Golden Joystick Awards Winner Results are In

2018 is well-nigh and The Game of the Year Awards are finally in hand. This year’s list of nominees has been long but the winners short. The winners’ list is provided below:

• Best Storytelling– Horizon Zero Dawn
• Best Visual Design– Cuphead
• Best Audio– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Best Gaming Performance sponsored by The Sun– Ashly Burch (Horizon Zero Dawn)
• Best Indie Game in collaboration with Square Enix Collective– Friday the 13th: The Game
• Best Multiplayer Game sponsored by GT Omega– PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
• Studio of the Year– Nintendo EPD
• Best VR Game– Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
• Esports Play of the Year sponsored by Intel– Agilities
• Esports Team of the Year– Lunatic-Hai
• Esports Game of the Year sponsored by Omen by HP– Overwatch
• Best Streamer / Broadcaster– Markiplier
• Handheld / Mobile Game of the Year sponsored by Bespoke Arcades– Pokémon Sun and Moon
• Nintendo Game of the Year-The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• PlayStation Game of the Year– Horizon Zero Dawn
• Xbox Game of the Year– Cuphead
• PC Game of the Year– PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
• Critics’ Choice Award– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Breakthrough Award sponsored by Badfly– Ashly Burch
• Hall of Fame– Final Fantasy
• Most Wanted Award– The Last of Us Part 2
• Still Playing Award– World of Tanks
• Outstanding Contribution to the UK Games Industry sponsored by The Telegraph– Debbie Bestwick MBE
• Lifetime Achievement– Sid Meier
• Ultimate Game of the Year– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

It may come as a surprise to many people that Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild took away the Ultimate Game of the Year Joystick Award yesterday, putting Horizon: Zero Dawn(for Best Story-Telling) before it. In addition to that, Breath of the Wild also scored top deck and was able to collect two more awards, one of them being the Critics Choice Award and the other one for Best Audio(*cough* sorry Hellblade *cough*) . Cuphead picked up two awards, the Best Visual Design award which it is certainly most deserving of and the XBOX Game of the Year award. In collaboration with Enix Collection, Friday the 13th: The Game has been elected as the Best Indie Game of 2017. Nintendo EPD proudly received the Studio of the Year award and Overwatch which only came out a year ago was elected as the Best Multiplayer Game once again. Pokémon Sun and Moon has been voted as the Best Handheld/Mobile Game of the Year. Following the hype train ushered in by PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the same has been elected as the PC Game of the Year. The Last of Us 2 which is due for release in 2018 makes up for the Most Wanted Award and the World of Tanks takes the Still Playing Award. Debbie Bestwick MBE, the founder of Team17, a British game development studio has been chosen for Outstanding Contribution to the UK Games Industry. The fact that Persona 5 has been put out of the list is extremely dejecting. On the other hand, we are most happy that Final Fantasy has made its way to The Hall of Fame. A special congratulations to Sid Meier for the Life Time Achievement award! Lunatic-Hai is the new E-sports Team of the Year and Agilities was awarded for the Best E-sports Play of the Year. Youtube star Markiplier is 2017’s Best Streamer.

These are the winners of this year’s Golden Joystick Award. From 1983 to 2017, the Golden Joystick Awards has made its 34th round. The advent of new AAA games has taken the gaming industry to its zenith inspiring many indie games in the long run. The Golden Joystick community has finally understood the value of indie games and has started to consider having a different column on the list specially dedicated to them. With the course of time, many more games will come out and if we are lucky enough, we may even be able to witness an Indie game take away the grand trophy for the first time. The future holds a lot and when the time comes, what lies ahead will eventually reveal itself.