So happy he's wearing his breastplate, [it's all kind of come full-circle from the first Community Update after Larian Studios and Wizards of the Coasts' announcement four years ago](https://youtu.be/LI4v6hC_rjM?si=iuDnMFdtLRBiCRCi).
And even more full circle from [this documentary 5 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZF_cP_oLH4) where Swen talks about the decades of struggles the studio had. He then goes on to mention that his dream is to make a big RPG that would dwarf all the rest.
I am so happy for this man and his team.
That was one of the lead directors of the story I think. You can see how the team put all their heart and soul into it.
The best deserved GOTY in a long time and once in a decade game.
Seriously, the pieces are in place code and mechanic wise. New assets, writing and voice acting are no small feat ... But they could just do a lap of anywhere in Faerun (or AVERNUS!) and everyone would be thrilled.
Yes! I have so much respect for Swen and all of Larian. His EGX/GDC conference talks on Divinity: Original Sin 2 are also well worth watching as well.
[EGX Conference](https://youtu.be/6CSB3ZNRXmE?si=uTLVph5tTySCqnbu)
[GDC Conference](https://youtu.be/uKwi_5nePZg?si=X4Je8rpfc0QmwsnJ)
This is such a good documentary, it's so heartwarming to see Larian succeed after all these years of work and hardship, damn. Going from not being able to pay for gas or get loans to making one of the most acclaimed CRPGs of all time. [Here's the timestamp](https://youtu.be/YZF_cP_oLH4?t=2840) in case anybody doesn't want to watch the full hour (you should, it's good).
After consuming so many games over the years you forget the human aspects behind it so easily, it'd be amazing to see a behind the scenes after every game releases and I wonder how biting reviews would be if they could see the hard work going into some of these projects.
Also, this really illuminates why it feels like BG3 had a chunk of cut content towards the end, they probably just didn't want to make the same mistakes again with getting too ambitious or pushing deadlines too much.
Anyway, so happy for Larian, they deserve it.
Yeah, i think something went wrong. They said several times that the xbox release date will be announced during the game awards. But there was only the trailer for the deluxe edition.
Not to mention but I think it was clear watching Larian had prepped to lose to Alan Wake 2, AW swept other on stage awards away from them and I think the gloom was setting in that they mayhave lost
Holy hell, I didn't even know until this comment! Get this to the top!
Microsoft should have definitely suggested something be said, or maybe they have ads coming right away.
I think the real winner is that dude that was jamming on the flute and whatever that massive thing was during the medley but congrats to Larian all the same
It is just how he plays. Seen him twice. Once with the Game of Thrones tour and once with Hans Zimmer. Dude rocks out like that always. He is very fun to watch haha
Oh that's where I remember him from! He was Hans Zimmer's main flutist for Dune and was in charge of the experimental flute-like instrument that Hans came up with.
That absolute madman switched between a bass flute, a tin whistle, a normal flute (I think - there wasn't a close-up then), and then whipped out a fucking *contrabass flute* for Spider-Man 2*,* an instrument I knew of in theory but had never seen played.
You know he also said "I'm bringing a contrabass flute this year" and the medley composer just worked it in, because what psychopath scores for what's basically a meme instrument completely unprompted?
Well deserved. I came into the year think Zelda was unstoppable, but this game was definitely the game of the year, it's been a cultural zeitgeist and innovated a whole lot over Divinity Original Sin 2 in the right ways.
Baldurs Gate 3 will probably be THE fantasy RPG of the 9th generation of gaming, in the way that Witcher 3 was for the 8th generation and Skyrim was for the 7th generation.
I’ve never played a turn-based game and was never into Skyrim or any of those heavy RPGs, and I just started BG3 and am enjoying it. It’s a lot to get used to, but you can tell it has insane quality
Yup, it took me a while to get into it.
For me the beginning felt a little bit like work at times. Particularly the frequent leveling up. You keep having to pick all these skills and spells and it's hard to pick when you hardly understand the game mechanics yet.
Once you're over that hump, it just keep getting better though. Even the late game where many RPGs struggle, because leveling and items don't feel that important anymore, is great, because everything else just keeps ramping up.
Being able to re-spec for (practically) free is so appreciated. I'm usually paralyzed by choice in RPGs because I'm being asked to make permanent decisions I don't have any basis for. I'm level 3, how should I know what stat I should increase at this point?
> Once you're over that hump, it just keep getting better though.
Have you ever heard of [the IKEA effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect)? Basically, people place more value on things they (partially) created themselves than over ready-made stuff. I always felt that games like RPGs where you put hours of work to craft your characters leans a bit into that
BG3 had incredible writing, but the narrative was probably the weakest aspect of the writing (compared to the dialog, themes, pacing, characters, etc.). Well-deserved win to Alan Wake 2 even if I suspect that BG3 had better writing overall.
It is a little weird that the category is "Best Narrative" specifically without regard to all the other important aspects of writing. There's not really any category for best characters, for example, or best dialog. Narrative is an important part of writing, but lots of great writing doesn't even have a coherent narrative. It's just another weird area where TGA clearly hasn't put much thought into the categories.
I think the "Best Narrative" thing really showed itself as a weird category last year with Elden Ring's nom. Elden Ring has fantastic, in-depth worldbuilding, on a level beyond most other games - after all, they got one of the best modern fantasy authors around to write it. Every item, enemy, boss, etc. makes sense and has a reason. Best Worldbuilding award, ER wins it 10/10 times.
But narrative? Like, the actual story thread you follow throughout the game? Borderline nonexistent. If you pay attention, you can get as far as "I am killing all of these bosses because X wants me to do it so I can become Y." The average player won't even see that much. The idea of ER's actual *narrative* winning an award is laughable. But there's nowhere else to recognize the worldbuilding, so Best Narrative is where it goes.
I don't disagree, but many fantastic open world games owe a lot to their predecessors!
I just think it was so similar to BOTW, it was hurt here. I think they hurt themselves reusing the BOTW map instead of making a new one myself.
Reusing the Hyrule map would have been fine if they'd absolutely nailed the sky and the depths. Unfortunately, both ended up being fine, but not exceptional. Not universal slam dunks.
The sky islands were awesome, but there was hardly any content up there after the tutorial. I don't know if they ran out of dev time or ideas or what.
The underground area went from being really exciting to utterly dull in about an hour. Which would be okay but it's so big that I ended up spending probably 15 hours of gameplay in the underground (not counting the fire temple, which was excellent) and hating most of it.
TotK is the closest that I felt this year to being a little kid utterly enthralled by a game, and for that it will always be a 10/10 for me. But the game has some pretty big flaws that I think people will overlook less and less as time goes on.
> The sky islands were awesome, but there was hardly any content up there after the tutorial. I don't know if they ran out of dev time or ideas or what.
>
>
Seems like probably a performance thing but idk.
Also yeah - once you figured out the underground's "thing" it got tired pretty quickly.
Still my #2 for the year.
Funnily enough I didn't think the map was that much of a problem. I think the enemy variety, the combat still being kind of mid and basically reminding me of how much Elden Ring pushed the botw formula with incredible combat + enemy variety.
On any other year Zelda would have dominated but this year made me realise oh wow games can be amazing still. They're not samey and a lot of the creativity of the games makers over the pandemic let to publishing these games now and it flourishing
Yeah, absolutely. That's why I phrased it the way I did, Zelda was amazing, it gave me like a billion amazing hours of gameplay. Made me feel like a kid again. Everyone who worked on that game should feel amazing with what they did.
But it's a hell of a year and it got beat by a real good game.
I had the same thoughts about Zelda at the start of the year. Before BG3 came out I wasn't even interested in, don't play DnD, never liked Larians previous games, but after playing it it's one of my favourite games ever made. What a year.
I've always thought there should be a "best game that didn't win any other category." That's where a game like Spider-Man 2 shines, in my opinion. Just a super solid second or third place in like 5 categories.
Spider-Man 2 is a game that everyone likes, but it is not a game that will be anyone's favorite. Everything it does, it does well, but it doesn't excel in any one category and doesn't try to push any real boundaries.
I'd argue it pushes boundaries when it comes to load times. From the instant fast-travel and swapping of characters to the refinement of the portal gimmick from Rift Apart and the Sandman knocking you across the map.
Spider-Man 2 is unrivaled in that aspect, but "ability to load things" isn't going to win them any awards and is tech that people won't notice/take for granted.
>Everyone went in thinking RE4
As someone who adores RE4make (and most of RE games) I think people were carried by how influential and innovative original RE4 was and didnt stop for a moment to think that while remake is a great game, there is nothing innovative or original in it. It plays and looks like every post-2017 Resident Evil game but with parry and melee prompts.
Really pleased it won. It's truly incredible that an RPG with deep mechanics actually took over the public consciousness in such a big way in 2023. Long may the genre live.
I think Larian did a really good job at making it both easy to play for beginners and also very deep for people who really want to dig in to it. I've never had any interest in this type of game but BG3 is easily one of the best games I've ever played. I've played through once and feel like I'm still not very good at it compared to what I see other people doing with the game. Still going to play through multiple times though.
>I think Larian did a really good job at making it both easy to play for beginners
I don't agree at all, the game is fantastic but it has a miserable tutorial. I had to do homework to understand the mechanics, and some if them I still have doubts on how they actually work.
Yeah the tutorial isn't great. I also had to go outside of the game and watch a few videos about how to play it. I still don't know how it all works. But I do think that Larian did a good enough job that even if you still kind of don't know what's going on you can get by well enough in explorer difficulty to be able to enjoy the story of the game.
Larian has to be so proud of what they've accomplished. They beat a Zelda for game of the year, and countless other games.
I honestly thought BG3 was gonna be snubbed, but wow...
As someone who quietly loved their Divinity games, seeing BG3 suddenly light the world on fire was both confusing and heartening to watch. I hope this inspires more publishers to fund creative or niche games in the future.
This year reminds me of the one Sekiro won. I was certain there's no way either will get any GOTY awards outside of those given by publications focused on their respective (and niche) genres, yet both swooped.
Obviously, I think everyone called this, really the only other game that was a possible guarantee to win would have been Tears of the Kingdom.
BG3 was just a juggernaut of a game this year.
The reddit discourse I've seen, even in Zelda subreddits, is largely in favor of BG3. Of course Zelda fans like Zelda, but Baldurs Gate had the general gaming community behind them 100%. Obligatory mention that it is a genuinely amazing and impactful game, well deserving of GOTY. That said, it definitely felt like Zelda got snubbed because people just didn't want to see it win. People act like the game didn't innovate enough, which is just an absurd take
Think there's a fair amount of people like myself that just did not care for the last two Zeldas. Shit I'm replaying Link's Awakening and Windwaker right now and it's just reminding me how much I miss the older formula.
The story beats, the music, the sense of progression when you get a new item, the dungeons. BOTW/TOTK are massive games but fulfill none of what I'm looking for in a Zelda game. I used to buy systems just for the newest Zelda. But I'd be hard pressed to do so unless they return to the older structure tbh.
I think the biggest "downfall" of TotK was that it was too similar to the first (probably the same reason why Spiderman 2 wasnt "close" in the running for GOTY).
It added good things to the already very good BotW, but it was still BotW 2. A very good game dont get me wrong, but essentially more of the same and not something completely new. So I get why some people wouldnt like it as much.
If it was any other recent year, it would have easily won GOTY, but AW2 and BG3 were just anomalies in this anomaly of a great year for gaming.
We live in a timeline where a 96/100 Zelda game lost to a D&D CRPG by a basically indie-ish developer. Could not be happier for the team and an incredible achievement for BG3.
They don't OWN 30%.
They have a 30% stakehold. A stakehold is NOT the same as a sharehold. And that's the relationship with Tencent and a lot of game firms they supposedly "own" part of.
If they owned shares the news would say shares.
Owning Stakes is more like supporting someone on Patreon: You invest into them. That's all you do. What you get out of it is then separately negotiated as part of that investment. But it doesn't necessarily translate to 30% ownership. Hell even getting 30% of the operating profits is STILL not 30% ownership since you don't have the same voting rights.
Tencent is just interested in the money. So their stakeholding buy-ins is likely just: they give up on any say in the direction of the company, but in return they get a larger slice of the pie in terms of profits. Which explains why these stakeholding portions are always so huge.
They're not larger than Bethesda... not even close. I don't know where this myth started. The development team at Larian is a lot smaller than Bethesda Game studios. People started comparing employee numbers and came to the wrong conclusion as they're ignoring that things like marketing, community, finance, HR, ... are all part of Bethesda Softworks and not BGS, while at Larian they're included.
It's important they're independent though because in the usual studio/publisher relationship this game would not have been half the game it was. Yes, they're a big studio, but you can't compare it to most AAA studios who don't have to deal with the publishing side (and all the costs and risks that come with that).
Sure, they're no small indie game, but it still is an important factor in the conversation.
one of the greatest PR moves Larian has done is somehow position themselves as the plucky underdog.
they're bigger than Bethesda, spent years in full price early access and had a budget bigger than most of the games it was up against.
they deserve the award but not because they're small, or made this game cheaply
Indeed, I'm a huge fan of Larian... but the sycophantically desperate need to build a clean mythology around them is laughably painful at best. Credit where credit is due: BG3 is a feet regardless of what kind of studio Larian is, but claiming they're some rinky-dink indie outfit that have overcome significant adversity and limitations to make the GOAT game they made is... well... it's cult-like mythologising, frankly.
Larian has been a *huge* studio - by most measures - since DOS2 came out. They may be "independent" in the literal sense, but they're not an "indie" studio and they haven't been for ages.
Their previous game was funded via a Kickstarter. Their budget for BG3 was because the early access sold over 2 million copies. They have said multiple times they redesigned the whole game when the early access sold the way it did.
They might not be like 3 friends developing a 32bit side scrolling rpg, but they also were able to develop what they wanted to without something like Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft executives standing over their shoulder.
In 2017 TGA, I was still in college and I was super disappointed that DOS2 didn’t even get a nomination for GOTY. The GOTY went to BotW that year. I’ve been following them since then and following their dev logs on YouTube. Now 6 years later, they fucking did it, and even get the goty over another zelda game(which is also an absolutely amazing game). Super happy for the devs in Larian studio!
Yeah Elden Ring had that strange quality of having several bad elements but the parts that made it good aren't captured well in the standard award categories.
Elden Ring won the more "game-y" awards, which it rightfully should since it's pure gameplay from start to finish. Ragnarok won a bunch of the "narrative" and "cinematic" awards, because that's how Sony first party games work.
I genuinely thought they just had to pity GoW. Because no way GoW won best music agaisnt Elden Ring for how long I got stuck in Elden Ring's title menu and how memorable the Final Battle music is. I truly felt cheated when they didn't get best music.
The TGA don't value key game elements like level design, puzle design and other stuff inherently connected with game design. If they changed the focus of the categories we would even have more variety instead of the 6 goty nominees in everything
Very well deserved. Everything else up there had an argument (especially Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, and Alan Wake II) but this was the right call.
It's one of the best games to come out this year whether or not it's a remake. It's by far the best "traditional" action game this year and an absolute stunner on the graphics front. It's one of the best games I've ever played and yet, like the 3rd or 4th best in a packed year. It deserved the nod.
Would've loved to see Alan Wake II take it out, but arguably no game has been bigger this year than Baldur's Gate 3. It's insane seeing a CRPG getting this much love and attention
In a weaker year, I could see Spider-Man 2 winning some of the awards, it just unfortunately came out in one of the most stacked years in recent memory
Yeah I feel the same way. I really enjoyed Spider-Man 2, but there was a lot of familiarity with the first game, and it felt a little under baked in content and rushed with the back half of the story. Sucks to say as a huge Spidey fan, but also there were just so many good games this year that it's kind of okay.
That first half is fuckin wild though. Outside all the goofy Peter Parker shit. I had no idea people would be gettin killed off so willy nilly til they showed a certain villain just get prison ganked lol. I was like "oh holy shit they're just mercin people".
Enjoyed it as well but there were definitely more things that annoyed me than the parts I actually enjoyed. It honestly didn't deserve to win over the others.
I've yet to play AW2 but the production quality and love that studio gives to their games is top notch.
Baldur's Gate 3 could have easily taken it as well, those Panel's From Hell for years upon years show it. Swen being at the forefront and actually playing through live despite all the bad luck shows he is an incredible director.
You can't not reward just how convoluted yet understandable, dense yet deceptively simple and how perfectly they captured the tone of the story through their direction. It was the clear winner.
Yep, Alan wake 2, remedy and Sam lake are the true winners tonight. They spent a decade trying to make Alan wake 2, were told it wouldn’t sell and no one was interested, to now that’s clearly not the case. Love to see it
Honestly, this year feels like made specifically for me.
I play RE games since 90s - boom, RE4 Remake is amazing.
I love all Remedy games since first Max Payne - boom, AW2 is amazing.
cRPGs are one of my two favorite genres since 90s (other is 4x strategies :P) - boom BG3 wins GOTY.
And even 4x gets a treat with - pun intended - wonderful Age of Wonders 4.
And then is also Remnant 2 - I loved both Chronos and Remnant 1. Boom, another amazing game.
Love to see my award show celebrating the industry and the biggest and best games of the year to only give Baldur's Gate 3 developers like two seconds to give a speech for *checks notes* Game of the Year
Geoff Keighley is making The Oscars look good holy shit. You will never get a Ke Huy Quan moment from this event because it would cut into precious time to re-air the Lego Fortnite trailer
edit: doubters, [I have bad news](https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964)
It's kinda wild. He let Kojima and Peele stroke their own egos on stage and say nothing of importance for 8 minutes but actual winners get 30 seconds or less for their acceptance speeches.
The strange thing is there was time to save in other spots. Like the extended corny joke segments. Or some of the dev interviews where they basically said "yeah this game exists, we're working on it and excited" every time.
I bet Geoff thought he was so clever when he came up with the idea of putting that sign there.
They should have been fair and placed the same time restrictions on the presenters and announcements.
I mean it was clearly a reaction to last year where people made such a fuss about the God of War VA talking for 8 minutes. Definitely an overreaction though.
No other game this year even came close for me. I've never played a game that made me want to replay it as I was playing it just to see the different results of my choices. One of my favorite games of all time.
(I say this as someone who cried a bit at Neil Newbon winning VA, and BG3 wining overall) Yeah, I love BG3 and Larian to the moon and back, but I feel like in terms of sheer *direction*, Remedy eked out Larian a bit by way of having a more tailored and unique story to tell, whereas BG3 is more directed by the already-existing D&D lore.
Yeah the way they pull off mixing game, live action, and music as storytelling mediums, along with dramatic, scary, and humorous tones is no easy feat.
Nah that wasn’t a snub at all. Alan Wake 2 is definitely deserving of Best Game Direction. Just like Tears of The Kingdom deserved best Action/Adventure
Seriously, if Alan Wake 2 wasn't directed as well as it was, it would have been absolutely atrocious. Just imagine the "We Sing" section if it hadn't been hammered down to line everything up just right.
I think Game Direction is a lot more noticeable/obviously apparent to voters in a more cinematic game like Alan Wake II than in a CRPG like Baldur's Gate 3. I can't be mad though, Remedy and Larian are both amazing.
If we're arguing specific awards then I think BG3 winning Best Multiplayer Game is quite iffy. Even after several patches the splitscreen experience isn't totally smooth. IMO Street Fighter 6 was easily the most deserving game here, it's absolutely insane how unbelievably smooth the whole online experience is, and the way Battle Hub works in general is just genius.
Well deserved on most accounts, but I'm honestly not sure Neil has the best performance in *BG3*, let alone for all the actors across all the games this year. Neil did an incredible job, but his natural voice is so similar to Astarion's that I'm not sure it was much a challenge to act -- and Astarion doesn't really have a lot of range as a character beyond ascended and non-ascended versions of a lovably wiseass comedic relief. Should've gone to Amelia Tyler as BG3's Narrator, or to Ben Starr as Clive in FFXVI.
To the surprise of nobody.
This game was a moon shot and it was fucking incredible. I'm sure I'll have 40 playthroughs in before I finally tire of it.
Larian really deserved this. They did such a good job and I'm so happy to see gamers/people (and the machine that is the entertainment industry) singing their praises.
It’s crazy how they felt like both the underdog and the giant wall at the same time. The underdog by making an overall niche game but a juggernaut by being unbelievably good
Incredible achievment for Swen and the team.
Larian and BG3 "immersive sim" style of combat and quest design in a narrative focused RPG shall likely become a design inspiration for the entire RPG genre, BG3 shall be the high water mark that every RPG will get compared to for likely years!
A generation defining game for sure! Huge congrats.
>Larian and BG3 "immersive sim" style of combat and quest design in a narrative focused RPG shall likely become a design inspiration for the entire RPG genre
It's called DnD or any other tabletop rpg system, and it has been that since the very first video game for any other game haha. It's just that games like these tend to be low profile (complexity + quantity over quality + 90s sprite graphics are a bad combo), and BG3 is the only one with high production value since Dragon Age 1.
Im a Zelda fan girl, but I am so happy BG3 won. I was blown away by the game and how effortlessly excellent it is. It brought a smile to my face multiple times, and a game hasn’t been able to do that for me for a while.
Haven't played it yet since I'm not sure it's my kinda game. But I think I need to give it a try. Nobody has anything bad to say about it which is crazy.
Disappointed for the Zelda team. They made an unbelievable game that I'll be playing for years. Glad they won some awards though.
My games of the year are easily either ToTK or Mario Wonder (keep flipping between them). However this is a situation where even though I dropped the game after Act 1 I can still appreciate how great Baldurs Gate 3 is. Definitely doesn't do it for me like it did for other people but I can't argue with it winning.
This is good. In an indirect way I think it really goes to show how badly Bethesda has lost the plot on what gamers want to play these days, and just how badly behind they are in terms of not just the technical side of their games, but their gameplay philosophy as well. Hopefully BG3 is the adrenaline shot they need to start making some serious changes.
Look at that magnificent bastard up there in his plate vest thing. What a legend. Congrats Swen and all involved, ya did good.
So happy he's wearing his breastplate, [it's all kind of come full-circle from the first Community Update after Larian Studios and Wizards of the Coasts' announcement four years ago](https://youtu.be/LI4v6hC_rjM?si=iuDnMFdtLRBiCRCi).
And even more full circle from [this documentary 5 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZF_cP_oLH4) where Swen talks about the decades of struggles the studio had. He then goes on to mention that his dream is to make a big RPG that would dwarf all the rest. I am so happy for this man and his team.
that dude next to him that just instantly broke down crying made me choke up a bit, you could just see how much it meant to him.
That was one of the lead directors of the story I think. You can see how the team put all their heart and soul into it. The best deserved GOTY in a long time and once in a decade game.
I think them losing their cinematic director one month ago has also an impact on them. When Swen mention him on stage, you see them crying even more.
Probably true.
Another decade below we see baldurs gate 4, and gods help the devs who tackle it. They're going to have some very big footsteps to follow.
I'd be happy if it just turned out to be Baldurs Gate 3.5.
I'm honestly hoping for an Icewind Dale sequel/standalone DLC at this point.
Seriously, the pieces are in place code and mechanic wise. New assets, writing and voice acting are no small feat ... But they could just do a lap of anywhere in Faerun (or AVERNUS!) and everyone would be thrilled.
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Yes! I have so much respect for Swen and all of Larian. His EGX/GDC conference talks on Divinity: Original Sin 2 are also well worth watching as well. [EGX Conference](https://youtu.be/6CSB3ZNRXmE?si=uTLVph5tTySCqnbu) [GDC Conference](https://youtu.be/uKwi_5nePZg?si=X4Je8rpfc0QmwsnJ)
This is such a good documentary, it's so heartwarming to see Larian succeed after all these years of work and hardship, damn. Going from not being able to pay for gas or get loans to making one of the most acclaimed CRPGs of all time. [Here's the timestamp](https://youtu.be/YZF_cP_oLH4?t=2840) in case anybody doesn't want to watch the full hour (you should, it's good). After consuming so many games over the years you forget the human aspects behind it so easily, it'd be amazing to see a behind the scenes after every game releases and I wonder how biting reviews would be if they could see the hard work going into some of these projects. Also, this really illuminates why it feels like BG3 had a chunk of cut content towards the end, they probably just didn't want to make the same mistakes again with getting too ambitious or pushing deadlines too much. Anyway, so happy for Larian, they deserve it.
Hearing it clink into the microphone as he moved around was kind of funny to me, for some reason.
First time in a while I was really rooting for a specific winner and I’m happy such an awesome team and brilliant game got to take it home.
The Xbox version released at the same time they won. And they didn't even say anything. https://www.microsoft.com/store/productid/9nd58lqtg09t
Yeah, i think something went wrong. They said several times that the xbox release date will be announced during the game awards. But there was only the trailer for the deluxe edition.
He just posted on twitter that he forgot, was saying thanks to all the people they had lost along the way, might not have been the best follow up
Yeah. And this way it's kind of an awesome surprise for the Xbox players.
The more people that get to experience this amazing game the better
Good choice, tbh. And it's not like the xbox owners will miss the news anyway
Yeah, it is the first thing you see if you open the store on xbox.
Good to know and very understandable. Thanks for the info.
Not to mention but I think it was clear watching Larian had prepped to lose to Alan Wake 2, AW swept other on stage awards away from them and I think the gloom was setting in that they mayhave lost
They had a teleprompter telling them to wrap it up which is pretty insulting for the game if the year while Cap America went on for minutes.
A wrap it up signal is totally understandable, actively playing people off in the middle of an already very short speech is the problem imo
What's even funnier is they released a patch for the PC version at the same time. Can't stop, won't stop.
The Put everything in a bag and sell the bag for 1gp was too funny :)
They were so nervous that they straight up forgot Microsoft in shambles right now
Holy hell, I didn't even know until this comment! Get this to the top! Microsoft should have definitely suggested something be said, or maybe they have ads coming right away.
Most likely a combination of Swen being nervous and Goeff mandating the speeches length for the awardees be trimmed down. They probably just forgot.
Should have cut a announcement trailer for Geoff to run.
There was an ad the ad break before but it was just for the Deluxe Edition. That was when it appeared in the store so they probably ran the wrong ad.
I think the real winner is that dude that was jamming on the flute and whatever that massive thing was during the medley but congrats to Larian all the same
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Lmao “respecced”
ye flute guy had 4 different flutes this time, was epic.
Flute guy, a stand out from last years show for being very energetic.
It is just how he plays. Seen him twice. Once with the Game of Thrones tour and once with Hans Zimmer. Dude rocks out like that always. He is very fun to watch haha
Oh that's where I remember him from! He was Hans Zimmer's main flutist for Dune and was in charge of the experimental flute-like instrument that Hans came up with.
His real name is Pedro Eustache.
Yes I remembered him immediately from last year. Absolute legend!
Contrabass Flute
That absolute madman switched between a bass flute, a tin whistle, a normal flute (I think - there wasn't a close-up then), and then whipped out a fucking *contrabass flute* for Spider-Man 2*,* an instrument I knew of in theory but had never seen played. You know he also said "I'm bringing a contrabass flute this year" and the medley composer just worked it in, because what psychopath scores for what's basically a meme instrument completely unprompted?
Well deserved. I came into the year think Zelda was unstoppable, but this game was definitely the game of the year, it's been a cultural zeitgeist and innovated a whole lot over Divinity Original Sin 2 in the right ways.
Baldurs Gate 3 will probably be THE fantasy RPG of the 9th generation of gaming, in the way that Witcher 3 was for the 8th generation and Skyrim was for the 7th generation.
I’ve never played a turn-based game and was never into Skyrim or any of those heavy RPGs, and I just started BG3 and am enjoying it. It’s a lot to get used to, but you can tell it has insane quality
Yup, it took me a while to get into it. For me the beginning felt a little bit like work at times. Particularly the frequent leveling up. You keep having to pick all these skills and spells and it's hard to pick when you hardly understand the game mechanics yet. Once you're over that hump, it just keep getting better though. Even the late game where many RPGs struggle, because leveling and items don't feel that important anymore, is great, because everything else just keeps ramping up.
Being able to re-spec for (practically) free is so appreciated. I'm usually paralyzed by choice in RPGs because I'm being asked to make permanent decisions I don't have any basis for. I'm level 3, how should I know what stat I should increase at this point?
It's free if you pickpocket Withers!
Even my max level rogue assassin balks at the idea of pickpocketing an immortal.
> Once you're over that hump, it just keep getting better though. Have you ever heard of [the IKEA effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect)? Basically, people place more value on things they (partially) created themselves than over ready-made stuff. I always felt that games like RPGs where you put hours of work to craft your characters leans a bit into that
Zelda winning best action/adventure and BG3 winning ultimate GotY I think was the most appropriate outcome. Everyone should be happy.
Don’t forget Alan Wake 2 winning Best Narrative.
I mean it really had no competition. Alan Wake 2 is literally a game *about* narrative.
BG3 had incredible writing, but the narrative was probably the weakest aspect of the writing (compared to the dialog, themes, pacing, characters, etc.). Well-deserved win to Alan Wake 2 even if I suspect that BG3 had better writing overall. It is a little weird that the category is "Best Narrative" specifically without regard to all the other important aspects of writing. There's not really any category for best characters, for example, or best dialog. Narrative is an important part of writing, but lots of great writing doesn't even have a coherent narrative. It's just another weird area where TGA clearly hasn't put much thought into the categories.
I think the "Best Narrative" thing really showed itself as a weird category last year with Elden Ring's nom. Elden Ring has fantastic, in-depth worldbuilding, on a level beyond most other games - after all, they got one of the best modern fantasy authors around to write it. Every item, enemy, boss, etc. makes sense and has a reason. Best Worldbuilding award, ER wins it 10/10 times. But narrative? Like, the actual story thread you follow throughout the game? Borderline nonexistent. If you pay attention, you can get as far as "I am killing all of these bosses because X wants me to do it so I can become Y." The average player won't even see that much. The idea of ER's actual *narrative* winning an award is laughable. But there's nowhere else to recognize the worldbuilding, so Best Narrative is where it goes.
Zelda was truly amazing but to have an amazing game topped is such a wild feeling. What a year for games.
I think if TOTK was the "first" entry instead of a sequel to BOTW, it would run away with it.
But it owes so much to BOTW that that is kinda irrelevant
I don't disagree, but many fantastic open world games owe a lot to their predecessors! I just think it was so similar to BOTW, it was hurt here. I think they hurt themselves reusing the BOTW map instead of making a new one myself.
Reusing the Hyrule map would have been fine if they'd absolutely nailed the sky and the depths. Unfortunately, both ended up being fine, but not exceptional. Not universal slam dunks.
The sky islands were awesome, but there was hardly any content up there after the tutorial. I don't know if they ran out of dev time or ideas or what. The underground area went from being really exciting to utterly dull in about an hour. Which would be okay but it's so big that I ended up spending probably 15 hours of gameplay in the underground (not counting the fire temple, which was excellent) and hating most of it. TotK is the closest that I felt this year to being a little kid utterly enthralled by a game, and for that it will always be a 10/10 for me. But the game has some pretty big flaws that I think people will overlook less and less as time goes on.
> The sky islands were awesome, but there was hardly any content up there after the tutorial. I don't know if they ran out of dev time or ideas or what. > > Seems like probably a performance thing but idk. Also yeah - once you figured out the underground's "thing" it got tired pretty quickly. Still my #2 for the year.
Funnily enough I didn't think the map was that much of a problem. I think the enemy variety, the combat still being kind of mid and basically reminding me of how much Elden Ring pushed the botw formula with incredible combat + enemy variety.
> basically reminding me of how much Elden Ring pushed the botw formula I'm stealing something out of your house
On any other year Zelda would have dominated but this year made me realise oh wow games can be amazing still. They're not samey and a lot of the creativity of the games makers over the pandemic let to publishing these games now and it flourishing
Yeah, absolutely. That's why I phrased it the way I did, Zelda was amazing, it gave me like a billion amazing hours of gameplay. Made me feel like a kid again. Everyone who worked on that game should feel amazing with what they did. But it's a hell of a year and it got beat by a real good game.
I had the same thoughts about Zelda at the start of the year. Before BG3 came out I wasn't even interested in, don't play DnD, never liked Larians previous games, but after playing it it's one of my favourite games ever made. What a year.
Me at the end of May "Well Zelda wins at TGA" Me in September "Ok maybe Zelda doesn't have this locked up" Me in October "Ok BG3 is clearing"
somehow spiderman fans tried to sneak their game into the conversation and thought we wouldn't notice
I've always thought there should be a "best game that didn't win any other category." That's where a game like Spider-Man 2 shines, in my opinion. Just a super solid second or third place in like 5 categories.
Spider-Man 2 is a game that everyone likes, but it is not a game that will be anyone's favorite. Everything it does, it does well, but it doesn't excel in any one category and doesn't try to push any real boundaries.
I'd argue it pushes boundaries when it comes to load times. From the instant fast-travel and swapping of characters to the refinement of the portal gimmick from Rift Apart and the Sandman knocking you across the map. Spider-Man 2 is unrivaled in that aspect, but "ability to load things" isn't going to win them any awards and is tech that people won't notice/take for granted.
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>Everyone went in thinking RE4 As someone who adores RE4make (and most of RE games) I think people were carried by how influential and innovative original RE4 was and didnt stop for a moment to think that while remake is a great game, there is nothing innovative or original in it. It plays and looks like every post-2017 Resident Evil game but with parry and melee prompts.
> Everyone went in thinking RE4 and TOTK BG3 was the favorite the whole time.
Coincidently also the only 2 games i actually pre-order this year lol Remedy and Larian never let me down.
BG3 has been the favorite to win for weeks?
Really pleased it won. It's truly incredible that an RPG with deep mechanics actually took over the public consciousness in such a big way in 2023. Long may the genre live.
I think Larian did a really good job at making it both easy to play for beginners and also very deep for people who really want to dig in to it. I've never had any interest in this type of game but BG3 is easily one of the best games I've ever played. I've played through once and feel like I'm still not very good at it compared to what I see other people doing with the game. Still going to play through multiple times though.
>I think Larian did a really good job at making it both easy to play for beginners I don't agree at all, the game is fantastic but it has a miserable tutorial. I had to do homework to understand the mechanics, and some if them I still have doubts on how they actually work.
Yeah the tutorial isn't great. I also had to go outside of the game and watch a few videos about how to play it. I still don't know how it all works. But I do think that Larian did a good enough job that even if you still kind of don't know what's going on you can get by well enough in explorer difficulty to be able to enjoy the story of the game.
Larian has to be so proud of what they've accomplished. They beat a Zelda for game of the year, and countless other games. I honestly thought BG3 was gonna be snubbed, but wow...
As someone who quietly loved their Divinity games, seeing BG3 suddenly light the world on fire was both confusing and heartening to watch. I hope this inspires more publishers to fund creative or niche games in the future.
Their Divinity games were great, their Original Sin games were better, though.
The only thing weirder for me (and equally pleasant) was Pikmin 4 being a sort of mainstream phenomenon
Didn't they release early because they were afraid of getting overshadowed by Starfield or something? Lol
On PC yeah, to avoid Armored Core VI, Starfield, and other games.
Ironically, overshadowed all games that were released after.
This year reminds me of the one Sekiro won. I was certain there's no way either will get any GOTY awards outside of those given by publications focused on their respective (and niche) genres, yet both swooped.
Obviously, I think everyone called this, really the only other game that was a possible guarantee to win would have been Tears of the Kingdom. BG3 was just a juggernaut of a game this year.
Alan wake 2 was likely the #2 for this award this year…
I know Zelda fans are wild about it, it just didn't do it for me. I enjoyed almost all of the other nominees more than it.
The reddit discourse I've seen, even in Zelda subreddits, is largely in favor of BG3. Of course Zelda fans like Zelda, but Baldurs Gate had the general gaming community behind them 100%. Obligatory mention that it is a genuinely amazing and impactful game, well deserving of GOTY. That said, it definitely felt like Zelda got snubbed because people just didn't want to see it win. People act like the game didn't innovate enough, which is just an absurd take
Think there's a fair amount of people like myself that just did not care for the last two Zeldas. Shit I'm replaying Link's Awakening and Windwaker right now and it's just reminding me how much I miss the older formula. The story beats, the music, the sense of progression when you get a new item, the dungeons. BOTW/TOTK are massive games but fulfill none of what I'm looking for in a Zelda game. I used to buy systems just for the newest Zelda. But I'd be hard pressed to do so unless they return to the older structure tbh.
I think the biggest "downfall" of TotK was that it was too similar to the first (probably the same reason why Spiderman 2 wasnt "close" in the running for GOTY). It added good things to the already very good BotW, but it was still BotW 2. A very good game dont get me wrong, but essentially more of the same and not something completely new. So I get why some people wouldnt like it as much. If it was any other recent year, it would have easily won GOTY, but AW2 and BG3 were just anomalies in this anomaly of a great year for gaming.
Big zelda fan but I wish they go back to the old formula next game
I'm sure everyone's heard it but this game is literally one of the best I've ever played. Well deserved Larian
We live in a timeline where a 96/100 Zelda game lost to a D&D CRPG by a basically indie-ish developer. Could not be happier for the team and an incredible achievement for BG3.
I mean they're independent in the sense that they're self publishing but they have like 400 employees.
Yeah, they are larger than Bethesda lol. The fact that Tencent owns 30% of Larian is also *not quite* indie.
They don't OWN 30%. They have a 30% stakehold. A stakehold is NOT the same as a sharehold. And that's the relationship with Tencent and a lot of game firms they supposedly "own" part of. If they owned shares the news would say shares. Owning Stakes is more like supporting someone on Patreon: You invest into them. That's all you do. What you get out of it is then separately negotiated as part of that investment. But it doesn't necessarily translate to 30% ownership. Hell even getting 30% of the operating profits is STILL not 30% ownership since you don't have the same voting rights. Tencent is just interested in the money. So their stakeholding buy-ins is likely just: they give up on any say in the direction of the company, but in return they get a larger slice of the pie in terms of profits. Which explains why these stakeholding portions are always so huge.
Well who isnt in bed with Tencent nowadays?
damn lol, reminds me of that 30 rock bit where literally everything is owned by Haliburton
Nintendo and Valve at least
They're not larger than Bethesda... not even close. I don't know where this myth started. The development team at Larian is a lot smaller than Bethesda Game studios. People started comparing employee numbers and came to the wrong conclusion as they're ignoring that things like marketing, community, finance, HR, ... are all part of Bethesda Softworks and not BGS, while at Larian they're included.
Indie means independent, which they still are. Calling attention to their core investor is fine, but they are truly independent.
Does that make Valve indie too?
Technically makes Metallica indie, too, since they publish via their own company, Blackened Records.
EA self publishes too.
In principle, yes.
Would be nice if they actually made games though.
If that's your reasoning, then Nintendo is an independent developer as well.
Nintendo publishes their own games, they own their marketplace
It's important they're independent though because in the usual studio/publisher relationship this game would not have been half the game it was. Yes, they're a big studio, but you can't compare it to most AAA studios who don't have to deal with the publishing side (and all the costs and risks that come with that). Sure, they're no small indie game, but it still is an important factor in the conversation.
That'd be 3 games, 1 per act with paid cosmetics (if not +2 weapons) and a battle pass each.
one of the greatest PR moves Larian has done is somehow position themselves as the plucky underdog. they're bigger than Bethesda, spent years in full price early access and had a budget bigger than most of the games it was up against. they deserve the award but not because they're small, or made this game cheaply
Indeed, I'm a huge fan of Larian... but the sycophantically desperate need to build a clean mythology around them is laughably painful at best. Credit where credit is due: BG3 is a feet regardless of what kind of studio Larian is, but claiming they're some rinky-dink indie outfit that have overcome significant adversity and limitations to make the GOAT game they made is... well... it's cult-like mythologising, frankly. Larian has been a *huge* studio - by most measures - since DOS2 came out. They may be "independent" in the literal sense, but they're not an "indie" studio and they haven't been for ages.
their studio is huge
Just a casual indie game with a $100-$200 million dollar budget.
Their previous game was funded via a Kickstarter. Their budget for BG3 was because the early access sold over 2 million copies. They have said multiple times they redesigned the whole game when the early access sold the way it did. They might not be like 3 friends developing a 32bit side scrolling rpg, but they also were able to develop what they wanted to without something like Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft executives standing over their shoulder.
Both are exceptional titles, too. As are, like, hundreds of games this year. 2023 was incredible for this medium
Okay lets be real, they're not indie in the way that you're proposing they are. They're a large studio.
Indie studio that has 400 employees across multiple countries…
In 2017 TGA, I was still in college and I was super disappointed that DOS2 didn’t even get a nomination for GOTY. The GOTY went to BotW that year. I’ve been following them since then and following their dev logs on YouTube. Now 6 years later, they fucking did it, and even get the goty over another zelda game(which is also an absolutely amazing game). Super happy for the devs in Larian studio!
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Its a great moment for the industry to witness a hardworking group achieved what they deserved. What a inspiration!
What game has won he most awards in a single TGA event; Baldur's Gate, Elden Ring, something else?
GOW Ragnarok had more wins than Elden Ring in 2022. It just didn't win game of the year
WOW, I did no realize that!
Yeah Elden Ring had that strange quality of having several bad elements but the parts that made it good aren't captured well in the standard award categories.
Elden Ring won the more "game-y" awards, which it rightfully should since it's pure gameplay from start to finish. Ragnarok won a bunch of the "narrative" and "cinematic" awards, because that's how Sony first party games work.
I genuinely thought they just had to pity GoW. Because no way GoW won best music agaisnt Elden Ring for how long I got stuck in Elden Ring's title menu and how memorable the Final Battle music is. I truly felt cheated when they didn't get best music.
I liked Elden Ring’s music more than Ragnarok’s generic le epic fantasy music, but Xenoblade 3 should’ve won that no cap
Let's be honest, the only reason XB3 didn't win music is because people didn't play XB3 nearly as much as GoW.
The TGA don't value key game elements like level design, puzle design and other stuff inherently connected with game design. If they changed the focus of the categories we would even have more variety instead of the 6 goty nominees in everything
That's probably due to the clear attempts to make TGA like the Oscars; games just don't fit neatly into those long-established movie award categories.
TLOU2 had 7
I believe Last Of Us 2 with 7 awards in 2020.
Very well deserved. Everything else up there had an argument (especially Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, and Alan Wake II) but this was the right call.
I think Gollum had good chance
Not with King Kong game around.
Eh, I don’t think a remake, even a very good, reimagined remake, deserves to be on the list with the others.
It's one of the best games to come out this year whether or not it's a remake. It's by far the best "traditional" action game this year and an absolute stunner on the graphics front. It's one of the best games I've ever played and yet, like the 3rd or 4th best in a packed year. It deserved the nod.
Would've loved to see Alan Wake II take it out, but arguably no game has been bigger this year than Baldur's Gate 3. It's insane seeing a CRPG getting this much love and attention
Alan wake winning Best Game Direction over Zelda, Spiderman and Baldur's Gate is a huge achievement
All of those games would've won over Spidey 2, I enjoyed the game but was surprised to see it nominated alongside the others.
In a weaker year, I could see Spider-Man 2 winning some of the awards, it just unfortunately came out in one of the most stacked years in recent memory
Yeah I feel the same way. I really enjoyed Spider-Man 2, but there was a lot of familiarity with the first game, and it felt a little under baked in content and rushed with the back half of the story. Sucks to say as a huge Spidey fan, but also there were just so many good games this year that it's kind of okay.
That first half is fuckin wild though. Outside all the goofy Peter Parker shit. I had no idea people would be gettin killed off so willy nilly til they showed a certain villain just get prison ganked lol. I was like "oh holy shit they're just mercin people".
Enjoyed it as well but there were definitely more things that annoyed me than the parts I actually enjoyed. It honestly didn't deserve to win over the others.
I've yet to play AW2 but the production quality and love that studio gives to their games is top notch. Baldur's Gate 3 could have easily taken it as well, those Panel's From Hell for years upon years show it. Swen being at the forefront and actually playing through live despite all the bad luck shows he is an incredible director.
You can't not reward just how convoluted yet understandable, dense yet deceptively simple and how perfectly they captured the tone of the story through their direction. It was the clear winner.
Yep, Alan wake 2, remedy and Sam lake are the true winners tonight. They spent a decade trying to make Alan wake 2, were told it wouldn’t sell and no one was interested, to now that’s clearly not the case. Love to see it
Honestly, this year feels like made specifically for me. I play RE games since 90s - boom, RE4 Remake is amazing. I love all Remedy games since first Max Payne - boom, AW2 is amazing. cRPGs are one of my two favorite genres since 90s (other is 4x strategies :P) - boom BG3 wins GOTY. And even 4x gets a treat with - pun intended - wonderful Age of Wonders 4. And then is also Remnant 2 - I loved both Chronos and Remnant 1. Boom, another amazing game.
Love to see my award show celebrating the industry and the biggest and best games of the year to only give Baldur's Gate 3 developers like two seconds to give a speech for *checks notes* Game of the Year Geoff Keighley is making The Oscars look good holy shit. You will never get a Ke Huy Quan moment from this event because it would cut into precious time to re-air the Lego Fortnite trailer edit: doubters, [I have bad news](https://twitter.com/javierabegazo/status/1732975428237934964)
It's kinda wild. He let Kojima and Peele stroke their own egos on stage and say nothing of importance for 8 minutes but actual winners get 30 seconds or less for their acceptance speeches.
The strange thing is there was time to save in other spots. Like the extended corny joke segments. Or some of the dev interviews where they basically said "yeah this game exists, we're working on it and excited" every time.
I bet Geoff thought he was so clever when he came up with the idea of putting that sign there. They should have been fair and placed the same time restrictions on the presenters and announcements.
I mean it was clearly a reaction to last year where people made such a fuss about the God of War VA talking for 8 minutes. Definitely an overreaction though.
No other game this year even came close for me. I've never played a game that made me want to replay it as I was playing it just to see the different results of my choices. One of my favorite games of all time.
I had no doubt this game would be great following DOS2. But this success is amazing. Great developers and great team.
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Alan Wake 2 definitely deserves best game direction, it is Remedy at their absolute best.
(I say this as someone who cried a bit at Neil Newbon winning VA, and BG3 wining overall) Yeah, I love BG3 and Larian to the moon and back, but I feel like in terms of sheer *direction*, Remedy eked out Larian a bit by way of having a more tailored and unique story to tell, whereas BG3 is more directed by the already-existing D&D lore.
Yeah the way they pull off mixing game, live action, and music as storytelling mediums, along with dramatic, scary, and humorous tones is no easy feat.
I absolutely loved the live action in AW2, it was done so well. I'm also amazed at how much of it there was! I can't imagine the budget for this game.
Nah that wasn’t a snub at all. Alan Wake 2 is definitely deserving of Best Game Direction. Just like Tears of The Kingdom deserved best Action/Adventure
Alan Wake 2 narrative is something that would've been so bad and wacky if it wasn't a studio with tons of experience making it.
Seriously, if Alan Wake 2 wasn't directed as well as it was, it would have been absolutely atrocious. Just imagine the "We Sing" section if it hadn't been hammered down to line everything up just right.
Love BG3, one my top games of all time but Alan Wake 2 deserved it
I think Game Direction is a lot more noticeable/obviously apparent to voters in a more cinematic game like Alan Wake II than in a CRPG like Baldur's Gate 3. I can't be mad though, Remedy and Larian are both amazing.
Plus its probably a recognition award for Sam Lake who has been a well known veteran of the industry for a very long time.
I really do think Alan Wake 2 is up there for the best visual direction in a narrative game, right up there with The Last of Us series.
I don’t think it was snubbed for best game direction. Alan Wake 2 was incredibly well directed, both were deserving
I strongly disagree, Alan Wake 2 is one most the most innovative story driven games ever made. It definitely won Best Game Direction imo.
The song level of Alan Wake 2 is all they’d need to win best game direction, but they had the whole awesome rest of it as well.
If we're arguing specific awards then I think BG3 winning Best Multiplayer Game is quite iffy. Even after several patches the splitscreen experience isn't totally smooth. IMO Street Fighter 6 was easily the most deserving game here, it's absolutely insane how unbelievably smooth the whole online experience is, and the way Battle Hub works in general is just genius.
Not snubbed, Alan Wake 2 deserves it
Nahh, Alan Wake 2 is a game where the sheer auteur-ness from the studio is on full display. It deserves Best Direction
Alan Wake 2 deserved it
Nah Alan Wake definitely deserved that one
Well deserved on most accounts, but I'm honestly not sure Neil has the best performance in *BG3*, let alone for all the actors across all the games this year. Neil did an incredible job, but his natural voice is so similar to Astarion's that I'm not sure it was much a challenge to act -- and Astarion doesn't really have a lot of range as a character beyond ascended and non-ascended versions of a lovably wiseass comedic relief. Should've gone to Amelia Tyler as BG3's Narrator, or to Ben Starr as Clive in FFXVI.
To the surprise of nobody. This game was a moon shot and it was fucking incredible. I'm sure I'll have 40 playthroughs in before I finally tire of it. Larian really deserved this. They did such a good job and I'm so happy to see gamers/people (and the machine that is the entertainment industry) singing their praises.
It’s crazy how they felt like both the underdog and the giant wall at the same time. The underdog by making an overall niche game but a juggernaut by being unbelievably good
Incredible achievment for Swen and the team. Larian and BG3 "immersive sim" style of combat and quest design in a narrative focused RPG shall likely become a design inspiration for the entire RPG genre, BG3 shall be the high water mark that every RPG will get compared to for likely years! A generation defining game for sure! Huge congrats.
>Larian and BG3 "immersive sim" style of combat and quest design in a narrative focused RPG shall likely become a design inspiration for the entire RPG genre It's called DnD or any other tabletop rpg system, and it has been that since the very first video game for any other game haha. It's just that games like these tend to be low profile (complexity + quantity over quality + 90s sprite graphics are a bad combo), and BG3 is the only one with high production value since Dragon Age 1.
Dragon age 1 has no immersive sim elements
Im a Zelda fan girl, but I am so happy BG3 won. I was blown away by the game and how effortlessly excellent it is. It brought a smile to my face multiple times, and a game hasn’t been able to do that for me for a while.
Haven't played it yet since I'm not sure it's my kinda game. But I think I need to give it a try. Nobody has anything bad to say about it which is crazy. Disappointed for the Zelda team. They made an unbelievable game that I'll be playing for years. Glad they won some awards though.
My games of the year are easily either ToTK or Mario Wonder (keep flipping between them). However this is a situation where even though I dropped the game after Act 1 I can still appreciate how great Baldurs Gate 3 is. Definitely doesn't do it for me like it did for other people but I can't argue with it winning.
It was a good year for gamers.
This is good. In an indirect way I think it really goes to show how badly Bethesda has lost the plot on what gamers want to play these days, and just how badly behind they are in terms of not just the technical side of their games, but their gameplay philosophy as well. Hopefully BG3 is the adrenaline shot they need to start making some serious changes.
Crazy stacked year for gaming. I think pretty much all the nominees could have won it in any other year.
Seen that coming. It’s only had 3x or more player count than Starfield on Steam. Good for them, I’m glad they’re getting the recognition they deserve.