Games

All the Winners and New Release Reveals from the Game Awards 2015

The Game Awards 2015 took place in Los Angeles on December 3rd, celebrating the best of what the gaming world’s had to offer across the past 12 months, as voted for by a panel of judges including VICE. (Just to get that in there and out of the way.) While it’s only in its second year, the event’s already established itself as one of the biggest award shows in the industry, and also premieres several new games to come. This year’s winners and most interesting reveals are as follows.

Game of the Year: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Developer of the Year: CD Projekt RED (for The Witcher 3)
Best Independent Game: Rocket League
Best Mobile/Handheld Game: Lara Croft GO
Best Narrative: Her Story
Best Art Direction: Ori and the Blind Forest
Best Score/Soundtrack: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Best Performance: Viva Seifert (for Her Story)
Games for Change Award: Life Is Strange
Best Shooter: Splatoon
Best Action/Adventure: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Best Role-Playing Game: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Best Fighting Game: Mortal Kombat X
Best Family Game: Super Mario Maker
Best Sports/Racing Game: Rocket League
Best Multiplayer: Splatoon
Most Anticipated Game: No Man’s Sky
eSports Player of the Year: Kenny “KennyS” Schrub
eSports Team of the Year: Optic Gaming
eSports Game of the Year: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Trending Gamer: Greg Miller
Best Fan Creation: Portal Stories (by Mel, Prism Studios)

Videos by VICE

I’m really happy to see The Witcher 3 win the big one – it’s my personal game of the year. It’s also great to see Nintendo getting a trio of gongs split between Super Mario Maker and Splatoon, and Her Story, wow. Massive congratulations to maker Sam Barlow and actress Viva Seifert for their work on an entirely unprecedented indie achievement. You can hear us discuss that game on the VICE Gaming Podcast.

Between the awards, there was time for a tribute to late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, and awards host Geoff Keighley revealed that while Metal Gear Solid V director Hideo Kojima was invited to the event, a lawyer representing the game’s publishers Konami prevented him from doing so.

“As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight, and I want to tell you a little bit about that,” Keighley told the audience, watching in the room and online. “Mr Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight’s awards ceremony to accept any awards. He’s still under an employment contract and it’s disappointing, and it’s inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates.”

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The awards featured a good number of new game reveals and previously unseen trailers, the best of which we’ve embedded below:

‘The Walking Dead: Michonne’

An as-yet-unnamed Batman game by ‘The Walking Dead’ developers Telltale Games

The Xbox One version of ‘Rocket League’, with ‘Halo’ and ‘Gears of War’ cars

‘Psychonauts 2’!

‘Far Cry Primal’, gameplay premiere

More from ‘Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’

There were also clips of the newly rebooted Shadow Complex, more on Quantum Break and Star Citizen, the VR side to Rock Band 4 (which feels sort of pointless to me but what do I know), and a bunch of other things that you might want to check out and can by heading to the Game Awards channel on YouTube.

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