NEW YORK, Dec 9 — Annual video game preview and awards show The Game Awards delivered three wins apiece to vintage cartoon-styled jaunt Cuphead, intense mental health adventure Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and overall Game of the Year recipient The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came away from The Game Awards 2017 with three big wins, scooping Best Action Adventure, Best Art Direction and Game of the Year.
Zelda: BotW was released in March 2017 on Nintendo’s outgoing Wii U and its launching home and portable hybrid console, the Switch.
Upon release, it was received as one of the best games in the 30-year-old Zelda franchise and therefore one of the best games of all time.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was an August release on PlayStation 4 and Windows PC, praised for the adventure’s intense delivery, its precise and effective audio design, and its nuanced treatment of a serious psychiatric disorder afflicting the game’s main character.
For her portrayal of Pictish warrior Senua, German actress Melina Juergens won the TGA for Best Performance, while Hellblade also collected the Best Audio Design and the Games for Impact accolades.
And Cuphead, the challenging retro-styled tribute to classic 1930s cartoons and the result of a 7-year development cycle steered by a small three-person team, walked away with Best Art Direction, Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game.
Among other winners on the night, team action game Overwatch was released in 2016 but here returned to collect Best Ongoing Game and Best eSports Game, while Nintendo added three more to its tally via Best Family Game for Super Mario Odyssey, Best Strategy Game for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, and Best Handheld Game (a de facto Best 3DS Game category) for Metroid: Samus Returns.
Winners in most of the show’s categories were decided through a vote split 90/10 between The Game Awards’ jury and TGA website visitors.
A full list of winners and nominees can be found at thegameawards.com/awards, save for the victor in Best Multiplayer Game which was not announced during the TGA ceremony nor via its Twitter account.
The Game Awards show fulfilled its dual role as a celebratory and a promotional event by debuting trailers for a selection of titles.
Those included a new location for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the Death Stranding project starring Norman Reedus, four-player horror GTFO, Russian post-apocalyptic quest Metro Exodus, ethereal creation game Dreams, and Egyptian exploration title In The Valley of the Gods. — AFP-Relaxnews
