BFI London hosted a special free broadcast of The Game Awards early on Friday morning live in IMAX.
The event began at 12:30am, running approximately until 3:30am and featured a complete livestream of the Game Awards ceremony from the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles.
The ninth annual Game Awards ceremony celebrated the best achievements of the video game industry this year and saw FromSoftware’s action role-playing game Elden Ring edge out the competition to win the prestigious Game of the Year award.
Santa Monica Studio’s God of War: Ragnarök led the night with an imposing eleven nominations and swept six awards.
It won Best Narrative and Best Action/Adventure Game while lead actor Christopher Judge won Best Performance for his role as Kratos, the immortal God of War.
The game also won the award for Best Score and Music which was accepted by composer Bear McCready and also scooped up the award for Innovation in Accessibility.
Lewisham-based Twitch streamer Shai Kane, who streams under the name jugg_39, said: “If God of War: Ragnarök didn’t come up against Elden Ring it would have won, no questions asked!
“For a single-player, story driven game it’s very impressive for it to be as perfect as it is but there’s a lot more satisfaction in defeating Elden Ring bosses than there is in God of War bosses.”
Kane further elaborated on Elden Ring’s victory, arguing that its multiplayer elements and overall combat mechanics just narrowly helped it overcome the odds against the running favourite this year.
“They are both visually stunning games and both have brutal combat systems but the regality and majesty of Elden Ring’s combat is absolutely phenomenal,” he said.
The ceremony also saw the introduction of a new category, Best Adaptation, awarded to media based on video games, which was won by Netflix’s League of Legends animated series Arcane.
Along with celebrating the industry’s achievements, The Game Awards showcased trailers for a plethora of new upcoming games such as Death Stranding 2, Hades 2 and Transformers: Reactivate, the latter of which Kane hopes will restore the Transformers franchise in the eyes of the public.
He said: “The last proper Transformers game was in 2012 so it’s certainly very exciting to see what this will bring to the franchise.”
The event concluded with controversy however, as FromSoftware’s acceptance speech for Elden Ring’s victory was interrupted by an individual who made a short speech on stage with references to Bill Clinton; they were subsequently arrested.
Featured Image Credit: Mnbf9rca @ Wikimedia Commons(CC BY-SA 2.5)
