The titular Astro Bot looms over an orchestra playing a medley from the soundtracks to the six Game of the Year nominees.
The Game Awards
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The Game Awards
Astro Bot claimed four wins, including Game of the Year, at the 2024 Game Awards.
The PlayStation 5 exclusive has players run, hover-jump, and rocket-blast to collect stranded robots across a cartoony galaxy. While the game celebrates three decades of Sony’s console history, Studio Director Nicolas Doucet credited Nintendo in a misty-eyed acceptance speech (though he avoided mentioning the competitor by name):
“I was a kid in 1989, I got a gray box and there was a game packed in — it was called Super Mario Brothers and it was really, really great,” said Doucet. “I want to pay tribute to the company who really showed us innovation and quality consistently, and inspired us to make the game that we made.”
Nintendo, meanwhile, went home empty-handed after a night defined by sweeps, surprise reveals, fourth-wall breaks and celebrity appearances from the likes of Harrison Ford and Snoop Dogg.
Just a sampling of the many Jokers of Balatro, winner of three prizes at The Game Awards.
Playstack
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Playstack
Balatro, a poker-style game from solo-developer LocalThunk, won “Best Debut Indie,” “Best Independent Game” and “Best Mobile Game.” Despite this dominance, the representative who accepted awards on LocalThunk’s behalf tried to shout out the indie scene more broadly, calling out pixel western Arco by name.
Big-budget games otherwise stole the spotlight. The ceremony began with a surprise announcement trailer for Elden Ring: Nightreign, a co-op spinoff to the 2022 hit. The studio head behind 2021 Game of the Year winner It Takes Two also revealed the two-player adventure Split Fiction, out next March. Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul and renowned voice actor Laura Bailey showed off the next game they performed in: a tongue-in-cheek superhero story named Dispatch. And just when the show seemed fresh out of revelations, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog dropped a cinematic trailer for an entirely new franchise, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
Host Geoff Keighley also acknowledged mass layoffs in the industry — something critics lambasted him for ignoring in 2023’s ceremony. He even announced a new “Gamechanger Award,” which went to Amir Satvat, an employee of gaming tycoon Tencent who also runs a pro-bono support site for developers looking for work.
Muppet critics Statler and Waldorf mock the proceedings at The Game Awards.
The Game Awards
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The Game Awards
But it wouldn’t be The Game Awards without the Muppets. Garrulous grumps Statler and Waldorf co-opted frequent criticisms of the awards in a series of running gags. After one rapid-fire battery of announcements, they jabbed that “it was like the game commercials with award interruptions!”. But as the broadcast stretched toward its fourth hour, they also expressed the exhaustion many in the audience seemed to be feeling, “my Final Fantasy is for this show to be over.”
Most decorated games
Astro Bot — 4 wins (including Game of the Year), 7 nominations
Metaphor: ReFantazio — 3 wins, 6 nominations
Balatro — 3 wins, 5 nominations
Black Myth: Wukong — 2 wins, 5 nominations
Helldivers 2 — 2 wins, 4 nominations
Senua’s Sage: Hellblade 2 — 2 wins (including lead actor Melina Juergens win for Best Performance), 4 nominations
A screenshot from Elden Ring: Nightreign — surprise announced at The Game Awards.
Bandai Namco
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Bandai Namco
A quick note before listing the full winners: NPR is one of the more than 130 outlets that contributed ballots to The Game Awards, which picked winners based on those tallies and an open online voting system.
Full Winners
Game of the Year
- WINNER: Astro Bot
- Balatro
- Black Myth: Wukong
- Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
Best Game Direction
- WINNER: Astro Bot
- Balatro
- Black Myth: Wukong
- Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
Best Narrative
- WINNER: Metaphor: ReFantanzio
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
- Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
- Silent Hill 2
Best Art Direction
- WINNER: Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Astro Bot
- Black Myth: Wukong
- Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
- Neva
Best Score and Music
- WINNER: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Astro Bot
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Silent Hill 2
- Stellar Blade
Best Audio Design
- WINNER: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
- Astro Bot
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Silent Hill 2
Best Performance
- WINNER: Melina Juergens, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
- Hannah Telle, Life is Strange: Double Exposure
- Briana White, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Humberly González, Star Wars Outlaws
- Luke Roberts, Silent Hill 2
Innovation in Accessibility
- WINNER: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Diablo 4
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Star Wars Outlaws
Games for Impact
- WINNER: Neva
- Closer the Distance
- Indika
- Life is Strange: Double Exposure
- Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
- Tales of Kenzera: Zau
Best Ongoing Game
- WINNER: Helldivers 2
- Destiny 2
- Diablo 4
- Final Fantasy 14
- Fortnite
Best Community Support
- WINNER: Baldur’s Gate 3
- Final Fantasy 14
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- No Man’s Sky
Best Independent Game
- WINNER: Balatro
- Animal Well
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
- Neva
- UFO 50
Best Debut Indie Game
- WINNER: Balatro
- Animal Well
- Manor Lords
- Pacific Drive
- The Plucky Squire
Best Mobile Game
- WINNER: Balatro
- AFK Journey
- Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket
- Wuthering Waves
- Zenless Zone Zero
Best VR/AR Game
- WINNER: Batman: Arkham Shadow
- Arizona Sunshine Remake
- Asgard’s Wrath 2
- Metal: Hellsinger VR
- Metro Awakening
Best Action Game
- WINNER: Black Myth: Wukong
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Helldivers 2
- Stellar Blade
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Best Action/Adventure Game
- WINNER: Astro Bot
- Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
- Silent Hill 2
- Star Wars Outlaws
- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Best RPG
- WINNER: Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Dragon’s Dogma 2
- Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Best Fighting Game
- WINNER: Tekken 8
- Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
- Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO
- Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
- MultiVersus
Best Family Game
- WINNER: Astro Bot
- Princess Peach: Showtime!
- Super Mario Party Jamboree
- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
- The Plucky Squire
Best Sim/Strategy Game
- WINNER: Frostpunk 2
- Age of Mythology: Retold
- Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
- Manor Lords
- Unicorn Overlord
Best Sports/Racing Game
- WINNER: EA Sports FC 25
- F1 24
- NBA 2K25
- Top Spin 2K25
- WWE 2K24
Best Multiplayer Game
- WINNER: Helldivers 2
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Super Mario Party Jamboree
- Tekken 8
- Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2
Best Adaptation
- WINNER: Fallout
- Arcane
- Knuckles
- Like a Dragon: Yakuza
- Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft
Most Anticipated Game
- WINNER: Grand Theft Auto 6
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Ghost of Yotei
- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
- Monster Hunter Wilds
Content Creator of the Year
- WINNER: CaseOh
- IlloJuan
- Techno Gamerz
- TypicalGamer
- Usada Pekora
Best Esports Game
- WINNER: League of Legends
- DOTA 2
- Counter-Strike 2
- Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
- Valorant
Best Esports Athlete
- WINNER: Faker – Lee Sang-hyeok
- 33 – Neta Shapira
- Aleksib – Aleksi Virolainen
- Chovy – Jeong Ji-hoon
- ZyWoO – Mathieu Herbaut
- ZmjjKk – Zheng Yongkang
Best Esports Team
- WINNER: T1 (League of Legends)
- Bilibili Gaming (League of Legends)
- Gen.G (League of Legends)
- NAVI (Counter-Strike)
- Team Liquid (DOTA 2)
Player’s Voice
- WINNER: Black Myth: Wukong
- Genshin Impact
- Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
- Wuthering Waves
- Zenless Zone Zero
