Submitted 2 days ago by mysticpickle@lemmy.ca to games@lemmy.world
https://screenrant.com/game-awards-2025-all-winners-goty/
Expedition 33 coronation as expected.
Thing that surprised me the most was Wuthering Waves for Players Choice Award over Expedition 33, Dispatch, Silksong, Death Stranding, Ghost of Yotei, and KCD2. Literal complete stable of awesome games across genres lost out to a gatcha game. Are the just more gooner gamers than I thought? 🤔
Mega-hyped for Total War: Warhammer 40k
Flute guy killed it as usual!
What are your thoughts on the awards and show overall?
It’s not ruining my day or anything, but the gacha game basically bribing their players to vote for them feels pretty lame.
And I mentioned it in another TGA thread, but for a 4.5 hour runtime, presenting roughly 10 out of 30 awards on stage with the rest being rapid fire announcements between walls of ads/trailers doesn’t feel great for an awards show.
Those two gripes aside, I did enjoy it overall. All the winners’ speeches were very sweet and nice to see, though clearly a rough year for most games not named Clair Obscur.
I think it was underwhelming, to be honest. Hot takes below:
The praise for Clair Obscur was deserved, but I don’t think it deserved to win every category it did. I don’t think a lot of the categories themselves are even very well thought out, to be honest. E.g. “Best RPG” is such a trap because no one can even decide what merits inclusion in the category. And rather than factoring in something like how effectively a game incorporates RPG mechanics, of which Clair Obscur has relatively few, they just pick whatever the the best overall game is that happens to fit within that category.
The format of the show itself still needs work. They’re trying to make it the “Oscars of gaming” by locking in as much celebrity presence as they can. But you need actors to star in movies, you don’t need actors to star in games. Not enough focus is actually being put on the technical aspects of game development, because it’s boring and no one is interested, just like the technical aspects of making movies.
More people still watch it for the trailers than they do for the ceremony itself. I think trailers are fine, but if they want to be the “Oscars of gaming”, they should just do it like the Oscars themselves and keep all new trailers relegated to simple ad buys that play during a commercial break between segments.
A more transparent standard of decisionmaking would be nice. Movies take only 1-3 hours to watch, so there is a reasonable expectation that members of the Academy who make the decision on which nominees should win have actually seen them all (and even then they apparently don’t bother). There is no way that the folks who vote for these categories have actually played through every game nominated, so I’m curious about how they make their decisions.
I don’t know why the Muppets are there every year. It’s weird to go from Miss Piggy to the trailer for Divinity.
It’s also weird when presenters are there to mostly plug their own ongoing projects rather than to actually celebrate the people being recognized this year.
Most anticipated game is a joke category that GTA 6 will keep winning every year it is delayed.
Actually, every category where fans decide the results should just be thrown out, because it’s inherently not based on any degree of an unbiased, informed critical perspective. Case in point:
Thing that surprised me the most was Wuthering Waves for Players Choice Award over Expedition 33, Dispatch, Silksong, Death Stranding, Ghost of Yotei, and KCD2. Literal complete stable of awesome games across genres lost out to a gatcha game. Are there just more gooner gamers than I thought? 🤔
Gatcha games are huge in China (and elsewhere), and China has more people than anywhere else. So I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s just a popularity contest. The people that voted for Wuthering Waves likely never played the other games nominated, and they don’t care to. It’s also telling that such a massive chunk of trailer content was gatcha slop.
More people still watch it for the trailers than they do for the ceremony itself. I think trailers are fine, but if they want to be the “Oscars of gaming”, they should just do it like the Oscars themselves and keep all new trailers relegated to simple ad buys that play during a commercial break between segments.
The trailers are the only reason the show exists. It is not about celebrating games or anything, it’s about making as much cash as possible.
Wuthering Waves
I have nothing against beautiful animesque games, but… does it have to be rail-thin women in schoolgirl skirts and stockings?
I’m a sucker for Zenless Zone Zero. I recognize it’s often catering to male gaze, but I appreciate there’s some uniqueness and interesting themes to the designs.
Basic example, “Corin” being on first blush just a cute maid cut, but also following a Frankenstein design theme with the bolts/chainsaw and hair color.
They’ve also had a “bunny-girl”, Alice, who much like real bunnies is skittish and easily frightened (and is thankfully not nearly as sexualized as the theme often carries)
and is thankfully not nearly as sexualized as the theme often carries)
Until you see her M6 art reveal lol…
The timing of this is hilarious to be honest, they just released their only anime school girl character in the patch that dropped like 2-3 weeks ago lol before then there wasn’t anything really like that.
Worst “one more thing” reveal…ever.
I hope that game dies. We don’t want f2p live service hero shooters anymore
I still miss lawbreakers (I will not be playing the private server if thats still happening, I played with controller lol)
Sad my GOTY Death Stranding 2 didn’t win anything. But oh well. I hadn’t played Clair yet so I stayed it today. It’s good so far. Don’t know if it’ll top my Norman Reedus with a Fetus* yet though.
I actually think it’s time to retire flute guy. I think flute guy has jumped the shark, bringing in pvc pipe whatever instruments that you can’t even hear. You had your time in the sun flute guy.
Overall, I thought the show was OK. They need better pacing on when they are actually giving out awards. It seemed like there was a stretch of an hour where no awards were announced.
And I agree with the whole of the internet that the last trailer was a fat lot of nothing. Sorry to that team for working on a “dead” genre for years. I only say “dead” because by this point everyone has picked their game they like in that genre, and trying to add a new one right now is a terrible idea.
*toddler
Wuthering Waves should not be surprising. It’s a game that’s popular in China. If you’re polling people from all over the world to determine a winner, the one that wins is the most popular game in China.
Clair Obscur is a good game, but I definitely like it far less than everyone else, and if I were god of video game awards, it would have gone to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II this year.
Fatal Fury winning best fighting game was the objectively correct choice when faced against an early access game and several collections.
The Alters losing out to a port of a PS1 game, even a spruced up one, for the strategy category is pretty stupid. The Alters also should have shown up in narrative and performance.
As for reveals, there’s lots to be excited for. My most anticipated game for next year is probably Invincible Vs; I have not seen Ella Mental at where I’m at in the show, and maybe she won’t show up until later seasons, but she looks like a great Storm archetype for that game.
She is a unique creation for the game. Not in the comic or show, unless they somehow decide to add her to the show later.
But it follows the comics so tightly that would be kind of odd.
I have now caught up to where the show left off, and I’ll probably pick up the comics during an imminent sale somewhere. I did hear that this game would have an original story, and given all the deconstruction of its genre that that show does, it gets me excited that they’re doing something similar for tag fighting games. A riff on Storm from Marvel vs Capcom 2 would be perfect for that.
Plus the developers promised 50 free pulls if they got the award.
… So bots were definitely used
I saw some gossip about the cost of revealing a game on the TGA, which I didn't see in years past. Makes sense that they work like ads where the best spot (right before GOTY) is the most expensive.
So imagine: Larian paid less for that unhinged Divinity trailer than Wildlight paid for another generic looking hero shooter (we have Valorant at home).
They didn’t have to, since everyone now talks about the divinity trailer. There seem to be far less people talking about the other trailers.
Yeah Divinity went for shock value and boy did it pay off.
David Harbour was there, I like him. Thank you for attending my TED talk.
I can understand wuthering waves. I never in 10000000 years thought I’d be saying something like this about a gacha game, but wuthering waves is probably my favorite game in like God knows how many years. The combat is really fun, it all looks absolutely amazing on pc, the story is great even side quests and side stories (a freaking character side quest had me crying as a 40 year old man…) it’s really just a good game.
I’d honestly suggest more people try it, you 100% do not need to spend any money whatsoever to enjoy the game and it’s story. When needed you get “trial” characters set to the appropriate level to complete story stuff and they’ve actually made a main character who isn’t complete and utter dogshit. They’re good in many team compositions.
The only place you’d feel like maybe you want to spend is if you want to do the dick measuring sweaty gamer endgame fights at the hardest difficulty, but it’s still doable without them.
There is some very high quality writing and gameplay in the genre right now. A lot of talented people are working on these games. And generally speaking, yes, you don’t need to spend a dime to see the main content.
I tend not to recommend them because you never know who has a gambling problem (and sometimes people don’t know until they are exposed to it for the first time). There’s also the other odd quirk–not just in gacha, but in live-service and other self-insert media in general lately–where character romance is omitted from the game world because they don’t want to offend insecure men. Can make things feel flat at times.
If one knows they are fine with both of those issues, there’s a lot of great content out there.
I tend not to recommend them because you never know who has a gambling problem (
That’s a fair point. They even got me for a while, I got too comfortable being ok with “supporting” the company since I loved the game so much and before you know it 6 months later I’ve spent like $700 on it…
I a just sad since no half life 3 announcement
If HL3 was ever to get news, I don’t really think Valve would do it on someone else’s awards show. They tend to own their own announcements.
Gabe follower said 2025 announcement, this was the only real date left that still made any sense
me too Mario, me too
If HL3 ever comes out, it will be a looter shooter with a strange story. In the time skip between 2 and 3, the rebels and Combine sued for peace because it turns out the Combine really are here to help humanity somehow. And most of the game is spent assisting the Combine with invading the very evil Race X homeworld.
I don’t think I have ever watched the game awards, but I do look at the results and trailers the day after. I am glad Claire pulled through! I was following that game the year before it released and it looked incredible. For me it was a day one purchase and glad I was right! It was definitely an experience. It’s also the only game I have purchased this year outside of black friday where I used a gift card to buy 3 cheap games.
I despise the Hollywood-ification of the videogame industry, but the show was decent enough, with good pacing and not too many reveals so that everything had its spotlight. The awards went as expected.
JakenVeina@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The Players Voice award always goes to some gacha trash, cause they incentivise their players to go vote. “If we win, we’ll give everyone free shit”.
Sad to see that so many FANTASTIC games ended up with nil, because E33 stole the show so hard, but it’s tough to argue that they didn’t deserve each one. Myself, I probably would’ve put Silksong over E33 for art direction, it’s ASTOUNDING to me how much of a step up the artwork in that game was, compared to Hollow Knight.
I do wish that they would adjust their criteria for “indie” game. E33 really shouldn’t have been counted as one, IMO. Hundreds of people worked on that game, as many as some AAA games, and yet games like Blue Prince, from a solo developer (or very close to it?) had to compete against that? That really defies the spirit of the indie category, for me. Even if we count JUST the core team of (supposedly) 33, that puts it squarely in AA territory, for me.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Moby Games lists 121 people in the credits for Blue Prince and 416 for Clair Obscur. At some point, the number of people who worked on a game is nearly arbitrary once your publisher enlists a QA contractor or starts localizing to more languages. I don’t think it’s ever been murkier territory to try to classify a game as indie.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
The original meaning of indie was independently published. I would think having a publisher would pretty squarely put you in the not indie category.
who@feddit.org 20 hours ago
I’ll argue it.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a beautiful game. The music is amazing, the scenery is lovely, and the English voice acting surprisingly good.
But its gameplay is bog standard JRPG battles with a basic parry mechanic. Nothing original or otherwise interesting there.
I feel it deserved every award it received for being a work of art, but Game of the Year? No.
Ellvix@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I heard that Blue Prince was going to be on the nominee list, but the lack of accessibility features ruined it for them.
JakenVeina@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Which list? It WAS a nominee for Best Indie.
mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I thought Blue Prince was one of the most innovative games of the year for sure and the story of it while subtle was very engaging.
It would have been nice to see it recognized somewhere! The Dev will just have to make do with the adoration of the legions of fans it has gathered for making an objectively awesome game :o