Plucky platformer Astro Bot won the top prize at the Game Awards 2024, a crowning achievement for a character who originated as an asset for a PlayStation tech demo.
The game, developed by Team Asobi, is both a mascot platformer in the vein of Crash Bandicoot and an exploration of the deep catalogue of Sony franchises. In his review for The New York Times, critic Harold Goldberg called Astro Bot an “enjoyable endeavour that often showcases the brilliance of game makers who know their history”.
Astro Bot also received awards for best game direction, best action or adventure game and best family game. It beat five other nominees for game of the year: Balatro, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Metaphor: ReFantazio.
The awards ceremony, now in its 10th year, recognises artistic and technical achievements in the video game industry and showcases announcements of new games from high-profile developers.
Among the games announced live on December 12 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, US, was Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, the next project by Neil Druckmann and Naughty Dog, the studio that created The Last of Us and Uncharted. The story, which Druckmann told the Times is inspired by classic anime, follows a bounty hunter in an alternative universe where space travel has significantly advanced by 1986.
Several of the other games revealed were cooperative adventures: Split Fiction, a split-screen exploration of friendship by the studio that made It Takes Two; Stage Fright, in which the creators of Overcooked incorporate escape room mechanics; and Elden Ring: Nightreign, a new approach for the ruthless action franchise by FromSoftware.
The celebrity guests this year included gaming auteur Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding), prolific voice actor Troy Baker and actor Ella Purnell, who this year starred in the television adaptation of the postapocalyptic Fallout as well as the animated TV series Arcane, which is based on the multiplayer game League of Legends. (Harrison Ford showed up with Baker to promote Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, an action-adventure game featuring an original narrative based on the franchise.)
There were also performances by rapper Snoop Dogg, who was recently added as a character in Fortnite, and the band Twenty One Pilots, which has a song on the Arcane soundtrack.
More than two dozen awards were handed out in categories that included performance, narrative and art direction. Votes from journalists accounted for 90 per cent of the selection process, while public fan voting determined the rest. Notable wins were Helldivers 2 for best multiplayer game and Black Myth: Wukong for best action game.
Astro Bot held off five other games to win the top prize.
Balatro, a pixelated game made by a pseudonymous developer who goes by LocalThunk, was an unusual contender in a category typically filled with titles from giant studios. But people flocked to the game, which distorts the rules of poker and has players racking up points into the millions with hands buoyed by powerful abilities from themed joker cards. Balatro was named best mobile game, best independent game and best debut indie game.
The medieval fantasy Metaphor: ReFantazio, developed by Atlus, sets up a succession plot after a king is assassinated and different powers in a fictional kingdom vie for control, reflecting on the role of utopian art in a society. Metaphor won awards for best role-playing game, best narrative and best art direction.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which received the award for best score and music, is the second of three installments that reinvents the classic 1997 role-playing title developed by the studio Square Enix for an age of luxe visuals and open-world exploration.
Black Myth: Wukong, considered China’s first “AAA” title, a term for big-budget games with global audiences and sophisticated gameplay and graphics, was named best action game. An adaptation of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, it broke records for the most concurrent users in a single-player game when it launched on Steam.
There was debate online about the final nominee, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, which is a large and vicious expansion instead of a stand-alone game. The original Elden Ring, by FromSoftware, won game of the year when it was released in 2022.
NYTNS
