Ela probably set up a secret campaign so he wouldn’t have to play it as much, even when chat demands it. Of course, that’s only one layer of the conspiracy. The deeper theory is that Garfield Kart 2 was deliberately snubbed at the game awards to keep its true power hidden. If it had won, reality itself might not have been ready for the competitive lasagna-based racing meta.
I enjoyed both but they weren't really my thing, even though they were absolutely the game type I love. I think it was more a me thing than the game. ( Best breakup ever)
E33 may have won Game of the Year, but as gamers we all won this year for getting so many great games from indie and "AA" developers. For generally very reasonable prices compared to the slop being shoveled by major publishers, too.
There are people out there who refuse to buy games unless they hit top 10 on steam concurrent player numbers on launch week. Don't underestimate idiots.
I was honestly hoping Hades 2 would win soundtrack. I know the tracks are less epic classic background style, but goddam are they amazing vocal performances. Rarely do games have me just sitting there listening to the music
WRPG and JRPG need to split for award categories, I feel. There's no point in putting games as far apart in intent and gameplay as these were on the same ladder. Hardly anyone, if dividing their library by genre, would put Skyrim and Dragon Quest in the same pile.
Or split the category to differentiate between JRPGs and what I've seen others refer to as "true" RPGs. Should probably also do that to the indie game category, because right now they seem to have AA games in the same category as the indie games. And I want to include that I am thrilled E33 did so well, and it was my game of the year, but I do feel they need to make some more opportunities for other games to win, because I really feel that, if this were last year, Silksong or KCD2 would have won significantly more, and I understand why some people might be a little bitter that such great games got such little recognition, just because they happened to come out around the same time as another titan of a game.
TLDR; Splitting some categories into smaller, more specific categories would allow more games to get the recognition they deserve
God of war 2018 is one of my all time favorite games, the combat, story, characters, world design, everything else is pretty much perfect. Yet it in no way should have ever beaten red dead 2 for goty
My exact thoughts. I love E33 and believe it deserves all the love it gets, but TGA did KCD2 dirty by not giving it even a single award. Oh well, at least it’s my GOTY.
It’s nice that a game can improve or continue to develop over time. At first I thought it was an odd award but it’s important to remember that video games aren’t necessarily “static”
Yeah, it was absolutely robbed that year Cyberpunk won. One game had been continuously improving, one was ongoing because it had just gotten a huge DLC to finally fix game breaking issues.
Some people are so fickle about their games. One of my favourite games in recent years is Cyberpunk 2077. On the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit, someone posted the results of a quiz from another website. It asked what your favourite game was out of a choice of 4. Cyberpunk had the least amount of votes. The person who posted it was moaning, saying they were tired of Cyberpunk being disrespected and were annoyed that people were saying it was a bad game. I had to tell them that just because Cyberpunk had the least amount of votes, it doesn't mean people thought it was bad. It's just that people likes the other games better. More so, I told them that people are allowed to have an opinion and have a favourite game that is different from their favorite game.
Agree. Especially with how they managed to keep developing in the right direction. Aside from the fixing of bugs I appreciated how much balance patch 2.0 brought, and I remember vividly the first time I played the DLC, I honestly felt like I was playing a sequel rather than a DLC.
I tried to fuck around on my second playthrough and I can tell you one thing: don't be a dickhead or else you could lose the DLC permanently at one of the early missions if you pick the wrong dialogue
Did the other 4 games get yanked from the stores because of shoddy release?
I was talking with a buddy a few months ago and asked if they liked cyberpunk because it was right up their alley. "I thought it didnt work" was the sentiment. A lot of people permanently kept away from that game due to the release.
Present day, most of the people that didn't like the game have perfectly valid reasons for doing so. Just like I couldn't get into BG3. Im not saying its a bad game, its just not a good game for ME.
A game you enjoy not winning awards should have zero bearing on its enjoyment. Stop seeking external validation on every little aspect of your hobbies.
I think some people (or at least me) are developing a bit of Kojima fatigue when it comes to gaming industry events. Last 2-3 years have been nonstop hype and focus on everything Kojima related, to the point where "Kojima does something" has become the free square on everyone's event bingo cards.
It's only natural for the spotlight to move to someone else.
Yep. I don't remember anything being as anticipated as silk song or as surprising as E33. This year is absolutely stacked so people are going to have stronger opinions than before.
Imagine the 2004 lineup of: Halo 2, Half-Life 2, GTA San Andreas, knights of the old Republic 2, Fable, spiderman 2 Far Cry, Star Wars Battle, and World of fucking Warcraft. One of my favorite games of all time, Sly Cooper 2, came out that year and I would have gone mad trying to defend it to no avail.
The fact that there's such a heated debate or argument this year means that we have more great games this year than normal. The communities aren't behaving how we'd all like them to, but the fact it's this competitive is AMAZING for the industry.
Half the silksong subreddit is e33 hate while the other half is defending it. I dont know why people are surprised, e33 was obviously gonna win basically all the awards. The developers even said they wont go cause they know e33 won
It just gets into what defines an RPG. Expedition 33 is very much in the style of classic JRPGs while KCD2 is closer to modern RPGs where you have a bigger emphasis on choosing your own story. I don't think that difference makes classic JRPGs less of an RPG than things like KCD2 or Cyberpunk or Witcher or Skyrim etc.
This is it here. KCD2 is an excellent game, but its far more niche than E33 could ever be. Having to manage hunger, sleep, hygiene is off putting to a lot of players who want to escape and not worry about doing things in game that they have to so irl
Same goes for silksong, I'd say it's even more niche than KCD is. It was hyped up into meme status for like 5+ years to the point people forget how niche it is.
Yeah I played expedition 33 while my boyfriend was playing silksong beside me. And he kept screaming and cursing over how unfair and tough it was. Im sure its a well constructed game i just personally dont think i would have fun playing it. Expedition 33 just destroyed me emotionally. :)
As somebody who has played neither, Ive heard much greater things about E33 than I have of Silksong. I know people like Silksong, but E33 was getting an inordinate amount of praise when it came out.
Well Silksong was hyped up for years and imo lived up to that hype. The problem is that the difficulty style of it is also very punishing which, while super satisfying for people used to that type of game and combat, is hard to get into if it wasnt the type of game to be on your wishlist anyways.
Basically its the type of game where I would recommend you play Hollowknight if you are at all interested and either that makes you want to play Silksong aswell or there was never a chance that you would have enjoyed Silksong anyways.
E33 seems to be basically the opposite of that. It came out of nowhere so people want to get word out how good it is. Its pretty easy to get into since it has no punishing mechanics and even if you arent the biggest fan of the gameplay it still has the story to fall back on and all of that is supported by a much higher budget and bigger development Team.
I did not play Silksong, but I sometimes found it painful to watch.
There were moments in that game's design where it felt like the devs just said "and then the player gets launched into the Dick Puncher Machine 9000 as punishment for checks notes using the jump button."
I also couldn't help but notice it felt like the game had a surplus of vertical areas where you're especially vulnerable while jumping on walls, the enemies were designed around flying, and of course you're more limited in how much of your tool kit you can use in that scenario. IMO, good game design is you give the player lots of neat tools and then make the game difficult to match. You don't repeatedly rob them of their tools by putting them in disadvantageous positions and then act shocked when they get frustrated.
There is good difficult, and there is needlessly-punching-the-player-in-the-dick difficult, and Silksong had that.
I've heard a ton of people say that BG3 didn't deserve it and shouldn't have won. Mostly from people who have never played or even seen the game but there 100% was outrage over BG3 winning.
Yeah I feel like there's some revisionism comparing this to BG3. Go look at the actual awards page on wiki, BG3 basically only won GOTY out of the big categories. Two of its wins were Player's Voice and Best Multiplayer, neither being particularly major categories.
E33 won THREE MORE awards, and all in the major categories. It absolutely swept the awards in a way BG3 didn't. Whether you care about it personally or not is a separate matter, but it's hardly surprising some people are more annoyed at a single game dominating the show this year like that than with how BG3 did in 2023.
Personally I don't recall seeing many or any people saying that (maybe unless they had one specific other game in mind that they really loved), but I could see some people saying that for which the game is "not for them" (regardless of whether they recognized it as such). Just because a game isn't for someone doesn't mean it can't be the most liked by most people though (and hence "the best")
Also, go back and actually look at those game awards. BG3 won a lot, but had 3 less wins and two of them were in more niche categories(Player's Voice, Best Multiplayer).
Alan Wake 2 won a lot of awards too, and there was a generally decent spread of winners that year.
This year it was straight-up the E33 Awards. Go look at the wiki page, and you'll see you have to scroll down to the sixth category to find one where E33 lost. GOTY, Best Narrative, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Score...all the biggies went to E33.
Personally it's just kinda eye roll inducing....but is it any real wonder some people are genuinely grouchy at the game for steamrolling absolutely everything?
I remember Oscars after LotR RotK in 2004. At some point animated movie won something and crew went to the mike and said that they are grateful that LotR wasn't nominated in their category.
Kcd2 is so amazing I have 120 hours in it. Should’ve won something I was hoping best rpg. I’ve played e33 and it is also amazing it deserved everything except best rpg because kcd2 deserves that
Definitely KCD2 deserved the RPG because Expedition 33 is pretty light in terms of RPG elements. I also think Silent Hill F deserved the best narrative award. The story in that game is so good even compared to E33.
As someone with about 500 hours between KCD 1 and 2, you should absolutely not.
Love both games, but they are for a very very particular kind of player. If the setting doesn't appeal to you, you will feel like a vegan at a steakhouse.
Well, since it is from my country i gave it a shot. Both, KCD 1&2, even though i did not like RPGs. After i finished both of them i love RPG (if others are as good as this). You may not like medieval setting but i think you will love Bohemian Paradise (yes, that is official name of this region of Czech Republic).
I’m the opposite. I love medieval settings and I think having this set in Bohemia during those times is super interesting. But when I tried to play the first one, the combat really threw me off. I did the trial for the second and I felt the same way. What am I missing? I guess it’s just not for me
That’s the appeal and if it interests you give it a shot. Something I’ve learned about all the discourse around games is that everyone will think a game they love as a 10/10 should be played by everyone and can be enjoyed by anyone.
Elden Ring - universally loved in the gaming world. I dropped it after Margit. I don’t like the combat, 30s of uninterrupted boss moves, 5s window to attack or heal. The depth of combat strategy to the game was R1 or jump R2 spam. Rinse and repeat until phase 2. Exploration was ok, there’s a lot of stuff but the pace of cautious exploration felt tedious.
Game just wasn’t for me. I see the appeal, it is a good game. My friend dropped 500h into Elden Ring, I dropped 500h into Baldur’s Gate 3. Both amazing games, neither the other’s cup of tea.
The thing that pisses me off is E33 winning best Indie. They have a publisher and a big budget, so it is extremely debatable whether or not it is considered Indie.
Problem is there's not one single factor you can rely on. The "spirit" of indie could mean budget size, team size, experience level of the devs, is it self-published or not, etc.
It's frankly just a hard category to nail down some truly objective, concrete definition that works across all games and devs because the definition of indie has changed a lot over time.
Budget: Hades 2 has a bigger budget than E33. Is Stardew still indie?
Team Size: How do you count people you contract for a few hours of work? Assets you purchase can have licenses that require crediting. At what headcount (at whatever counting method you decide) does it become non indie?
Not having an owner/publisher: Valve doesn’t have one. FuturLab (Powerwashing Simulator) self published on PC, but is published by Square in Japan and I think on consoles in general. Devolver Digital labels itself as an INDIE VIDEO GAME PUBLISHER.
A huge amount of indie games have actual publisher backing, and if you think silksong and hades 2 didn't also have a large budget you're crazy.
I agree, I don't think e33 should have won best indie because everyone knew it was gonna sweep and it should of gone to silksong. But, to say it's somehow not an indie because other games have the same thing they do is ridiculous
I can see categories where E33 totally deserved to win, i'm sure it's a goated game. But kcd2 not winning Best rpg??? Now that is something i think is unfair.
Doesnt make KCD2 a worse rpg though, or a worse game in general. It's still an amazing game to us the loyal fanbase. The realistic medieval setting can be niche, and thats ok, it just won't be as mainstream as other popular formulas.
Yeah Dispatch got a little screwed because of its release schedule. The entire game wasn't out in time but it also won't be eligible for awards next year since the initial release was in 2025.
It could have technically been nominated this year but I get why people didn't want to nominate a game that wasn't done yet.
I haven't played it but of the people I know who have played both most of Dispatch and E33, they do put them on about the same level right now. Still, they seem to feel the same hesitancy about saying Dispatch is better since it's not done.
Because player voice is a popularity vote. In the early rounds of voting, multiple games including No Man’s Sky and Warframe were included, despite being made years ago. The inclusion of games in this category is likely based off of the current most played games.
Ex-Genshin Player here, and I will say that GI does have an aggressive(and honestly impressive) yearly content release schedule. Like, there's fully voice acted quests and events dropping every couple weeks like clockwork and every bit feel polished as heck. I personally still check back in for the soundtrack drops very time they open up a new section of the map because they have absolute bangers every year. Minus the predatory monetization, that game's content is what actual live service should look like.
The categories have "guidelines" but if the "Jury" for the game awards decides to all independently (they don't talk to each other) nominate a completely invalid choice for a given category, it would very likely go through. They don't take their own award show as seriously as Reddit does. At the end of the day it's just a delivery system for ads.
Dispatch is done, has been for a couple weeks now. It’s really good but not better than E33 and it probably wouldn’t be getting a GotY nomination anyway, just maybe another appearance or 2 in other categories
It feels like Dispatch got snubbed on some nominations. It should absolutely have been nominated for Best Narrative and probably should have got a voice acting nomination for at least one of Laura Bailey or Aaron Paul. I’m a huge fan of Expedition 33, but that game getting three voice acting noms was kind of ridiculous.
I don’t care about E33 sweeping the competition, what I DO care about is Sonic 3 being snubbed from “Best Adaptation”. That’s an act of terrorism Geoff, we coming for ya
It just kind of irks me that it got almost every category. Like I get that it's probably a very good game, but I wanted other games to have a time to shine. For instance dispatch was phenomenal, but it and every other game competent against 33 just had no shot. I feel like if a game wins overall game of the year, they should be disqualified from the subcategories.
And it absolutely deserved that award. Game has some of the best accessibility options I've ever seen. You could probably beat the game and still enjoy it with your pinky toes.
Awards wise, for sure. Their voting system isn't rigorous, it's a less serious award. But I think it still absolutely deserves its position as the year-end celebration of games. It's matured into a very slick production over the years.
I don't like award shows. No one is ever happy with the results and it starts arguments all the time. It's impossible to please everyone. Instead of bringing people together for the love of what the award show is about, it divides and causes conflict most of the time.
We should be celebrating an awesome year of game releases in 2025. So many great games came out this year, our energy could be better spent in playing these games.
Things is when a game you haven't played wins in 9 categories, everyone says it's one of the best games, and beats your favourite game of the year you're bound to be a little pissed. I hope it doesn't negatively impact the game because it definitely is an amazing experience. Maybe it didn't deserve some categories like best indie because it literally had sandfall backing it and was able to afford someone like Charlie Cox, I still think it was definitely the best release this year.
I don't have any feelings on the game one way or another, it's never caught my eye enough to look into it, the team seems great and great to see them do so well, but it just was kinda boring I guess winning all the awards. Like it was obvious just by the number of nominations that they'd clean up and would have just been nice to see more variety in award winners.
I think it's also slightly unfair due to that. Like obviously there should be no participation awards, but I don't think it would hurt to say "A game can only win 1/3rd or (amount) of awards" so that space can be cleared up for other deserving winners.
Most sentiments I've seen are that people wish KCD2 got something, or maybe another indie game was honored for 'Best Indie."
Exp33 was going to sweep regardless. Don't think anyone expected it to be this hard. I think BG3 only received 6, and was the previous holder for most amount of awards. Exp33 got 9, which is insane and might be unbeatable unless another phenomenal new IP rolls out.
E33 deserved most of its awards especially GOTY and i dont hate that but some awards were a bit too much: best art desing should have been hades 2, best rpg should be KCD2 and my beloved silksong is the best indie of the year. Last one is because E33 is NOT a fuckin indie game it has a huge ass team with a big company funding + advertising it. It should have been an INDEPENDENT team with SMALLER funding, even E33s devs arent describing it as indie its AA at best
My biggest complaint is that Expedition 33 had three nominees for best performance. I am happy for Expedition 33. However, it was not my personal game of the year
Ace Combat Fans:
I am so stoked! I wasn't even thinking about AC8, so it was a huge surprise.
Same. Game awards were at night for me so when i woke up and saw the trailer in my YouTube subscriptions, i got an instant early morning hype.
The absolute state of the subreddit in the minutes following the announcement lmao
"Guys what are we going to do with all these unused animal entrails?!"
We were all joking about a trailer release before, not thinking it would actually happen. Getting a full 90 second look was a fantastic surprise.
THE RITUALS WORKED!!!!
BatmanArkham and AceCombat subreddit has been cured of Aslume!!!
At first I thought it was a CoD trailer, but as soon as I heard "Usea" in that I was full on was screaming like a kid again.
It's been my favorite series since I got AC4 as a gift from my cousin in '01.
Garfield Kart 2 All you Can Drift must have had some kind of smear campaign against it or something.
Game was too good to be nominated it would have been best game of all time
wait, it didn't win anything?
I have to admit, I thought that was a made up name
Ela probably set up a secret campaign so he wouldn’t have to play it as much, even when chat demands it. Of course, that’s only one layer of the conspiracy. The deeper theory is that Garfield Kart 2 was deliberately snubbed at the game awards to keep its true power hidden. If it had won, reality itself might not have been ready for the competitive lasagna-based racing meta.
Abiotic factor my boy
Positive note, Abiotic Factor getting winter update.
True more itresting that Game awards
Real shame it didn't even get a mention anywhere. It's hard to choose between Abiotic and KCD2 for my personal GOTY.
I enjoyed both but they weren't really my thing, even though they were absolutely the game type I love. I think it was more a me thing than the game. ( Best breakup ever)
Silksong expedition, abiotic factor
Abiotic has ruined other games for me these last couple months
I want to forget it and play it all over again
ABIOTIC FACTOR MENTIONED, RAHHHH!!!
Final shape was last year unfortunately
Had so much fun on that game with the guys
At least Hades 2 won something
Hades 2 is my personal GOTY, but I understand my E33 won. It losing also does not take away any enjoyment I have for Hades 2
Congrats on the emotionally mature response.
I loved Hades 2, but I personally liked Silksong more. I'm such a sucker for Metroidvanias.
This was a great year for indie games, though. I'm sure everyone can agree on that.
E33 may have won Game of the Year, but as gamers we all won this year for getting so many great games from indie and "AA" developers. For generally very reasonable prices compared to the slop being shoveled by major publishers, too.
Why would a game losing GOTY ever have any correlation with someones own enjoyment from it?
There are people out there who refuse to buy games unless they hit top 10 on steam concurrent player numbers on launch week. Don't underestimate idiots.
But, like, how am I supposed to know what to like and what to hate without external validation, though?!?
/s
First time on the internet?
This is the MOST sane response. Thank you!
As did Silksong. Best Action/Adventure I believe
That's the ONE thing I wanted for them, is just to win at SOMETHING!
I was honestly hoping Hades 2 would win soundtrack. I know the tracks are less epic classic background style, but goddam are they amazing vocal performances. Rarely do games have me just sitting there listening to the music
Amen. I wanted it to win for art also but E33 is a beautiful game as well
Edit:awkward
Hades 2's my Goty hands down
I love E33 and I’m glad it did so well, but I wish KCD2 had won something that was a great game.
Shoud've win best rpg honestly
Yeah I agree. I wish it wasn’t “best game in category” so much as best game based on how well it fits the ideal of the category.
WRPG and JRPG need to split for award categories, I feel. There's no point in putting games as far apart in intent and gameplay as these were on the same ladder. Hardly anyone, if dividing their library by genre, would put Skyrim and Dragon Quest in the same pile.
And mmorpg and arpg and cRPG oh wait no it's the tga they ain't doing all that. Nor should they really.
They could rename the categorys slightly to something like best rpg mechanics to zero in on the rpgness instead of overall best game that is an rpg
Or split the category to differentiate between JRPGs and what I've seen others refer to as "true" RPGs. Should probably also do that to the indie game category, because right now they seem to have AA games in the same category as the indie games. And I want to include that I am thrilled E33 did so well, and it was my game of the year, but I do feel they need to make some more opportunities for other games to win, because I really feel that, if this were last year, Silksong or KCD2 would have won significantly more, and I understand why some people might be a little bitter that such great games got such little recognition, just because they happened to come out around the same time as another titan of a game.
TLDR; Splitting some categories into smaller, more specific categories would allow more games to get the recognition they deserve
It’s nuts to me that KCD2 got snubbed. That and red dead 2 are the best examples (that I have played) of games that send you back in time
God of war 2018 is one of my all time favorite games, the combat, story, characters, world design, everything else is pretty much perfect. Yet it in no way should have ever beaten red dead 2 for goty
My exact thoughts. I love E33 and believe it deserves all the love it gets, but TGA did KCD2 dirty by not giving it even a single award. Oh well, at least it’s my GOTY.
It was one of my favorite games this year
I'm just happy No Man's Sky got an award :)
It’s nice that a game can improve or continue to develop over time. At first I thought it was an odd award but it’s important to remember that video games aren’t necessarily “static”
Yeah, it was absolutely robbed that year Cyberpunk won. One game had been continuously improving, one was ongoing because it had just gotten a huge DLC to finally fix game breaking issues.
*Because it had just released a massive patch to fix gamebreaking issues alongside a masterfully written and executed DLC
Bro, you can say many things.
But Cyberpunk dlc is a fuking masterpiece and they overhauled most of the game.
Here with you on that one :D
A good game is good doesn't mean your favourite is bad
Some people are so fickle about their games. One of my favourite games in recent years is Cyberpunk 2077. On the Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit, someone posted the results of a quiz from another website. It asked what your favourite game was out of a choice of 4. Cyberpunk had the least amount of votes. The person who posted it was moaning, saying they were tired of Cyberpunk being disrespected and were annoyed that people were saying it was a bad game. I had to tell them that just because Cyberpunk had the least amount of votes, it doesn't mean people thought it was bad. It's just that people likes the other games better. More so, I told them that people are allowed to have an opinion and have a favourite game that is different from their favorite game.
I'm glad it's your favorite I enjoyed it too.
Agree. Especially with how they managed to keep developing in the right direction. Aside from the fixing of bugs I appreciated how much balance patch 2.0 brought, and I remember vividly the first time I played the DLC, I honestly felt like I was playing a sequel rather than a DLC.
I've been blue-ballsing my way through the dlc not at completion yet so shhh
I tried to fuck around on my second playthrough and I can tell you one thing: don't be a dickhead or else you could lose the DLC permanently at one of the early missions if you pick the wrong dialogue
Oh I'm midway through the dlc just haven't got to the final mission yet because I have a few days when I hit the game hard then a month off
Did the other 4 games get yanked from the stores because of shoddy release?
I was talking with a buddy a few months ago and asked if they liked cyberpunk because it was right up their alley. "I thought it didnt work" was the sentiment. A lot of people permanently kept away from that game due to the release.
Present day, most of the people that didn't like the game have perfectly valid reasons for doing so. Just like I couldn't get into BG3. Im not saying its a bad game, its just not a good game for ME.
A game you enjoy not winning awards should have zero bearing on its enjoyment. Stop seeking external validation on every little aspect of your hobbies.
When people make posts about "OMG X GAME WON OR DIDNT WIN", like why do you care
Exactly. Did I roll my eyes at all the wins? Yes, pretty hard! But then that second passed and I just went on living my life.
I like awards for good games so we get more good games, but like, the award I care most about is the time I spend on my favorite games.
Kojima fans:
Yeah not seeing Kojima speaking about his next revolutionary project was sad to me, I wanted him to get at least an award so he could speak.
Bro is dedicated to his craft
I think some people (or at least me) are developing a bit of Kojima fatigue when it comes to gaming industry events. Last 2-3 years have been nonstop hype and focus on everything Kojima related, to the point where "Kojima does something" has become the free square on everyone's event bingo cards.
It's only natural for the spotlight to move to someone else.
All I'm learning here is that this expedition unearthed a metric assload of salt.
It obscured a lot of other good games.
Let’s be Clair on this… it deserved to win.
33 awards? In this economy‽
Down here salt is a way of life
The saltiest loads of ass.
To anyone searching, no there wasn't any ass shown directly to the game awards but some people would definitely have appreciated that
Edit : I stand corrected there was some ass shown but don't search for that
erm acktually Deadpool showed his ass directly to the game awards ☝️🤓
There was bare titties in the Divinity trailer tho
GOTY unearths a metric assload of salt every year.
People weren't shitting on Baldrur's gate 3 when it crushed the competition in 2023.
Edit: just to be clear, I haven't played E33, I just think it's fucked up that so many people rush to take the shine away from this win.
We just had a lot of good games this year
Yep. I don't remember anything being as anticipated as silk song or as surprising as E33. This year is absolutely stacked so people are going to have stronger opinions than before.
Imagine the 2004 lineup of: Halo 2, Half-Life 2, GTA San Andreas, knights of the old Republic 2, Fable, spiderman 2 Far Cry, Star Wars Battle, and World of fucking Warcraft. One of my favorite games of all time, Sly Cooper 2, came out that year and I would have gone mad trying to defend it to no avail.
The fact that there's such a heated debate or argument this year means that we have more great games this year than normal. The communities aren't behaving how we'd all like them to, but the fact it's this competitive is AMAZING for the industry.
I would say the communities are behaving in line with how they have always done lol
Half the silksong subreddit is e33 hate while the other half is defending it. I dont know why people are surprised, e33 was obviously gonna win basically all the awards. The developers even said they wont go cause they know e33 won
They came in the most french outfit possible
Yeah, with a berret and everything
Tbf it IS a wearable outfit in-game too
They meant team cherry I think?
Somewhat the same on the KCD subreddit, although it feels like they are less haters and more resignation due to KCD2 not winning anything.
Shit, some idiots downvoted me for saying that it was somewhat expected, since KCD2 was more niche and realistic than E33.
Most people on the E33 subreddit felt like KCD2 should’ve won the Best RPG award.
I love E33, but that game is more narrative focused than roleplaying.
KCD2 should’ve won Best RPG hands down. It forces you to live in its harsh world.
Edit: Some people are confused. I never said E33 wasn’t an RPG, only that it was more narrative focused one.
Everyone from the gaming sub to the Kingdom Come sub to the rpg gamers sub were in agreement that KCD2 should've won for RPG
It just gets into what defines an RPG. Expedition 33 is very much in the style of classic JRPGs while KCD2 is closer to modern RPGs where you have a bigger emphasis on choosing your own story. I don't think that difference makes classic JRPGs less of an RPG than things like KCD2 or Cyberpunk or Witcher or Skyrim etc.
I saw it coming for sure, but I would have been very happy to see KCD2 win something. It’s an amazing game
This is it here. KCD2 is an excellent game, but its far more niche than E33 could ever be. Having to manage hunger, sleep, hygiene is off putting to a lot of players who want to escape and not worry about doing things in game that they have to so irl
Same goes for silksong, I'd say it's even more niche than KCD is. It was hyped up into meme status for like 5+ years to the point people forget how niche it is.
Yeah I played expedition 33 while my boyfriend was playing silksong beside me. And he kept screaming and cursing over how unfair and tough it was. Im sure its a well constructed game i just personally dont think i would have fun playing it. Expedition 33 just destroyed me emotionally. :)
As somebody who has played neither, Ive heard much greater things about E33 than I have of Silksong. I know people like Silksong, but E33 was getting an inordinate amount of praise when it came out.
Well Silksong was hyped up for years and imo lived up to that hype. The problem is that the difficulty style of it is also very punishing which, while super satisfying for people used to that type of game and combat, is hard to get into if it wasnt the type of game to be on your wishlist anyways.
Basically its the type of game where I would recommend you play Hollowknight if you are at all interested and either that makes you want to play Silksong aswell or there was never a chance that you would have enjoyed Silksong anyways.
E33 seems to be basically the opposite of that. It came out of nowhere so people want to get word out how good it is. Its pretty easy to get into since it has no punishing mechanics and even if you arent the biggest fan of the gameplay it still has the story to fall back on and all of that is supported by a much higher budget and bigger development Team.
As a huge silksong fan, it was obvious silksonh wouldnt win. E33 had too much hype to lose to silksong in any category
It's a good thing Opinions are just that. I personally like having variety, and if we all had the same opinion, there'd be less variety.
I did not play Silksong, but I sometimes found it painful to watch.
There were moments in that game's design where it felt like the devs just said "and then the player gets launched into the Dick Puncher Machine 9000 as punishment for checks notes using the jump button."
I also couldn't help but notice it felt like the game had a surplus of vertical areas where you're especially vulnerable while jumping on walls, the enemies were designed around flying, and of course you're more limited in how much of your tool kit you can use in that scenario. IMO, good game design is you give the player lots of neat tools and then make the game difficult to match. You don't repeatedly rob them of their tools by putting them in disadvantageous positions and then act shocked when they get frustrated.
There is good difficult, and there is needlessly-punching-the-player-in-the-dick difficult, and Silksong had that.
I think the main reason for 2 sides is e33 winning best indie, just like the split in fandoms there is truth in e33 being indie and not at same time
I've heard a ton of people say that BG3 didn't deserve it and shouldn't have won. Mostly from people who have never played or even seen the game but there 100% was outrage over BG3 winning.
The Spiderman stans were out in force.
Also BG3 lost some awards, Alan Wake 2 beat it for two awards and Final Fantasy 16 won best music over BG3.
Yeah I feel like there's some revisionism comparing this to BG3. Go look at the actual awards page on wiki, BG3 basically only won GOTY out of the big categories. Two of its wins were Player's Voice and Best Multiplayer, neither being particularly major categories.
E33 won THREE MORE awards, and all in the major categories. It absolutely swept the awards in a way BG3 didn't. Whether you care about it personally or not is a separate matter, but it's hardly surprising some people are more annoyed at a single game dominating the show this year like that than with how BG3 did in 2023.
Personally I don't recall seeing many or any people saying that (maybe unless they had one specific other game in mind that they really loved), but I could see some people saying that for which the game is "not for them" (regardless of whether they recognized it as such). Just because a game isn't for someone doesn't mean it can't be the most liked by most people though (and hence "the best")
Also, go back and actually look at those game awards. BG3 won a lot, but had 3 less wins and two of them were in more niche categories(Player's Voice, Best Multiplayer).
Alan Wake 2 won a lot of awards too, and there was a generally decent spread of winners that year.
This year it was straight-up the E33 Awards. Go look at the wiki page, and you'll see you have to scroll down to the sixth category to find one where E33 lost. GOTY, Best Narrative, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Score...all the biggies went to E33.
Personally it's just kinda eye roll inducing....but is it any real wonder some people are genuinely grouchy at the game for steamrolling absolutely everything?
Do people really shit on Expedition 33?
I think it is a great game and I haven't even played it.
During the Players choice I voted for dispatch but would've also been happy with Expedition 33 or Silksong.
I'm just glad that corpo slop was mostly absent from the nominations.
E33 (Ubisoft derived) and Arc Raiders (EA derived) both beating out the AAA studios both derived from is very satisfying.
I remember Oscars after LotR RotK in 2004. At some point animated movie won something and crew went to the mike and said that they are grateful that LotR wasn't nominated in their category.
LotR won 11 out of 11 btw.
Expedition 33 deserves GOTY for sure. But best RPG should have been KCD2. They did dirty on KCD2 by not giving them any awards.
Kcd2 is so amazing I have 120 hours in it. Should’ve won something I was hoping best rpg. I’ve played e33 and it is also amazing it deserved everything except best rpg because kcd2 deserves that
The even bigger disappointment was not seeing a single VA from KCD2 even nominated
Definitely KCD2 deserved the RPG because Expedition 33 is pretty light in terms of RPG elements. I also think Silent Hill F deserved the best narrative award. The story in that game is so good even compared to E33.
All these outrage posts made me feel like I should give KCD2 a shot, but the realistic medieval setting is not very appealing personally.
As someone with about 500 hours between KCD 1 and 2, you should absolutely not.
Love both games, but they are for a very very particular kind of player. If the setting doesn't appeal to you, you will feel like a vegan at a steakhouse.
Yeah settings and play style just dont vibe with some people.
Lots of great RPGs I just cant get into because i dont enjoy the playstyle
Well, since it is from my country i gave it a shot. Both, KCD 1&2, even though i did not like RPGs. After i finished both of them i love RPG (if others are as good as this). You may not like medieval setting but i think you will love Bohemian Paradise (yes, that is official name of this region of Czech Republic).
I’m the opposite. I love medieval settings and I think having this set in Bohemia during those times is super interesting. But when I tried to play the first one, the combat really threw me off. I did the trial for the second and I felt the same way. What am I missing? I guess it’s just not for me
Second one is much easier to get into imo. I have 130 hours in 2 and I couldn’t get past the intro on 1.
I love RPGs & medival settings, nothing scratched my itch as much as witcher 3, maybe i should give KCD a try
If it doesn't appeal to you then you most likely won't like it. I tried it but got bored before leaving act 1, even though I'm a big RPG fan
That’s the appeal and if it interests you give it a shot. Something I’ve learned about all the discourse around games is that everyone will think a game they love as a 10/10 should be played by everyone and can be enjoyed by anyone.
Elden Ring - universally loved in the gaming world. I dropped it after Margit. I don’t like the combat, 30s of uninterrupted boss moves, 5s window to attack or heal. The depth of combat strategy to the game was R1 or jump R2 spam. Rinse and repeat until phase 2. Exploration was ok, there’s a lot of stuff but the pace of cautious exploration felt tedious.
Game just wasn’t for me. I see the appeal, it is a good game. My friend dropped 500h into Elden Ring, I dropped 500h into Baldur’s Gate 3. Both amazing games, neither the other’s cup of tea.
UMAMUSUME PRETTY DERBY
I had to scroll too much to see this.
The thing that pisses me off is E33 winning best Indie. They have a publisher and a big budget, so it is extremely debatable whether or not it is considered Indie.
I'd a agree with this. The category should be broken down into number of devs or something like that.
Problem is there's not one single factor you can rely on. The "spirit" of indie could mean budget size, team size, experience level of the devs, is it self-published or not, etc.
It's frankly just a hard category to nail down some truly objective, concrete definition that works across all games and devs because the definition of indie has changed a lot over time.
« Indie » label is difficult to define.
This is some very useful information. Thanks for that
A huge amount of indie games have actual publisher backing, and if you think silksong and hades 2 didn't also have a large budget you're crazy.
I agree, I don't think e33 should have won best indie because everyone knew it was gonna sweep and it should of gone to silksong. But, to say it's somehow not an indie because other games have the same thing they do is ridiculous
So do games like Hades. I think they even got a smaller team than them.
Hades team was smaller and they do their own voice acting and music
E33 budget was smaller than hades
balatro had a publisher
silksong very likely had a larger budget than e33
nobody is saying these games aren't indie
They've earned it but that KCD didn't win Best RPG is outrageous honestly
I can see categories where E33 totally deserved to win, i'm sure it's a goated game. But kcd2 not winning Best rpg??? Now that is something i think is unfair.
Doesnt make KCD2 a worse rpg though, or a worse game in general. It's still an amazing game to us the loyal fanbase. The realistic medieval setting can be niche, and thats ok, it just won't be as mainstream as other popular formulas.
If these turn based games keep winning CoD is going to make a turn based game mode
Half life 3
nah valve waiting for gta 6 to release so that they can shit on it.
Megaman finally getting a new game:
Play Blue Prince!
I’m gonna start playing Clair Obscur now and I swear this game better be the best dang game I play in my life for winning over Hades II
Split fiction should have won best family game.
Dispatch 😭
Yeah Dispatch got a little screwed because of its release schedule. The entire game wasn't out in time but it also won't be eligible for awards next year since the initial release was in 2025.
It could have technically been nominated this year but I get why people didn't want to nominate a game that wasn't done yet.
I haven't played it but of the people I know who have played both most of Dispatch and E33, they do put them on about the same level right now. Still, they seem to feel the same hesitancy about saying Dispatch is better since it's not done.
Why were genshin and wuthering waves nominated in player's voice depite being released in previous years?
Because player voice is a popularity vote. In the early rounds of voting, multiple games including No Man’s Sky and Warframe were included, despite being made years ago. The inclusion of games in this category is likely based off of the current most played games.
Ex-Genshin Player here, and I will say that GI does have an aggressive(and honestly impressive) yearly content release schedule. Like, there's fully voice acted quests and events dropping every couple weeks like clockwork and every bit feel polished as heck. I personally still check back in for the soundtrack drops very time they open up a new section of the map because they have absolute bangers every year. Minus the predatory monetization, that game's content is what actual live service should look like.
It's very much an "Ongoing Game."
The categories have "guidelines" but if the "Jury" for the game awards decides to all independently (they don't talk to each other) nominate a completely invalid choice for a given category, it would very likely go through. They don't take their own award show as seriously as Reddit does. At the end of the day it's just a delivery system for ads.
Dispatch is done, has been for a couple weeks now. It’s really good but not better than E33 and it probably wouldn’t be getting a GotY nomination anyway, just maybe another appearance or 2 in other categories
The cutoff for awards voting was over a month ago, so the fact that it's been done for a couple of weeks has no baring on the comment you replied to
It feels like Dispatch got snubbed on some nominations. It should absolutely have been nominated for Best Narrative and probably should have got a voice acting nomination for at least one of Laura Bailey or Aaron Paul. I’m a huge fan of Expedition 33, but that game getting three voice acting noms was kind of ridiculous.
Final Fantasy Tactics got Best Sim/Strategy award, so I'm happy.
I'm just glad Hades 2 won something. That's my GOTY.
Next to the entire game awards being basically E33, the biggest scandal is using Titanfall's name for some Valorant remake.
That was the most anti-climactic way to end the show considering all the good stuff that was shown off.
I don’t care about E33 sweeping the competition, what I DO care about is Sonic 3 being snubbed from “Best Adaptation”. That’s an act of terrorism Geoff, we coming for ya
It just kind of irks me that it got almost every category. Like I get that it's probably a very good game, but I wanted other games to have a time to shine. For instance dispatch was phenomenal, but it and every other game competent against 33 just had no shot. I feel like if a game wins overall game of the year, they should be disqualified from the subcategories.
Doom TDA got an award for innovation in accessibility, so I guess that's something
And it absolutely deserved that award. Game has some of the best accessibility options I've ever seen. You could probably beat the game and still enjoy it with your pinky toes.
I think it reinfoces the notion that videogame should be for everyone and enjoyed by everyone, regardless of ability
Game awards are overrated.
Awards wise, for sure. Their voting system isn't rigorous, it's a less serious award. But I think it still absolutely deserves its position as the year-end celebration of games. It's matured into a very slick production over the years.
Kcd2 not winning a single Award was just stupid
Even if it was great (haven't played it) isn't it a bit unrealistic to win pretty much everything?
Could be worse. You could be a Dispatch fan watching your game lose to gatcha slop
Umamusume fans after winning mere mobile game of the year
Did dispatch win anything? It certainly deserved it
I don't like award shows. No one is ever happy with the results and it starts arguments all the time. It's impossible to please everyone. Instead of bringing people together for the love of what the award show is about, it divides and causes conflict most of the time.
We should be celebrating an awesome year of game releases in 2025. So many great games came out this year, our energy could be better spent in playing these games.
why is reddit hating on exp 33 so much? I haven't played it myself but the review video I watched made it sound like a goated game
It is an amazing game. But the idea that one thing is great in some peoples' heads means other great things apparently have to be terrible.
The Game Awards is mostly just a series of ads punctuated by the results of a popularity contest, so no one should really take it too seriously.
It's actually crazy how many ads there were.
It was a single award then 5-10 minutes of ads for like 3 hours it felt like lol
I'm never watching that shit live again. I'll just skip through YouTube to all the best parts.
The ads are half of the point. It's a game announcement and trailer showcase mixed with awards.
I just watched it for the trailers. Why do people give a shit about these meaningless awards?
Its voted in by a panel mostly too I believe. Like gamers votes only count as 10% of the total tally.
If it was only gamers vote genshin impact would win everything
Also getting nominated at all isn't nothing. It was a pretty stacked year.
Things is when a game you haven't played wins in 9 categories, everyone says it's one of the best games, and beats your favourite game of the year you're bound to be a little pissed. I hope it doesn't negatively impact the game because it definitely is an amazing experience. Maybe it didn't deserve some categories like best indie because it literally had sandfall backing it and was able to afford someone like Charlie Cox, I still think it was definitely the best release this year.
I don't have any feelings on the game one way or another, it's never caught my eye enough to look into it, the team seems great and great to see them do so well, but it just was kinda boring I guess winning all the awards. Like it was obvious just by the number of nominations that they'd clean up and would have just been nice to see more variety in award winners.
I think it's also slightly unfair due to that. Like obviously there should be no participation awards, but I don't think it would hurt to say "A game can only win 1/3rd or (amount) of awards" so that space can be cleared up for other deserving winners.
Again, variety.
Carlotta aka Jennifer English looking at the victory of WuWa
i mean rdr2 was robbed of goty so..
Most sentiments I've seen are that people wish KCD2 got something, or maybe another indie game was honored for 'Best Indie."
Exp33 was going to sweep regardless. Don't think anyone expected it to be this hard. I think BG3 only received 6, and was the previous holder for most amount of awards. Exp33 got 9, which is insane and might be unbeatable unless another phenomenal new IP rolls out.
if ghost of yotei was on pc it would've won every award
E33 deserved most of its awards especially GOTY and i dont hate that but some awards were a bit too much: best art desing should have been hades 2, best rpg should be KCD2 and my beloved silksong is the best indie of the year. Last one is because E33 is NOT a fuckin indie game it has a huge ass team with a big company funding + advertising it. It should have been an INDEPENDENT team with SMALLER funding, even E33s devs arent describing it as indie its AA at best
Ooh this comment section is SPICY!
BF6 winning best sound design and Arc Raiders not even being nominated is criminal
My biggest complaint is that Expedition 33 had three nominees for best performance. I am happy for Expedition 33. However, it was not my personal game of the year
Edit: My game of the year was Death Stranding 2
Dispatch not getting indie game awards is criminal
No kcd 2 at all rip.
Crazy part is that it’s not even that controversial aside from maybe winning best indie game. (Edit- also best rpg from what I’m reading)
E33 truly did deserve most of the praise it got.
So tripple As got fucked? Good, the beatings shall continue until they learn from the indie studios.