[Game Awards 2020] It's a hell year, so of course Hades did well

cloudeagle

Time to cap this hell year with something a little less hellish (though Hades got a ton of nominations). You all know the drill -- there's nominations, there's tons of new announcements, there's Geoff Keighley. Everyone will be presenting in studios/other places across the world due to you know what, but apparently there will be a symphony too. The show streams 45 different places Dec. 10.

You can vote for the nominees here. They include The Last of Us 2 (10 noms), Hades (8), The Ghost of Tsushima (7) and whoever the hell "ZywOo" is (1). Here's the full list:

GAME OF THE YEAR
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)
Doom Eternal (id Software/Bethesda)
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Square Enix)
Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch/SIE)
Hades (Supergiant Games)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Naughty Dog/SIE)

BEST GAME DIRECTION
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Square Enix)
Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch/SIE)
Hades (Supergiant Games)
Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Naughty Dog/SIE)

BEST NARRATIVE
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (George Kamitani)
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Kazushige Nojima, Motomu Toriyama, Hiroki Iwaki, Sachie Hirano)
Ghost of Tsushima (Ian Ryan, Liz Albl, Patrick Downs, Jordan Lemos)
Hades (Greg Kasavin)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross)

BEST ART DIRECTION
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Square Enix)
Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch/SIE)
Hades (Supergiant Games)
Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Moon Studios/Xbox Game Studios)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Naughty Dog/SIE)

BEST SCORE AND MUSIC
Doom Eternal (Mick Gordon)
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Nobuo Uematsu, Masahi Hamauzu, Mitsuto Suzuki)
Hades (Darren Korb)
Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Gareth Coker)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Gustavo Santaolala, Mac Quale)

BEST AUDIO DESIGN
Doom Eternal (id Software/Bethesda)
Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)
Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch/SIE)
Resident Evil 3 (Capcom)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Naughty Dog/SIE)

BEST PERFORMANCE
Ashley Johnson as Ellie, The Last of Us Part 2
Laura Bailey as Abby, The Last of Us Part 2
Daisuke Tsuji as Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima
Logan Cunningham as Hades, Hades
Nadji Jeter as Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

GAMES FOR IMPACT
If Found … (DREAMFELL/Annapurna)
Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition (Cardboad Computer/Annapurna)
Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games)
Tel Me Why (Dontnod Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Through the Darkest of Times (Paintbucket Games)

BEST ONGOING
Apex Legends (Respawn/EA)
Destiny 2 (Bungie)
Call of Duty Warzone (Infinity Ward/Activision)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)

BEST INDIE
Carrion (Phobia Game Studio)
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (Mediatonic/Devolver)
Hades (Supergiant Games)
Spelunky 2 (Mossmouth)
Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games)

BEST MOBILE
Among Us (InnerSloth)
Call of Duty Mobile (TiMi Studios/Activision)
Genshin Impact (miHoYo)
Legends of Runeterra (Riot Games)
Pokémon Café Mix (Genius Sonority)

BEST COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Apex Legends (Respawn/EA)
Destiny 2 (Bungie)
Fall Guys (Mediatonic/Devolver)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Valorant (Riot Games)

INNOVATION IN ACCESSIBILITY
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Grounded (Obsidian/Xbox Game Studios)
HyperDot (Tribe Games)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Naughty Dog/SIE)
Watch Dogs Legion (Ubisoft Toronto/Ubisoft)

BEST VR/AR
Dreams (Media Molecule/SIE)
Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)
Marvel’s Iron Man VR (Camoflaj/SIE)
Star Wars: Squadrons (Motive Studios/EA)
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (Skydance Interactive)

BEST ACTION
Doom Eternal (id Software/Bethesda)
Hades (Supergiant Games)
Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)
Nioh 2 (Team Ninja)
Streets of Rage 4 (DotEmu)

BEST ACTION/ADVENTURE
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch/SIE)
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Insomniac Games/SIE)
Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Moon Studios/Xbox Game Studios)
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn/EA)
The Last of Us Part 2 (Naughty Dog/SIE)

BEST ROLE PLAYING
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Square Enix)
Genshin Impact (miHoYo)
Persona 5 Royal (Atlus, P Studios)
Wasteland 3 (inXile Entertainment/Koch)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega)

BEST FIGHTING
Granblue Fantasy: Versus (Arc System Works/Cygames)
Mortal Kombat 11/Ultimate (NetherRealm Studios/WB Games)
Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition (Dimps/Capcom)
One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows (Spike Chunsoft/Bandai-Namco)
Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[cl-r] (French Bread/Arc System Works)

BEST FAMILY
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time (Toys for Bob/Activision)
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (Mediatonic/Devolver)
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (Velan Studios/Nintendo)
Minecraft Dungeons (Mojang/Double Eleven/Xbox Game Studios)
Paper Mario: The Origami King (Intelligent Systems/Nintendo)

BEST SIM/STRATEGY
Crusader Kings 3 (Paradox Development Studio/Paradox)
Desperados 3 (Mimimi Games/THQN)
Gears Tactics (Splash Damage/The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios)
Microsoft Flight Simulator (Asobo/Xbox Game Studios)
XCOM: Chimera Squad (Firaxis/2K)

BEST SPORTS/RACING
Dirt 5 (Codemasters Cheshire/Codemasters)
F1 2020 (Codemasters Birmingham /Codemasters)
FIFA 21 (EA Vancouver/EA Sports)
NBA 2K21 (Visual Concepts/2K)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 (Vicarious Visions/Activision)

BEST MULTIPLAYER
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo)
Among Us (InnerSloth)
Call of Duty: Warzone (Infinity Ward/Raven/Activision)
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (Mediatonic/Devolver)
Valorant (Riot Games)

BEST DEBUT GAME
Carrion (Phobia Game Studio/Devolver)
Mortal Shell (Cold Symmetry/Playstack)
Raji: An Ancient Epic (Nodding Heads Games)
Röki (Polygon Treehouse/CI Games)
Phasmophobia (Kinetic Games)

CONTENT CREATOR OF THE YEAR
Alanah Pearce
NickMercs
TimtheTatman
Jay Ann Lopez
Valkyrae

BEST ESPORTS GAME
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward/Raven/Activision)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
League of Legends (Riot Games)
Valorant (Riot Games)

BEST ESPORTS ATHLETE
Ian “Crimsix” Porter / Call of Duty
Heo “Showmaker” Su / League of Legends
Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu / League of Legends
Anthony “Shotzzy” Cuevas-Castro / Call of Duty
Matthieu “ZywOo” Herbaut / CS:GO

BEST ESPORTS TEAM
DAMWON Gaming / League of Legends
Dallas Empire / Call of Duty
San Francisco Shock / Overwatch League
G2 Esports / League of Legends
Team Secret / DOTA2

BEST ESPORTS EVENT
BLAST Premier: Spring E2020 European Finals (CS:GO)
Call of Duty League Championship 2020
IEM Katowice 2020 (CS:GO)
League of Legends World Championship 2020
Overwatch League Grand Finals 2020

BEST ESPORTS HOST
Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere
Alex “Machine” Richardson
Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez
James “Dash” Patterson
Jorien “Sheever” van der Heijden

Get to arguing!

Lilnoobs

Ah, the video game Winter Marketing campaign for Christmas has begun!

Shadowfire

This is such a weird year for gaming. On a normal year I'd say "well of course Last of Us 2 or FF7R gets GotY." But the pandemic makes Animal Crossing a big time contender for that, and then Hades came out and blew everyone away.

I'm kinda interested in seeing what happens here.

MegaMan001

I think Hades is going to do really, really well. I'd have said the Last of Us 2 would sweep, but the energy behind Hades is just never ending. People who loved it in early access are still playing and the narrative keeps you going.

For me, Hades is the first game in a decade to crack my top five all time best list.

TexiKen

The usual shilling and PR bullshit aside that biases the awards, I would think Tsushima wins most of the awards win going up against Last of Us 2, since it seems outside of the first week blitz for TLOU2, Tsushima was better received and seemed to have better gameplay and story.

Animal Crossing will win some little ones like best family, and Streets of Rage 4 should win but it won't because it's going against Doom Eternal. FF7 will be the Brady Quinn of a lot of the awards, maybe it wins the music outright. Game should have had more Tifa then it would have won more.

urahonky

Hades is the best game of the year in all categories it's listed under and it should absolutely win.

rahkeesh2000

I'm just wondering why its the same damn games in most categories. Did nothing come out or do the voters just not play anything?

The one obvious prediction that jumps out is Alyx for VR, there's just nothing else on its level.

BRIAN BLESSED

I'm just going to be here crying silently like a bitch when Ori gets robbed of every category it's nominated for :P

Handsome Costanza

Fallen Order got screwed.

Shadowfire

Handsome Costanza wrote: »

Fallen Order got screwed.

It's on the best action/adventure list. I mean, I liked the game ok, but it does not hang on the list in most of those categories.

Handsome Costanza

Shadowfire wrote: »

Handsome Costanza wrote: »

Fallen Order got screwed.

It's on the best action/adventure list. I mean, I liked the game ok, but it does not hang on the list in most of those categories.

It should replace TLOU2 for GOTY, game direction, narrative, score and sound, art direction, and Cameron Monaghan should be replacing someone for best performance, just pick one.

Raiden333

13 Sentinels doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning Best Narrative, when it easily easily should.

Among Us being eligible to win anything even though it came out 2 years ago, just because it's finally popular, is a joke.

BRIAN BLESSED

The only category Among Us should have showed up in is Best Ongoing, arguably (and I think it would have been a fair nomination) given that category is explicitly designed to give older games committing to persistent content development some love

Shadowfire

That's kind of an issue with early access games though. I had never heard of Among Us until this year, and didn't know it came out earlier until you two mentioned it in this thread. So making a game eligible for GotY in the year that it blows up doesn't seem that unusual to me.

anoffday

I enjoy the game awards, and I'm still gaming as much as I can, but as the years go on I find myself playing less and less new games. I eventually get to them. There's just so much to play that I'm always behind. I can't keep up anymore. I think I've played maybe one or two of the games on these lists.

anoffday

Handsome Costanza wrote: »

Fallen Order got screwed.

Am I confused on how the game awards works? Fallen Order came out last year? Does it go November to November or something?

Although, I agree. I'm playing it now and it's really good. LOU is not my cup of tea, so I would gladly replace it with FO.

SoundsPlush

Shadowfire wrote: »

That's kind of an issue with early access games though. I had never heard of Among Us until this year, and didn't know it came out earlier until you two mentioned it in this thread. So making a game eligible for GotY in the year that it blows up doesn't seem that unusual to me.

Limiting to the year of release made sense when there were fewer games coming out and they got more attention, but it's definitely biased toward larger titles. "Game of the year" was almost always some giant blockbuster game that made the biggest splash with its release, but with so many games coming out (good luck finding interesting little releases in the absolute abyss of Steam these days!), a game can miss its window before anyone has ever heard of it because they don't have the benefit of front-loaded triple-A momentum and have to build it over time. Not being eligible after they reach critical mass because that didn't happen within a year feels arbitrary.

Our local Penny Arcade forums GOTY poll solved this a long time ago by letting early-access etc. games be nominated in a year other than their "release," but once nominated that was their one shot: they were ineligible for any subsequent year's GoTY poll.

Zek

I think Among Us was genuinely released in 2018, not early access. I'm okay with it being a special exception though because its explosive growth in popularity was just that extraordinary, it never was under any consideration in earlier years.

cloudeagle

Less than a day away! Time to set our expectations way too damn high.

At any rate, Pokemon Go's doing a minor event specifically for The Video Game Awards, which is weird.

cloudeagle

OK, the thing starts at 7 pm eastern, with a preshow at 6:30 Details from Polygon:

This year’s edition of The Game Awards promises new game reveals — “around 12-15 or so,” Keighley said in a recent AMA session on Reddit. While many are still secret, there are some known reveals: We’ll get a new look at BioWare’s next Dragon Age game, a preview of Among Us’ new map, gameplay from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone season 1, and something new from Striking Distance, the studio founded at PUBG Corp. by Dead Space creator Glen Schofield.

The Game Awards will also include, you know, awards. (Here are this year’s nominees.) Presenters and performers scheduled to appear tonight include Gal Gadot, Tom Holland, Brie Larson, Reggie Fils-Aime, The Muppets (specifically, the Swedish Chef), Stephen A. Smith, Troy Baker, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Christopher Nolan, and Keanu Reeves.

Nintendo just announced a new Smash Bros. character will be revealed too.

urahonky

something new from Striking Distance, the studio founded at PUBG Corp. by Dead Space creator Glen Schofield

Wait... What?! Consider myself interested!

BRIAN BLESSED

There's a whole load of nonsense about Cyberpunk that has put me off purchasing the game entirely, but I'll never say a single bad word about Keanu Reeves showing up in anything

OTOH, Christopher Nolan is 10 pounds of over-pretentious shit in a 5 pound bag (only that the bag in of itself is quite talented at what it does), so.

Most the other guests seem alright.

urahonky

For real... Fuuuuck Nolan.

TexiKen

In a non-biased PR world Daisuke Tsuji would win best performance because Rorona Zoro always wins because he is the best.

Shadowfire

Maybe they should have the entire show hosted by the Swedish Chef.

BRIAN BLESSED

hell yea ori getting robbed of best soundtrack right out the gate, strong start

edit: and best action-adventure. sure whatever as expected lmao

Shadowfire

Look, FF7R had an amazing soundtrack. That had to be a tough call.

KoopahTroopah

Persona 5 OST too good.

GONG-00

*hears One Winged Angel plays*

BRIAN BLESSED

PERFECT DARK REBOOT YESSSS
(I've constantly gone on about a Casino-Royale style reboot so I fucking love this)

KoopahTroopah

New Perfect Dark announced for Xbox.

reVerse

I predict the story for Perfect Dark" will be something along the lines of "aliens caused climate change, there's nothing us humans can do about it, just gotta kill the aliens".

Preacher

New perfect dark is aces. New left 4 dead that just looked like HD left 4 dead? Ok like ok?

Big Classy

FUCKING YUSSSSSSS NO MANS SKY!!!!!!

MegaMan001

Hades should win every category and only isn't because it's not on the PS4 or Xbone yet and it's also a vast cabal conspiracy against smaller game studios.

BRIAN BLESSED

Hell yea Ori robbed 3 for 3 just like I called it :P

Preacher

MegaMan001 wrote: »

Hades should win every category and only isn't because it's not on the PS4 or Xbone yet and it's also a vast cabal conspiracy against smaller game studios.

Hades totally should be game of the year, it won't be because they didn't pay for that, but it should be

Preacher

Was kind of amused that actual award are rattled off like 4 in a row with very little fair to get to more game ads.

Preacher

Did Ark ever officially come out? I thought that was a perrenially in beta all star.

Enlong

Shadowfire wrote: »

Look, FF7R had an amazing soundtrack. That had to be a tough call.

When they added Cloud to the game, they included 2 songs. I have 0 faith that they're bringing the soundtrack to full glory with this one.

Taramoor

I know Among Us came out before everything else that is nominated, but damned if that acceptance speech wasn’t adorable.