The Game Awards GOTY For 2022 Is Elden Ring

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I'm a blind fanboy, while you're at it I'm a Pinball Wizard.

Was so happy to see Bill Clinton take home an award today!

Oh, and Kirby winning was pretty cool too.

Shoutouts to Bill Clinton. Congratulations on the reformation.

Amazing, amazing game. Well deserved.

On another topic, Nintendo had a surprisingly good night at the Awards. Doug Bowser was going up on stage a lot grabbing awards.

Vary well deserved, wile I never beat it, will get to that at some point. It definitely was one of the best games I played this year!

Also I’m so happy splatoon won best multiplayer!

I knew Xenoblade was going to get snubbed in every category, but they didn't even do its music justice when going through the nominees. Glad Bayonetta got some recognition, and Splatoon was also a surprise.

Can someone explain the shout out to Bill Clinton? I didn't get that.

@kingbk Random kid got up on stage with the Elden Ring devs and hung around until he could get on the mic. Bro got arrested lol

Congrats to Bill Clinton for winning GOTY

@PikaPhantom Oh ok lol.

Also out of all the announcements, hades 2 still takes the cake for me, there were so many amazing ones, which I can’t believe that I’m saying for a game awards show, but man, hades knocked it out of the park for me.

I hope this is the last Elden Ring news I ever see.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I think Elden Ring is a Masterpiece. I'm still playing a lot of Switch, but I picked up an X Box Series S for Elden Ring.

Was well deserved! It was the game I spent the most time with this year by far, and I didn’t want to play anything else for a while after I beat it, which to me is always a sign of one of the greats.

So, what did you think of this year's show?
Didn't watch it, just came here for the highlights without all the bloat.
Some good announcements, glad I didn't watch it though as it was more gaming time for me.😜

Elden Ring is arguably the most influential game since Breath of the Wild. A well deserved win.

Honestly just a breathtaking game at every turn. Fully deserved.

@Freek Honestly, it might have been the best one so far, and I say that as someone who hasn't been a huge fan of the show.

Some really good game announcements. Nintendo did well at the show and got a lot of awards. And my favorite game of 2022, Elden Ring, won.

I was impressed.

Elden Ring losing to a game where the characters won’t shut up telling you what to do and how to solve puzzles certainly would have been depressing.

So glad to see Elden Ring won GOTY but sad to see Xenoblade Chronicles 3 not able to take home any award, it should had take best music at least but oh well. I had a feeling if Elden Ring got this popular From Software would definitely port it to Switch soon or the Switch 2 at the very least.

Well deserved win for Bill Clinton Elden Ring.

Great to see Nintendo take home a few awards. Would've been even better if Xenoblade 3 took home an award, but oh well.

@PikaPhantom @kingbk
Turns out the kid was an anti-semite trying to say something bad, but just ended up saying nonsense

Call me toxic, but I have never seen a person who disclaims Elden Ring in any way be anything other than... well... pretty toxic!

You are more likely to see bad behavior from ppl on reddit, discord pugs, and video services. That is true of everything on those platforms.

But, in-game and in chat spaces that don't incentivize bad behavior, I've gotten nothing but positive experiences from Elden Ring players. They've helped me understand the mechanics, build design, and even pvp has only had a handful of jerks. I've seen one confirmable cheater.

As for From, I don't always agree with their decisions, but, in comparison to other developers, I don't really see a difference. Every segment of the community — from tryhard guide users, hardmode fans, easymode fsns, ... ppl who don't even own the game — the company honestly just seems like it is told that it's wrong by everybody, and they got so big so fast they don't know how to manage their community engagement.

@Snatcher Hades II blew my mind. It's not every day you get a sequel to your favorite game ever when waking up at 2 AM but here we are. I'm so happy😭

@TheDragonDAFan Bill Clinton kid was the highlight of the night.

@kingbk basically some goofy kid got up on the stage and said something about Bill Clinton, it was meant to be offensive but I don’t think English was his first language so he said the wrong thing and it became a giant meme.

@GreenTea On top of that it’s the first time supergiant made a sequel! Making it that much more inspected!

I don't buy a lot of games day 1, but this year I bought:

Elden Ring
Kirby
Bayonetta 3
Splatoon
XC3

I think that's it. I bought HFW 1/2 off Black Friday and will probably do the same next year for GoWR and Mario v Rabbids 2.

Zelda and Pikmin 4 will be day 1 next year, and 1 of those is going to win an award.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I mean, glitched quest lines, bugs, poor balancing in character builds, reused bosses, lazy copy pasted endings and worse boss design than the last 3 Souls games? It was good for what it was but I wouldn't call it the best. It definitely deserved to be nominated in all it's categories though

The flute player from the orchestra was all in 💯

Didn't watch the show per se but was keeping an eye on developments. Decent winners all around for the most part, though I still think Xenoblade Chronicles 3 deserved Best OST. An amazing medley though. Flute guy definitely was into it and was a highlight.

Never expected Bill Clinton Simulator to take home an award.

Tastes differ and I so do the ones that get to jury an award show, but... even the OST? Whenever I get to play GoWR, I better be floored.😏

As some copium for those possibly salty about GOTY, though - BotW got the thing back in 2017 and all the world seemingly got out of it is the game's name degraded to an autopilot moniker for fans and tabloids to slap on every later cel-shaded open-worlder under the sun. At least, when Bamco releases the next Tales, it won't have to deal with being called "a Xenoblade 3 clone". Heck, maybe Elden Ring won because the jury figured it was already a "soulslike" in gamers' eyes itself and thus immune to the side effect?😜😆

The only awards I didn't agree with was OST & RPG, Elden Ring and Xenoblade had a way better OST than GoW. As for RPG, why was Elden Ring a nominee? It really was the odd one out compared to the other nominees, and imo ER should have been in the Action/Adventure category.

@locky-mavo Because technically it IS an RPG. It's just more an action/adventure game with RPG elements. Kind of what I imagine Zelda II would have been like if it came out now instead of in 1988.

@kingbk
"Technically" an RPG, but more of an Action/Adventure? That just sounds stupid to me.

Well Deserved and I'm glad Nintendo Won many awards.

The fact that Kirby won best family game warms my heart. 😊

@kingbk RPG and adventure are not mutually exclusive because a lot of RPGs are adventure games. And, as an adventure game, I'd say Xenoblade is better. Elden Ring like BOTW is more of an exploration game than an adventure game.

Looking forward to playing Elden Ring on the next Switch. (I would assume they are still using the startegy of first party, indie and proven third parties.)

My personal GotY is Pokémon Legends Arceus with Kirby as no. 2 and Splatoon 3 as 3.

Well this was definitely an event to remember. I loved the creativity of the game trailers while Elden Ring winning Game of the Year is good I guess. Another excuse to invest for multiplatform parity

It's a huge shame though that XC3 didn't even beat it to best RPG, even if Elden Ring won a lot of awards, that spot looked perfectly deserved to Xenoblade... but at least it's nice to see Nintendo getting many awards, even if their only current console is not "new gen". But alas, so many games were showcased today, very interesting games, including Switch and other who not. I have to admit a lot of them like Street Fighter 6 are gaining my interest, I hope Nintendo is also interested in them.

And Zelda TotK won Most Anticipated Game. Well that shows why they need to release more footage!

Nice. Too bad they messed Xenoblade 3 by placing it on the last spot in every voting category. Subconsciously saying: don't vote this.

Then again who cares it's the real goty after all. Almost everyone who played both XB3 and Elden Ring thoroughly repeat this mantra.

Really? There was better games than ER and ER won?

@SalvorHardin if that's your only takeaway you probably haven't played the last two God of War games, which were incredible works of art like top tier

Havent played elden ring yet, hope to get to it eventually, not usually a big from software fan as dark souls is maddening tough and repetitive and grim and ugly but elden ring looks gorgeous even if the game still looks like it plays all stiff with lots of clipping and awkward movements like a ps3 game but the sense of discovery and awe looks great

I'm ticked off Genshit Impact Credit card won the players choice through bribery should've off been pulled out of the running for that.

@SalvorHardin Yeah. I can’t believe God Of War is rated so high. It has great production but the sheer degree of bad exposition in the game should be disqualifying.

Nice. I am really happy for Kirby. A really good day for Nintendo.

Best action game, Best multiplayer game, Best strategy game, Best family game...

The biggest winner of the night was Nintendo, with 4 Switch exclusives winning big genre categories!

Proof that From Software just gets lucky. They released Sekiro and Elden Ring in the weakest 2 years of the last 10. Nothing to compete against Elden Ring this year except for two boring sequels.

Personally I'm a PC player, and I hate the Switch hardware. Even so my favorite games of the year are Kirby (awesome!) Xenoblade 3 and Pokemon Scarlet (which I play multiplayer on my PC with my friend). PC really sucked this year.

2023 is the banger. Starfield would have crushed Elden Ring.

@MarsOne play all 3 at 4k/60fps and enjoy them much more!

No Xenoblade. Noo.

Elden Ring is a good game, yes, but move on...

Also so happy Kirby got an award. Incredible fun playing it with my niece and nephew.

@Aezetz Elden Ring is a crappy game. I said it. Not for me. I'm glad the people that just play souls type games over and over liked it. More of the same for them.

@MontyCircus yeap! 4 wins for Nintendo! 2022 was a weak year but Nintendo had 6 great games out this year.

My goty is Ragnarok but can't deny the love & praise elden ring has received from the gaming community

Xenoblade 3 best RPG of the year.
Rabbids best strategy game.
Kirby best family game.
Bayonetta 3 best action game.
Tactics Ogre best remake.
Pokemon Scarlett is super fun. I'm playing multiplayer with my PC and my high school best friend. Multiplayer FINALLY.
My main disappointment this year was Triangle Strategy. God that was boring. 3 hours to start the game, I didn't even continue. I might try the game again with mods on PC that speed it to double speed. I liked Octopath Traveler so much so I'm hoping for Octopath Traveler 2 to be the best RPG next year.
Splatoon is the best multiplayer game for some. Not for me, but hey, I pretty much just play Overwatch.
Quite a year Nintendo.

So is this Eldin ring basically Dark souls 4? I've been hearing good things and something about the game of thrones guy being involved with the game. Is it really that good?

@kingbk I bought a steam deck just to play eldin ring on the go since my switch can’t do that, haven’t touched my switch in a couple months now, and probably won’t until zelda comes out. I didn’t know it has a bunch of PlayStation games I haven’t played either

@Fizza Actualy soul's type games are critical darlings that many of us think suck. They called Sekiro game of the year also.

I played Elden Ring for hours, then uninstalled. Piece of crap game on PC in particular.

@Purgatorium I doubt it, given the dlc that's expected.

How the hell did rabbids win best strategy when Total Warhammer III is immensely better...

@FishyS Arceus didn't deserve to be nominated for anything let alone win something. It was a step forward in the right direction for Pokemon without a doubt, but still lags far behind the rest of the industry.

Cross the fog, to the Lands Between, to stand before the Elden Ring.

Seriously haven't consumed a game like that since LoZ BotW or Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Absolutely poured hour after hiur exploring the Lands Between. Haven't had an experience like that ever really as most games are franchised so you recognize a lot of the bosses & enemies, so having so much great new content at such a high level of detail and handled with so much care felt absolutely amazing. Kudos to FromSoftware. Of course similarities to other Souls games but there's a reason this won art direction as well!

If only I could actually PLAY it. T-T

@Purgatorium Just wait until the DLC

@Truegamer79 If you like that type of game, yes. It really is that good. Been playing From Soft games since 2011 and they really nailed it hard with Elden Ring. Easily the best game I’ve played in my life. Now I need to get my rookie numbers past 700 hours!

Kirby atfl: Best family game
Splatoon 3: Best multiplayer game
Bayonetta 3: Best Action game
Mario+Rabids: Best strategy game
Zelda totk: most anticipated game

@tabris95 It’s the best, and calling the development team lazy is incredibly ignorant.

I’ve played Elden Ring more than any other new game in the last five years easily, it’s wonderful, and I continue to go back to it.

As for Ragnarok’s soundtrack - I still haven’t played XC3, so I can’t compare directly. I found that Rag’s soundtrack was not only excellent, but also a huge, huge improvement over GoW18’s, which was weak and almost non-existent (same goes for cinematography). That level of improvement may have colored voting.

The amount of music, quality of the music, effective long-term theming, and scoring in scenes and battles were well thought out and professional. It also helps that this music got to accompany great battles and a story that is powerful at times and manages to achieve beauty when it matters most. Performance, narrative, and music support each other.

I personally got bored with it and didn't bother finishing it, but that doesn't mean I can't see the appeal it has to many others. That goes for this genre in general, though.

I did find Elden Ring to be way too flawed/limited technically to be considered 'perfect' in any way. It looked dated and performed badly, whilst the PC version lacks the most mundane options like widescreen support or unlocked framerate, which is still locked at 60. This was particularly annoying on my widescreen 144Hz monitor.

Some of the other titles it was up against were just as great gameplay wise AND they were technically sublime & pushing boundaries, God of War for example. This gets them much closer to being 'perfect' and it places them above Elden Ring in my opinion, but to each their own.

Stray was robbed.

Tough choice between Elden Ring and Ragnarok (I didn’t finish the later yet, and the former I played twice). Story-wise it’s GoW. The fighting is probably the best so far in gaming in ER. Tough choice.

I thought the awards this year were pretty fair. Yes God of War and Elden Ring did sweep a lot of categories but that was completely expected. Honestly it's just an honor that Xenoblade got nominated for several categories including GOTY (easily my pick!). Also Nintendo won pretty big in the other categories last night.

Wouldn't be my pick, but this was the expected choice.

To be fair, it actually renewed my interest in From Software, so that's something. After my time with Elden Ring, I completed Dark Souls Remastered as well.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was definitely my GOTY, though.

Leave it to the GOTY awards to expose the hypocrisy of the gaming fanbase each year.

With that said, we had a lot of great games this year and I wouldn't be mad whether or not Elden Ring won or not. Also it was cool to see more Nintendo properties get their deserved recognition.

Kirby winning best family game is so deserved. It is probably the most wholesome game I've ever played, even for a Kirby game.
I wonder how many hours I've spent in the Waddle Dee town just running around and greeting everyone.

@SonOfDracula @JohnnyC

I didn't know they were making DLC. So you telling me this is technically Elden Ring news to me. Damnit lol.

No wonder Xenoblade 3 didn't win the best music award either when this is how the nominations were presented on several sites including big ones such as Ign.

Best Score/Music
Olivier Deriviere – A Plague Tale: Requiem
Tsukasa Saitoh – Elden Ring
Bear McCreary – God of War: Ragnarok
Two Feathers – Metal Hellsinger
Yasunori Mitsuda

See the last one? It just says "Yasunori Mitsuda" as if it was some obscure name of the game (obviously it's the composer, or actually, one of them). Of course, they forgot to write the actual title of Xenoblade 3.

@SonOfDracula I'm not calling the team lazy. They still accomplished quite a lot and made a very good game, even under the conditions of crunch.

What is ignorant however, is pretending that having four of the six endings have the exact same short animation but with a different lighting effect and narration ISN'T lazy. Elden Ring is a good game but it's ignorant to ignore it's faults and areas it could improve upon just because the general public views it as a masterpiece. Criticism isn't inherently bad.

@tabris95 Criticize away, but you’re using the word lazy against the team that brought us the most incredible game of the decade. Cherry picking a couple of minor gripes that you personally hold against the game does not mean the team is lazy. It means you are difficult to please. It’s incredibly clear they worked their asses off, so when some armchair expert drools on the keyboard with “lazy ending/lazy copy paste” I don’t take the opinion seriously because it’s a damn lazy opinion.

Bill Clinton guy was whatever; the Flute Guy going off during the Game of the Year medley was the real MVP of the night. Got chills from how into it he was getting for Xenoblade 3's portion.

@SonOfDracula Once again, I'm not calling the team lazy. And once again I'm stating that Elden Ring is a very good game. This isn't a personal attack on anyone and there's no reason for you to be so offended lol. However, certain aspects that I've already stated could have used more attention and do bring the game down a bit for some people. I think it's always best to acknowledge flaws in order for the industry to learn and grow.

@tabris95 If you REALLY believed your own BS, you would be sending an email to From Soft with suggestions for improvement. Whining about the game to a random user on Nintendo Life, of all places, doesn’t magically improve the industry. lul Bring the game down to more people? Probably a skill issue lol

I mean, people who blindly follow a franchise are the most dangerous and leads to stagnation. Just look at Pokémon lol (Not that FromSoft is anywhere close to that bad)

And yeah, believe it or not, not everyone found the game to be a flawless experience and looked at the game objectively

@HotGoomba stray was the most overrated indie game of this year, tunic should've won best debut indie

Elden Ring was getting GOTY mentions when it first came out, and I think it was well deserved. Other games had better visuals and better narratives, but I think among triple A releases, it was the purest game that came out this year IMO.

Very salty Xenoblade fan.
Not for the missed GOTY obviously. That was never going to happen. But Best RPG? Best Music? Nothing huh? That's just wrong.
Xenoblade 3 is my game of the year at least.

Have yet to play GOW Ragnarok as I'm waiting for the PC release as I have zero plans to buy a PS5 (the games on it just do not do it for me and the exclusives I do want to play will either come to PC or will probably come to PC like FFXVI, FFVIIR2 and GOW:R).

But, I did play a fair bit of Elden Ring and it just doesn't do it for me. Fun game, I like the lore, but maybe open world Souls is just not a genre I like? The repeating bosses are annoying and the side dungeons are just meh. I much prefer Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 where the levels are tailored for you compared to Elden Ring where the dungeons are few and far between. If you haven't noticed I tend to prefer a more carefully curated linear experience than a a meh massive open world. It is one of the reasons Breath of the Wild is one of the few Zelda games I have no plans to replay as while amazing and generation defining the dungeons and bosses are probably the weakest in the series which tend to be 70% of my enjoyment with Zelda.

My GOTY has probably been Xenoblade 3, but even then the more I think about it I think I prefer Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade 2 + Torna over it. Overall this year has not been a great one for me as while I loved Pokemon SV, and Bayonetta 3 I've been going back to more older games like Castlevania Lords of Shadow, the Mass Effect Trilogy and the Pokemon back catalog more than new releases. I'm sure that will change next year with Fire Emblem Engage, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Final Fantasy XVI and Tears of the Kingdom.

I give 2022 a 7/10. Too much water.

Good performance at the Awards for games that are on Switch tbf

@tabris95 Send it to Fromsoft, if you truly believe that. Talking to me isn't going to improve the game lul I'm just calling out your ignorance with the lazy comment. Got nothing to do with blindly following or not. Anybody that calls a serious dev studio lazy is a lazy commenter that doesn't know how to look at something objectively.

@SonOfDracula You sure you're not blindly following? Because you come across pretty blind to me. I've stated multiple times that I never said and do not believe the dev studio itself is lazy. Looking at something objectively means to acknowledge it's strengths and flaws no matter how small. Put down your pitchfork and actually read 😂

@Kermit1Pineapple You sure play a mean pinball.

@Jiggies I was hoping someone would get that reference.

@tabris95 as someone who took a shine to Fromsoft games with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 and went back to Dark Souls 1 and Scholar of the First Sin... I just never clicked with Elden Ring. It just felt like openworld Dark Souls warts and all. Which is fine, but after playing the amazingly creepy and Lovecraftian halls of Yharnam... Elden Ring actually felt like a step backwards. The repeating bosses were highly annoying, the level design felt empty at times, the repeating mini-dungeons were a chore and the game's pacing never felt good.

I like the game, but it seemed to have learned all the wrong lessions from Scholar of the First Sin and popped me in an open world that felt more like a chore to explore than I'd like. Also, some of the best bosses of the game went to unfair catagory more than frustrating, but rewarding.

To remind people I still enjoyed my time with the game, but it's far from perfect.

@Wexter I absolutely adore Bloodborne and it's Old Hunters DLC. I pretty much completely agree with all your points. Honestly I'm very excited for Armored Core VI and hope a break from the Souls formula does them some good

I loved this game, it was different but I have a hard time explaining
why.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I've played through every Souls game and will happily say that Elden Ring is the worst one by far.

The amount of recycled content in the game is insane and a lot of the time I felt like I was fighting the same enemies and doing nothing of note. This isn't to mention the fact that even if you play the game in intended order, you'll still be completely overpowered halfway through the game and a lot of the boss designs are awful.

I've said my thoughts in full before, on the list it was probably the one to most likely win the GOTY but I don't think it's a masterpiece and no, I'm not a 'blind fanboy' for thinking that lol.