As we’re wont to do, our Game of the Year awards this year were accompanied by a community vote, to let you share your thoughts collectively beyond simply commenting as each category is awarded to its winner. You can see our overall GOTY winner here, but did you agree with us?
There were a number of runaway winners, as we trimmed the voting categories down to just half a dozen, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any surprises. In fact, while most of the winners will have been wholly expected, one or two of the runners up came a little out of the blue for me.
Best Single Player – Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Runners up: Doom (2nd), Dark Souls 3 (3rd)
The biggest bone of contention in this category of our writer’s award wasn’t that Titanfall 2 won, but rather that Ratchet & Clank made the runners up shortlist ahead of Dark Souls 3, amongst others. Honestly, such complaints meant little in the community vote as Uncharted 4 romped to victory with nearly half the vote, with Doom a distant second and Dark Souls 3 an even more distant third.
Best Multiplayer – Battlefield 1
Runners up: Uncharted 4 and Overwatch (tied 2nd), Titanfall 2 (3rd)
Things were somewhat closer in the Best Multiplayer category, but Battlefield 1 still had a rather convincing lead over second place with nearly twice as many votes. The gap between second and third place was just a single vote, though, as Uncharted 4 and Overwatch tied for second with Titanfall 2 snapping at their heels.
Best Independent Game – Firewatch
Runners up: No Man’s Sky (2nd), Inside (3rd)
Firewatch’s story of mystery, isolation and self discovery clearly struck a chord with a lot of you, as it won your Best Independent Game award, but more surprising is how close No Man’s Sky came in second. Hello Games’ ambitious adventure into science fiction took an awful lot of flak after its launch for not living up to expectations, but it seems that a lot of you were able to put those to one side.
Best Virtual Reality Game – Batman: Arkham VR
Runners up: Star Wars Battlefront – Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission (2nd), Battlezone, Driveclub VR and Thumper (tied 3rd)
Batman: Arkham VR was somewhat overlooked in our writers’ awards, with Tuffcub’s convincing arguments for Here They Lie seeing it take the honours, but when put to the public vote, being able to embody the Dark Knight clearly struck a chord with those of you who have tried virtual reality.
It’s somewhat telling that Star Wars Battlefront’s brief VR mission managed to come in second place, showing that we’re still waiting for the big blockbusting VR experience to sweep people off their feet.
Biggest Disappointment – No Man’s Sky
Runners up: Mafia III (2nd), The Division (3rd)
Despite being so close to winning Best Indie, No Man’s Sky was by far and away seen as the biggest disappointment of the year – amusingly, a few of you even voted for the game in both categories! The game simply failed to live up to the astronomically high expectations surrounding it and similar things could be said of third place The Division, which had years of build up to its oft delayed release.
Community Game of the Year 2016 – Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Runners up: Doom (2nd), Forza Horizon 3 (3rd)
I can’t say I’m that surprised to see Uncharted 4 topping the community awards, as the final chapter in the story of one of the most popular PlayStation characters. It’s a fantastic game, and came incredibly close to winning the writers’ award as well, only to have been pipped to the post by Overwatch.
Just as in your Best Single Player award, Uncharted 4 had nearly half of the vote and Doom was a very, very distant second place. A slight surprise was that Forza Horizon 3 managed to sneak into third place, though without a racing category for the community to vote it, this was its only real chance to shine.
All that’s left to say is congratulations to Naughty Dog and Uncharted 4 for becoming our TSA Community Game of the Year 2016.
TSBonyman
No Man’s Sky, possibly the best indie game ever imo but considering the storm of ill-feeling that it has weathered through, runner-up is a pretty decent achievement.
JR.
Yes NMS should have been marketed toward the Indie market because the casuals let their imaginations get carried away and ruined it.
The Lone Steven
I disagree. It wasn’t “Causals” that had their imaginations carried away. Hello Games didn’t deliver on their promises and there was either no communication between Sony and Hello Games to prevent something like this from happening or Hello Games was too ambitious with the release date and out of pride, they refused to ask for another delay thus launched it in the state it was. It did not help that they went silent after launch instead of addressing it then do a big patch that introduced features that were promised.
I do agree that it should have been treated as an indie game. If they just put it on the store without much marketing, it could have become a hidden gem over time.
Instead, we can only wait and see until august to see what NMS ends up as.
Avenger
Agree with Steven, it was marketing that failed them and not people’s expectations which can actually be guided and informed through appropiate marketing and communication. If people’s expdctations were high, it was because they were allowed to become like that. Marketing lessons to be had a plenty with the whole debacle.
TSBonyman
One thing that was patently obvious to me in every interview that Hello Games did, was that Sean Murray did not want to share the details of the game, instead having this – wrong or otherwise – approach that he wanted the gamers to discover everything for themselves. It was a risky strategy to take but as i say it seemed patently obvious so it was easy to for me to temper my expectations. But that’s not how the internet works unfortunately. Whilst Sony and Hello Games were taking the softly,softly approach, the internet was rife with hype and expectations, unfettered due to the formers reluctance to divulge the facts.
So, a risky marketing strategy and one that ultimately didn’t work for a large demograph, but also some fault lies with those who let themselves get carried away – because the clues were always there. Looking on various NMS fan forums/communities around the web now that the foundation update has quieted a lot of the shit-posters (specifically the shit-posters – not those genuinely disappointed at the mechanics and initial lack of ‘gameplay’ content, there is a distinction which any NMS community will be acutely aware of), those who embraced NMS for what it turned out to be are finally being heard and i can see i was far from being the only one who took Sean Murrays reluctance to speak candidly into account whilst tempering their expectations.
Ultimately it was a combination of marketing strategy vs the ‘human condition’.
tactical20
Would like to know what people found disappointing about Mafia 3. I really enjoyed it!
And in stark opposition, I found Firewatch to be disappointing. The story started off well (which made up for the pretty boring gameplay and sketchy framerate), but then the ending was totally ‘meh!’ (<< for Charlie Brooker!)
Crazy_Del
Side missions are very repetitive! I enjoyed the main story/campaign but not side missions. Also the bug in the phone is a royal pain in the a*se
JR.
Mafia III soundtrack was really good but the game was really crud.