Overwatch just took top honours as Game of the Year at this year’s The Game Awards. It beat Doom, Inside, Titanfall 2, and Uncharted 4. Eligible games had to have been out after November 24 of last year and before November 24 of this year.
While accepting the award, Blizzard’s Ray Gresko said, “While we’ve been very happy with how the game has been received, we’re also extremely proud that this game and the world that we’re building has a message and it’s a message about heroism. It’s a message about diversity. It’s a message about a bright and positive and hopeful future. And these are all things that we really believe everyone needs a little bit of right now.”
The Game Awards’ other winners were:
- Best Mobile and Handheld Game: Pokemon GO
- Best Family Game: Pokemon GO
- Games For Impact Award: That Dragon Cancer
- Best Independent Game: Inside
- Best Multiplayer Game: Overwatch
- Best Esports Game: Overwatch
- Best Action-Adventure Game: Dishonored 2
- Best Action Game: Doom
- Best VR Game: Rez Infinite
- Best Fighting Game: Street Fighter V
- Best RPG: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood & Wine
- Best Strategy Game: Civilisation VI
- Best Sports/Racing Game: Forza Horizon 3
- Best Game Direction: Overwatch
- Best Art Direction: Inside
- Best Narrative: Uncharted 4
- Best Esports Team: Cloud9
- Best Esports player: Marcelo “Coldzera” David (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
- Best Performance: Nolan North, Uncharted 4
- Trending Gamer: Boogie2988
- Most Anticipated Game: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Comments
16 responses to “Overwatch Wins Game Of The Year At The 2016 Game Awards”
My vote still goes to DOOM.
Upvote to cancel out the downvote Because Doom really is that good
People need to stop abusing the voting system.
Yeah not sure how I feel about Overwatch winning. It’s a good game, but does a game with 3 game modes, a handful of maps and no single player content or no real in-game story content deserve to win over more complete games?
Overwatch is a complete game. More things does not necessarily mean more complete.
Splatoon won last year.
Well that had four game modes, more maps and a single player campaign 😛
Splatoon has a couple of things that Overwatch doesnt. A story for one, and well balanced weapons another.
Dont get me wrong, I enjoy Overwatch a lot – but its utterly unbalanced and its matchmaking is terrible.
I can understand exactly where you are coming from, but I feel like Overwatch deserves to win, for a few reasons.
Firstly, the game is likely to have an extremely long lifespan, considering the constant updates the game has gotten. At launch, there was 12 maps, 21 heroes, which, in my opinion, still felt like enough content, however, since launch, there’s been 2 heroes, 2 maps (and one currently on PTR), 2 new game modes, several seasons of competitive mode, and 2 seasonal events, with another one likely for christmas. Considering the lifespan of blizzard’s past games, and the treatment recieved so far, it seems like the game will constantly evolve into a better and better shape in the years to come.
Secondly, of the games nominated (Which, for the record, are Doom, Overwatch, Inside, Uncharted 4 and Titanfall 2), I feel that Overwatch is the most complete and refined experience of the nominees.
Doom has one of the best singleplayer campaigns in an FPS, however, the multiplayer mode feels tacked on, doesn’t really appeal to old fans, or new fans, and with expensive map packs that seperate the community further, the multiplayer is virtually dead.
Inside is the only game here I haven’t played, but from what I’ve read and heard, it’s a great, if somewhat divise platformer, full of atmosphere and creativity, and rather beautiful, but, the platforming can be kind of fiddly at times, and, it’s a rather short experience, with not much longevity or replay value.
Uncharted 4 is, in my opinion, one of the weaker Uncharted games, and whilst certainly the prettiest, I felt rather underwhelmed at it. The gameplay is decent and fun enough, but it hasn’t really been improved/iterated upon much since the release of Uncharted 2 back in 2009. The story feels kind of weak and somewhat predictable by now, and some characters just don’t get enough screen time (like Marlene). And there’s the multiplayer mode, which has never felt particularly refined to me, and it’s essentially just a generic multiplayer 3rd person shooter, with no real innovation or uniqueness to it.
Titanfall 2 is by far the biggest competitor on this list to Overwatch. The single-player campaign is a truly unique, fun, and entertaining experience, and is great fun to replay on higher difficulties. The multiplayer is generally well balanced, all DLC is free, and there’s a lot of content here to boot. But the game faces one major issue, and that is it’s multiplayer population. The game is already suffering from a rapidly deteriorating userbase on PC, and a slower, but still steady decline on PS4 and XB1. It’s looking worryingly like Titanfall 1, in that, although the multiplayer may be great fun, there won’t be a community to play it with.
Overwatch may have downfalls like 95% of the lore being outside of the game, not too many modes, and no single player content, but all the content that is there feels neccesary, refined to the extreme, and carefully polished and made to be as solid of an experience as possible.
As some other posters have pointed out, it’s hard to argue that Overwatch is feature “incomplete” when compared to a lot of other things that have been released this year. Vastly bug free at launch, high polish, tons of fun. I mean, what other title would you say is more worthy?
A lot of thought to be contenders this year turned out to be massive disappointments, including Division, No Man’s Sky while others had various launch performance issues like Deus Ex, Dishonoured 2.
I can’t name another title this year that has dominated the mind share of the scene this year as much as Overwatch has, lived up to its hype, not to mention influenced the industry and genre to take a good look at itself in terms of game and art direction. Hell, I’d give it to Overwatch alone for finally giving us the first mutliplayer FPS on PC since bloody TF2 that isn’t about space marines fighting other space marines (space marines in this context being generic modern military shooter grunt).
If only Eternal Crusade was good…
LOL! i said it when it came out.. Game of the Year 2016: Witcher 3 DLC and what happened, Blood and Wine got Best RPG of 2016. Congrats CDPR and Congrats Jeff and the Overwatch team
Dark Souls 3 should have won best RPG. Disappointed an expansion pack passes as a game, as good as it was.
Considering the amount of content in that expansion pack, it might as well be considered its own game.
W3 is probably one of the greatest RPG experiences to have ever been released, and Blood and Wine only served to give you more of that experience, while still being able to offer its own unique touches that separates itself positively from the main game.
Blood and Wine was great but its not the best RPG of 2016, its an expansion on a game released last year, 2015, which received a lot of awards, even game of the year.
I think its a real cop out. Blood and Wine was fantastic but its not its own game, you can’t purchase it on its own. Dark Souls 3 delivered, it scored great, it played well and it sold more than any other in the Souls series. From Software worked just as hard and Bloodborne was incredible last year, it got eaten by The Witcher (which I dont disagree with) but it could easily be argued as being just as revolutionary its incredible attention to detail, combat which makes The Witcher feel like something from 2003 and a story that is unique and twisted, not some Dandelion pantaloon wearing shit.
And as I said, Blood and Wine can pretty much stand as its own game, which is something shared by a lot of people. I think it says a lot about the strengths of and Blood and Wine to be able to take RPG of the year and the only thing in question is its eligibility. It sure wouldn’t be the first time an expansion has been given such an award.
have more fun with Tetris than I do OverW