This year's Golden Joystick Awards winners have now been announced, and we have the full list of winners for you below.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons earned 'Nintendo Game of the Year', which we must say is absolutely deserved considering the impact it had worldwide earlier in the year. Nintendo hasn't received all that much love elsewhere, however, with PlayStation's The Last of Us Part II taking home a huge number of awards.
Here's the full list:
The 2020 Golden Joystick Award winners are:
- Best Storytelling: The Last of Us Part II
- Best Multiplayer Game: Fall Guys
- Best Visual Design: The Last of Us Part II
- Best Game Expansion: No Man’s Sky: Origins
- Mobile Game of the Year: Lego Builder’s Journey
- Best Audio: The Last of Us Part II
- Best Indie Game: Hades
- Still Playing: Minecraft
- Studio of the Year: Naughty Dog
- Esports Game of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
- Best New Streamer / Broadcaster: iamBrandon
- Best Family Game: Fall Guys
- Best Gaming Community: Minecraft
- Best Performer: Sandra Saad (Critics Choice)
- Breakthrough Award: Among Us (Critics Choice)
- Hall of Fame: Team17 / Worms (Critics Choice)
- PC Game of the Year: Death Stranding
- Best Gaming Hardware: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
- PlayStation Game of the Year: The Last of Us Part II
- Xbox Game of the Year: Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- Nintendo Game of the Year: Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Most Wanted Game: The next God of War game
- Critics Choice Award: Hades (Critics Choice)
- Ultimate Game of the Year: The Last of Us Part II
More than three million votes were cast to determine the winners in the 20 categories above. Daniel Dawkins, Content Director, Games and Film at GamesRadar+ has shared the following:
"Thank you to all the developers, publishers, performers and broadcasters who have made this year’s virtual award ceremony possible, joining us from your homes and offices all over the world. We are truly humbled by everyone who has worked so hard to create and release games in this difficult year, and to everyone who has rallied around the Golden Joystick Awards.
"Finally, the biggest thank you goes to the millions of gaming fans who played and then voted for their picks of the year. This year, more than ever, games have brought people together and provided much needed escapism, empowerment and community. We've been celebrating the people who make games for 38 years, and it's never felt so important to come together and recognise their achievements."
Do you agree with the winners listed above? Any other games you would have picked instead? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Comments 88
Ofcourse the worst game of the year is "the best". Figures.
Animal Crossing should be Ultimate best game of the year.
Esports Game of the Year; COD.....
WTF ?
Glad Hades is on that list. That’s all I’ve been playing lately.
"Nintendo Game of the Year: Animal Crossing: New Horizons"
My reaction :
No Tsushima here? That's weird as this game is awesome. It's good they have honored Sucker Punch studio at least.
How do you have a 'Most Wanted' Awards category and not include Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 in the nominations.
What a joke.
Good to see the Hades love.
@Folkloner I loved Breath of the Wild and God of War, but I think because of the characters and teaser at the end of God of War I just want the sequel to that a bit sooner than Breath of the Wild 2. Both will be day 1 purchases for me though. Agreed that Breath of the Wild 2 should have been an option.
Animal Crossing winning best Nintendo game this year doesn't feel like a massive achievement considering both the quality of the game and the competition. Voting for that is the equivalent of passing the first few letters of an eye test.
@sanderev I'm halfway through it and really enjoying it. Well-made with a gripping story. Haven't played enough games this year to say it's objectively the best, but it's definitely not the worst.
Fall Guys wins best family game.. seriously.. facepalm Ah well, that's embarrassing. Did people actually forget to vote for good games. 😵
That's no surprise as Nintendo didn't really release much this year, I hoped that ghost of tushima would of took the main prize as none of the other nominees deserved it to me
Eh, where in the living **** is Half-Life: Alyx on this list. I mean, Animal Crossing wins something, and Half-Life: Alyx isn't even mentioned. Arguably the best VR game to date, and also outright one of the very best games of the year all round on any platform. I'm not happy that VR apparently didn't even get mentioned. WTF!
@Gerald "Esports Game of the Year; COD.....
WTF ?"
I know, right. Should be smash bros. 😎
@Judgedean I've been holding off on buying Hades due to my massive backlog (I've recently picked Breath of the Wild back up, after not touching it for years, with the hopes of finishing it before checking out Calamity)
No love for Ghost of Tsushima is sad indeed. Far superior to the Last of Us Part II in every department.
ACNH doesn't deserve game of the year, not until we get a Froggy Chair, Resetti, Gyroids and furniture sets.
Best family game Fall guys over animal crossing? PC game of the year is Death Stranding over Half life or Crusader Kings 3? What a joke of a list.
BWHAHAHAH! The last of us part II winning so much is a joke right? RIGHT?!?
Best PC game is a console port…
@NotoriousWhiz haha, not what I meant. Nothing against COD, but it’s hardly a Sport. Or maybe it is, do they have home & away kits ?
The lack of love for FF7R hurts
@Nourldean PC game of the year is the one that really sticks out for me, too. A port of a PS4 game? It’s not even the best PS4 port of the year - that would be Horizon Zero Dawn. But Crusader Kings III or Half Life Alyx should have taken the crown, or Hades, given that it properly released just this year.
@Krull The actual port of Horizon was terrible with tons of bugs. Death Stranding on PC is the optimal way to play and the conversion was top tier. KojiPro does good work.
Well, it was either that or Paper Mario (I suppose remakes like Xenoblade or Pokémon MD were excluded from the list and Hyrule Warriors 2 was released too late). Not too surprising then, 2020 wasn't exactly the best year for the Switch.
I know awards shows are all political theatre but they could at least pretend they're not giving out awards based on wokeness.
The end of year polls where actual gamers get to vote for GOTY will be interesting.
tlou2 absolutely deserved every category it won, fantastic game
@PickledKong64 😱
I still play this game regularly and update my island's look for the seasons. Considering its cultural impact during covid and it being the right game at the right time, I believe it deserves the title too. It's def my game of 2020.
@3RedTriangles shut up
I was really hoping 51 Games would pull off a shocker to beat out Animal Crossing....
@3RedTriangles WTF are you going on about?
@UmbreonsPapa
SHH don't tell him that the Game of The Year Category where The Last of Us Part 2 won was user voted...oops
@3RedTriangles You seem to have misunderstood.
The Golden Joysticks are the largest video games awards voted for by fans. It holds the Guinness World record for number of votes. (4+ million in 2012) so is all the public in cahoots? or are you just wrong.
@Sonicvic That's what I was thinking when I read "Best Nintendo Game", it had to be ACNH b/c the only other game Nintendo made this year was Paper Mario. Which was a great game, got it day 1, played it straight thru, really enjoyed it, but it certainly doesn't have the clout or cache of ACNH as the pandemic sanity game.
But then I read the PS and Xbox games, and realized the category "Nintendo" wasn't about games Nintendo made, it was games on the Switch. Which is a much larger group. And it still probably goes to ACNH, which makes me think despite all the games Switch got this year, it really wasn't a very good year for the Switch. Too many ports, not enough AAA new games. Best game I played this year on Switch was Luigi's Mansion 3 from last year.
I haven't seen the category list but I do wonder if Ring Fit Adventure got nominated for anything. I don't have it yet, waiting on a sale, maybe Christmas, but it was one of those games that certainly benefited from the pandemic.
How did Animal Crossing: New Horizons not get Best Family Game Award?! How did Fall Guys get that?!
How many grandmas do you see playing Fall Guys over Animal Crossing?! This must have been rigged...
After 2+ years of being left in the dark, Among Us is now getting so much love, that is impressive, they got very lucky and definitely have earn that Breakthrough Award
@MrMetroid You are absolutely right! Let me rephrase that: Horizon Zero Down is not the best PS4 port on PC this year, but the best PS4 game ported to PC. I’d still rather play HZD than Death Stranding - though that doesn’t mean Kojima’s game isn’t decent. GotY, though? Hmmm...
Still, lists, eh? If they didn’t provoke argument, they’d be boring.
Hades is my GOTY by far
@Bizaster just because a character you like died doesnt mean its bad
This was voted for by the public. All it means is that the whole argument people had about critics being biased and ‘the people’ hating TLOU2 was absolute garbage.
Ok, these awards are kind of a joke. It's the Golden Marketing awards, not the Golden Joystick. They appear to have just selected the games with the biggest marketing budget in each category. Best story telling TLoU2? That's the most controversial part of the game other than the torture porn. Even if I could look past the Sony-centric bias of this (Death Stranding is the best PC game???) there's the oddity that their best PS game isn't the best PS game unless they forgot GoT. Or their own best PC pick of Death Stranding.
Weeeirrrrd awards.
Last Of Us 2 for the win! We’ll deserved. Beautiful gripping and emotionally charged game! Kept me at the edge of my seat every second of the game. Congrats Naughty Dog! Give me more Last of Us!
Nintendo needs to pick up the pace next year with more original games. I’m a Nintendo guy so all these re-released ports I’ve already played. I’m not complaining since I enjoyed Pikmin 3 again, it was nice to revisit some of of these Gems but I’d appreciate new content as well.
@3RedTriangles WTH are you taking about? Wokeness? Did you even play the TLOU2? I swear, every time there’s a game with LGBTQ characters people think developers are acting woke. The game is about a post apocalyptic world. It just so happens that 1 of the protagonists is gay. Geez.
Don’t be a snowflake.
Just a reminder that Fortnite won over RDR2 in golden joystick awards 2018. Award shows mean nothing and won’t change my opinion on the crap that is TLOU2.
Last of us 2 story was so trash, the real winner is Ghost of Tsushima. Just pick whatever game/movie "critics" hate and you will never be disappointed.
Cool. But COD isn’t an esport title.
Lol at the 3080 winning.
@woke Sounds like “trash” beat Ghost of Tsushima in many categories. You must be drowning in a sea of tears. Boo hoo 😭
Snowflake.
@Donnerkebab eh TLOU2 is trash compared to GOT.
GOT is too repetitive and I never finished it though. Probably just burned out on open world games.
This games terrible story was written for one reason only, to please the rainbow crowd. That includes non gamers, social activists, sjw's, hair-dyed feminists, including their friend zoned male counterparts, and the corporate heads scared of the small, but incredibly vocal ism crowd.
Sorry, I'm not even an Animal Crossing fan and I think it should be GOTY. The cultural impact the game had this year, plus the massive sales figures, are both historic. TLOU 2 is just another Sony interactive movie. For me, it's either Animal Crossing NH, Hades, Ori 2 and MAYBE Doom Eternal for GOTY.
@eleon Is anyone surprised by this going by how woke the gaming industry is?
@woke Surprised? No.
Heartbroken? Yes .
The game is criticized or downright hated because it's trash. Because the plot is trash, the characters unappealing, and the dialog cringe worthy. Being heavily political sure didn't help. And I know of women who didn't like this game, so there goes that argument down the toilet. Also, 5.7 user review from 150k people.
But at least some people feel superior to the rest of us. That's all that matters.
@eleon only masses it "won" was the reviewers it paid for good reviews, the actual player score is abysmal everywhere
Congrats to The Woke of Us Part II for winning the Golden Wokestick Awards.
@Sonicvic Animal Crossing NH is going to likely be the best selling game for the console, and two of the best third party games to be released this year came to the Switch (Hades, Ori 2). Yeah, it's not 2017 or even 2019 for the console, but there were still a lot of great games that came out for it.
Ghost of Tsushima was basically Assassin's Creed: Japan. A solid, fun game, but nothing ground breaking.
I'm still trying to find out more about how this award program runs. It's supposedly fan voted (though with no transparency, there's no way to know if those votes are overridden by internal choices.) But even among fan selections, I can't tell where they actually source the votes. I've never encountered much fanfare for players voting in them, so I don't know what audience or market they advertise the voting process. The fact that there's a perennial Sony bias indicates at a minimum the formats or venues they promote award voting presumably are PS centric venues, skewing the awards.
TLoU has off the charts sales, though it owes a lot of that to its launch sales, and was the first "big" game other than ACNH to launch in the pandemic, with a pandemic theme, no less, which likely bolstered sales somewhat artificially as well. But aside from sales numbers, it's also become a highly controversial game both from its polarizing political take, its game design, its storytelling, and its structure. I could see it being voted as "most significant" or "most influential" game of the year, as it created a lot of dialogue on various aspects, but to have such a controversial game of mixed opinion sweeping so many categories doesn't seem organic - the survey group sampled had to have been of narrow enough commonality to have such sweeping opinion. Though it does align with marketing and sales figures, which, no coincidence, tends to end up influencing most awards. It's not like even major awards like the Oscars haven't been known to have stuffed ballots that ignore the actual votes.
Naughty Dog as studio of the year is in itself an odd choice given their own internal conflicts and scandals.
I'd really like to know how they promoted the awards, where the voting player bases came from, and how they were targeted and selected. It doesn't seem very transparent at all, but there's enough inconsistency in their results this year and other years to indicate it's not very seriously run.
Well done A/C (although NO real competition). Kept me and Fam entertained for the last 8 months, not many games last that long
@JesWood13 wtf, why are you spoiling the game?
I haven’t played it before. Edit or delete your comment so others aren’t spoiled either.
Edit - thanks mods
I think it's fair to say there is a lot of money involved in these industry events considering the game that's taking home the most awards was published by a company with a long track record of paying and harassing reviewers into providing positive commentary (this is not restricted to The Last Of Us 2 or even just their gaming sector, either; Sony have been penalized for it across the world going back many years).
This is a company that invested millions of dollars publishing and (poorly) marketing a fanbase-dividing game which suffered an 80%+ drop in sales in only its second week after enjoying a curiously isolated record-breaking opening week. The Last Of Us 2 is a multi-million dollar game on the world's most popular console developed with a particularly long and severe level of employee crunch that was outsold handidly by Animal Crossing, a comparatively more conservatively-budgeted family-friendly title released on a very well-timed delay so as to minimize employee crunch. It stands to reason some small amount of money was likely involved in censorship era Sony's crown jewel title having taken as many industry back-pats as it has. Arrogant and disingenuous (or perhaps just naïve) dismissals like "It was voted on by the public," "That's how the Golden Joysticks work — this is why I'm incapable of engaging in discussions with people I disagree with lmao" are more laughable than meritous given the context. I say this as someone with a family member employed at Sony, though not in their games division. They are a truly God-awful company.
That said, 2020 was a naturally light year for Nintendo outside of Animal Crossing and the appropriately-titled Age Of Calamity, which is perhaps for the best. Nintendo properties are a little too good to release in a year like this one. Enjoy the "awards," Sony, well-earned.
@Judgedean
I almost feel like ‘Indie Game of the Year’ is faint praise. It is THE game of the year, full stop.
I'm happy to see that New Horizons got the Nintendo GotY. Love this game and it's definitely my favorite game of 2020.
Not a lot up there I would disagree with for once. Fall Guys, TLOU2, ACNH, Ori WTW, Hades are all great gaming that deserve recognition like this. Good to see Ori and Hades the Nintendo Switch. Would love to see Fall Guys on it one day.
What a joke. Death Stranding? Please.
I only even remotely like a tiny fraction of the games on this list. Most of them I have no interest in at all.
But let's be real, Animal Crossing is the only really major new release we got from Nintendo this year. I'm glad it won and I very much think it deserved overall GOTY, but among other Nintendo entries, it didn't really have much competition.
And people wonder why I have so little interest in Playstation and Xbox anymore. There's very little on those platforms that interest me anymore. Switch and PC are where it's at.
A bunch of pure fun games versus pretentious misery porn gee what a tough choice
@Varkster "but you have to understand that from a critical perspective it is absolutely flawed."
You have to understand that from a critical perspective what you just said is in no way objective - it's an opinion. Your opinion is perfectly valid - but so are the opinions of those who had a very different response to the game.
The moment-to-moment writing in TLoU2 is fantastic - some of the best of the generation. I grew to care about quite a few of the characters, and even when they made choices I strongly disagreed with I found their motivations pretty clearly developed and understandable.
I know the overall narrative is more divisive. While it follows a fairly unique trajectory for a video game, if you've read more than a handful of books or watched more than just movies that follow the Marvel formula it's unlikely that anything in TLoU2 will strike you as particularly outrageous or as some sort of egregious violation of the "rules" of storytelling.
(To be clear, I think there are perfectly legitimate criticisms to be made of the game's narrative - but a LOT of the complaints I've read online about the ostensibly "terrible writing" come off as childish whining because the story didn't go where they wanted it to go.)
As for the "awkwardly placed LGBT characters" - I'm afraid you're projecting some of your own weird hangups here. There are indeed a small handful of LGBT characters in the game - but their orientation isn't given undue focus, and they're no more or less "awkwardly placed" than any of the other characters. The individual character moments feel organic and natural - beyond that, there doesn't actually need to be any justification for them being written the way they are.
With all that said, I didn't love the game. Naughty Dog are great storytellers, but I'm kind of burned out on the "interactive movie" genre. I found the "clear out an area, watch a clip, sneak through a different area, watch another clip" gameplay loop kind of exhausting - especially when stretched out over 25+ hours. It's not that the gameplay itself is bad, it's that it wears thin after too long. I wanted to keep playing to see where the story went, but I really didn't want yet another level of trying to stealthily kill every person in the area. I'm glad I played it, but it's something I'm unlikely to ever re-visit.
Also: You're right about something - Naughty Dog doesn't care about me. Or you. They don't care that you think it's a "turd," or that I had mixed feelings about it but mostly liked it. They care that it's one of the best-selling games of the year, that a lot of gamers loved it, and that it's guaranteed to win a bunch of awards. No amount of kvetching from either of us is going to change their future plans.
@Varkster Also:
"everyone universally agrees that it should have won more awards than The Last of Us 2"
You need to expand your social circle a bit more if you think that's in any way a true statement.
I really hope video games don't become like television and films with a bunch of industry people giving themselves pats on the back.
@PBNightmare That does seem to be the trend, unfortunately.
Nice, well deserved wins for Animal Crossing and Hades. 👍
Hahahahahahaha! So many triggered Nintendo fans crying over TLOU2 win.
The game was still better than what Nintendo released this year.
@Guest88 now I do think you are a troll generally but I'm going to have to agree here.
The Last Of Us is probably better than every game on the Switch except BOTW. It's a heavy hitting game to be sure.
Animal Crossing was a fad that got out of hand because of the pandemic, had it not been for that, the game would probably be sitting on half those sales. But even so, sales don't make a good game, and Animal Crossing isn't really, in my opinion at least, a good game at all.
@3RedTriangles you should be surprised to learn then, that it is voted on by gamers 😭
@Varkster "this game is not goty" is your own opinion. Yes opinions are great, it's great that you can have your own opinion.
My personal opinion is that Animal Crossing and Mario Odyssey are two of the most overrated and down right terrible AAA games that have been made in the last decade.
but this is MY opinion, I don't imagine many people share my opinion.
In the same way that your opinion isn't shared by many people either... But it's just your opinion and is not a fact.
@Razer Even if AC was at half its sales it would be still be far, far above TLOU2.
TLOU2's interest collapsed after its launch. in the US in August(3rd month) fell off the charts where AC (6months in) was still in the charts.
If anything was the fad it's the GOTY bait on the best selling console which fell off a cliff in terms of sales yet mysteriously sweeps awards.
I'm not sure if Nintendo getting a Game of the Year category of their own is a good thing or a bad thing.
On the one hand, it could be seen as being fair to the other GotY contenders as Nintendo games are often much more heavily acclaimed than other games. They are in such a league of their own that they need their own category to be fair to the other contenders.
On the other hand, it can also be seen as a consolation prize, similar to how some heavily-acclaimed animated films like Spirited Away are only nominated for Best Animated Feature, and not nominated for Best Foreign Film and Best Picture as well, despite being one of, if not the most heavily-acclaimed film of the year.
And the only reason it didn't get nominated for those awards was just because it's animated.
@Razer I am certainly not a troll. I just think all this complaining about Tlou2 is meaningless since all this is subjective anyway.
@Varkster man you are triggered over others opinion. Stay away from the internet if you can’t handle the fact that many people liked the game enough to vote for it to become goty.
@Dr_Lugae. News flash: Most game lost interest after launch. This isn’t news or shocking if you have payed attention how AAA works. And one other thing: sales numbers has no bearing on awards. People who vote on the game actually matters.
Studio of the Year: Naughty Dog
Did they make any other games than TLoU2 released in 2020?
(It’s strange to have an award show when there’s still ~10% of the year left.)
@Varkster "fam" it's still just your opinion.
You can kick and scream like a little child all you want, it doesn't make your opinion right.
It's just your opinion, the majority of EVERYONE disagrees with you.
It honestly doesn't matter what point you think you've made about reviews and what deserves what.
Your opinion is ONLY your opinion, it's also a minority opinion.
So fam, pipe down.
@Sinton it doesn't matter, any game that gets released from now will be in Goty running for next year.
@Dr_Lugae that's your opinion to be fair.
I think AC is a shoddy clone of The Sims.
@Guest88 Usually something that's GOTY tier doesn't drop off 2 months after it's released.
Breath of the Wild GOTY 2017 actually increased in momentum as time passed. and a bit easier due to all the different versions but GOTY 2013 GTAV survived a generation shift and was glued to the charts.
They're games that people never stop wanting which fits a GOTY.
If there's a game that wins GOTY and people already stopped wanting that game during that year, then I'd criticise it as being designed specifically to win awards.
@Dr_Lugae most AAA goty did drop 2-3 month after they won. It’s funny you brought up BOTW sincerely Nintendo GOTY is exception to the rule.
@Varkster
“ What are you like 15? Telling me I'm triggered by others opinions? I'm expressing my own and arguing my points 😂😂”
Your entire argument boils to “ I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!”. Yeah this is great argument😂😂
” You need to step down Mr Guest, I'm not quite sure you know me enough to analyse that I need to stay off the internet.”
I don`t need analyzing to understand you having issue with other opinion. You throwing hissy fit few post up speak for itself.
” And yeah, enjoy listening to the publication that gave Fortnite GOTY 2018. Speaks for itself.”
Lol you proved me right.
@Varkster well you seem to be a bit immature, I'm not sure how old you actually are but you seem to be unaware of how opinions are subjective to one's own experience.
So you seem to think "The Last Of Us" was bad, and there are some circles that share your opinion. But the mainstream opinion on this is that this is a good game.
Now just because you say it isn't a good game, doesn't make the mainstream opinion wrong.
But it also doesn't make your opinion wrong either, now your opinion is the minority opinion and it's not shared by most people who have played the game.
You are entitled to it, in the same way that the mainstream opinion, stating this game is a masterpiece, is also acceptable.
Having a hissy fit because the mainstream opinion exists is your own shortcomings.
Simple as that.
Imo, AC didn’t deserve Nintendo GOTY. Should’ve been smash if it could’ve been nominated again. I just wasn’t able to get into these games after trying out New Leaf.
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