stars and some exciting new announcements; hereÔÇÖs what I thought of The Game Awards 2020.
The Awards
Competition was fierce this year with Sony duking itself out between The Last Of Us Part II with a staggering 10 nominations in different categories and Ghost Of Tsushima following close behind with 7 nominations. Either way it was a good show for PlayStation Exclusives as TLOU2 picked up awards in Best Performance, Accessibility (more on this one later), Best Audio Design, Best Action/Adventure, Best Narrative, Best Direction and Game Of The Year; not bad for a game that saw an extremely controversial launch. I feel like some of these awards are slightly more deserved than others, for example IÔÇÖm very pleased with Laura Bailey winning for her portrayal as Abby as it was a gritty, engrossing and complex performance that she gave her all for and let’s be honest the guttural sounds of bones crunching and squelchy gore definitely solidified a well deserved Best Audio Design award. However I feel like the best action/adventure was perhaps a stretch as although the gameplay is very polished in TLOU2, it doesn’t necessarily build upon or revolutionise the formula found in the first game. IÔÇÖm not going to say Ghost Of Tsushima was robbed here, however it felt like it had a lot more going in terms of action/adventure gameplay thanks to its fluid and skillful combat and huge open world that had loads of potential for, you know, adventure – at least it got Art Direction which was well deserved.
Perhaps the most galling of TLOU2 wins however, was its win in the brand new Innovation In Accessibility award. Now yes, it had some great options and was way more inclusive than any major console game before it, however, fellow nominee Hyperdot took it to another level. Hyperdot champions accessibility for disabled gamers by going above and beyond with features such as native Xbox Adaptive Controller support, alternative tilt and touch controls as well as freaking eye tracking for gamers with very limited mobility. The developers fundamentally changed how the game plays in every aspect to cater for all audiences and somehow had their thunder stolen by TLOU2. DonÔÇÖt get me wrong, TLOU2 had an amazing, almost overwhelming set of accessibility options that should be celebrated, however they were predominantly control scheme changes, various filters and gameplay difficulty tweaks; Hyperdot had options built specifically for disabled gamers with any range of movement or audio/visual ability and it feels a little strange to disregard this on the first ever Innovation In Accessibility award – I mean eye tracking, that’s dedication to innovation for accessibility.
On a lighter note, 2020 online phenomenon, Among Us, scooped up Best Multiplayer, a title once held by the likes of Fortnite and Apex Legends in recent years, as well as Best Mobile. This was a genuinely great moment worth celebrating as watching a team of just 4 developers beat the likes of Call of Duty, Animal Crossing and Valorent was such a heartwarming moment and it felt very well deserved. Hades also had a lot of recognition and it took Best Indie and Best Action, beating the likes of Doom, Half Life and Nioh in the latter category making it a big win for the indie scene as it takes some doing to take down those industry giants.
Finally a look at the ÔÇ£losersÔÇØ┬á (not really losers as they still got well deserved nominations), somehow hyped up ESports newcomer Valorant managed to lose to 2009ÔÇÖs League Of Legends, both games were developed by Riot so I guess it’s no loss to them but still an odd phenomenon. An F in the chat for all the other great nominees that walked away with no awards such as Doom Eternal, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Spider-Man Miles Morales and Destiny 2 who have either been great or have received some good recent updates, we canÔÇÖt win everythingÔǪ unless youÔÇÖre The Last Of Us Part II then you absolutely can.
The Announcements
The Game Awards never fails to pull out some big surprises and there were some corkers this year. Before we had a chance to settle into our seats, a brand new revival to the cult classic Perfect Dark was announced to be in progress at Microsoft which was followed by a Microsoft Flight Sim port to Xbox Series X|S and a pretty cool looking Forza Horizon 4 x Cyberpunk 2077 crossover DLC car pack – not bad at all Microsoft.
Nintendo didnÔÇÖt come to play either, Sephiroth is joining Smash Bros Ultimate in a goosebumps inducing trailer featuring his signature theme and Capcom has teamed up with Nintendo to remake the classic Ghosts and Goblins. The original team behind Left 4 Dead are back with a spiritual successor, Back 4 Blood (see what they did there) which is looking to scratch that Left 4 Dead itch left abandoned since the release of Left 4 Dead 2. The Callisto Protocol is a sci-fi horror by the executive producer behind Dead Space so if you fancy sleeping with the lights on for a while then check that out but if youÔÇÖre feeling sci-fi but with less horror and more rage and betrayal, then Among Us has its brand new map dropping early 2021. The Elder Scrolls Online is heading to Oblivion and Black Ops Cold War is heading to the Warzone; see you in the gulag. Most importantly, TGA meme icon Josef ÔÇ£F*ck the OscarsÔÇØ Fares is back and debuted a first look at his new co-op experience about solving a broken relationship in a mysterious fantasy world with a talking anthropomorphic book guiding the way. There was also an Evil Dead Game announced for horror fans, Open Roads from the developers of the stellar Gone Home, as well as an absolutely awful looking Just Cause mobile game that nobody asked for. Oh and Fornite is getting crossovers with Halo (and by extension Red vs Blue which was a fun surprise) and The Walking Dead. There are absolutely games I donÔÇÖt have room to mention but there were so many great announcements and weÔÇÖre not even onto the big three yet.
First off, Ark 2 starring Vin Diesel? Sure why not. Ark 2ÔÇÖs reveal felt like a sensory overload, primeval humanoid monsters, space age technology and half naked Vin Diesel in blue war paint running for his life from a towering t-rex that chomped down on any mortal standing in its way. I was under the impression that Ark was an open world survival game along the lines of The Forest but admittedly it’s been a while since IÔÇÖve checked in on the franchise so I must have missed the memo on the whole Vin Diesel neanderthal nightmare storyline. Anyways, moving swiftly on to Bioware who managed to steal the show from pretty much everyone thanks to playing both their ace cards in one big flex. First came the visually stunning teaser trailer for the next installment to the Dragon Age franchise which looks to be promising some exhilarating and beautiful fantasy action; Inquisition was a well loved entry to the series however it’s been 6 years since that released so it remains to be seen if the tentivaley titled Dragon Age 4 can live up to it. Closing the show was BiowareÔÇÖs power play in the form of a suspenseful teaser trailer for the next Mass Effect, it has been rumoured for a while and after a definitive end to ShepardÔÇÖs story in Mass Effect 3 and a very lackluster entry in the series with Andromeda, interests have been peaked as to where the series can go next; either way it’s great to see a new entry to the beloved sci-fi series. The trailer ends with an ominous ÔÇ£Mass Effect will continueÔÇØ message so it’s safe to say that hype is being built.
And that concludes my Game Awards 2020 thoughts on both the awards and announcements. Although it may have been a crappy year all round at least we got some good (if not controversial) games to play now and some upcoming projects to look forward too, hopefully 2021 will be a bit of an upgrade.