It takes a special game to sweep all five major year-end awards and Sony Santa Monica’s God of War was just such a game. It’s brutal combat was praised by critics, but it also managed to do the impossible by transforming Kratos, previously portrayed as an instrument of pure rage, into a gruff (and almost lovable) father figure.
In addition to its five-for-five run at The Game Awards, the DICE Awards the SXSW Gaming Awards, the GDC Awards, and the BAFTA Games Awards, God of War handily won “Game of the Year” honors from dozens of publications and topped a handful of Reader Polls for good measure.
In any other year, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 would have easily galloped away with some of those accolades, but it had to make do with a smaller (though still quite impressive) haul.
Interestingly, the publications that didn’t click with Kratos or the cowboys cast a wide net when making their “Game of the Year” selection. Matt Makes Games’s Celeste, Epic’s Fortnite, Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and many others all earned the admiration of at least one publication.
You can see more of last year’s most-acclaimed titles (and what awards they won) in the 2018 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.
In what is surely to be the first of many accolades, Sony Santa Monica’s God of War won “Game of the Year” at the 2018 Game Awards. Kratos’s latest adventure also picked up statuettes for “Best Game Direction” and “Best Action/Adventure Game.”