2019 GOTY Scoreboard: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Untitled Goose Game, and More

It’s rare for the critical consensus around the “Game of the Year” to stray beyond a handful of titles. But that’s exactly what happened in 2019, as three games split the major awards and nearly a dozen others laid claim to at least one publication-specific award.

Leading the pack, if you can even call it that, is From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which was the big winner at The Game Awards and the SXSW Gaming Awards. Then there was House House’s Untitled Goose Game, which waddled away with trophies from the DICE Awards and the GDC Awards. Finally, there’s Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds, which won the big prize at the BAFTA Games Awards.

After that, it’s easy to go down the list and find a few highlights, including Remedy’s Control, Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding, and Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, all of which were recognized as the top title of 2019 by at least nine publications. And that’s not even getting into the massive traffic jam of titles that earned runner-up status. We might be heading into a transition year for the game industry, but 2019 was certainly a capstone year for this generation.

You can see all of the “Game of the Year” contenders from 2019 in the 2019 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

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Untitled Goose Game Wins “Game of the Year” at 2019-2020 GDC Awards

The 2020 Game Developers Conference isn’t happening in San Francisco this year due to global health concerns, but the event’s organizers still put together a a pre-recorded version of the Game Developers Choice Awards, and House House’s Untitled Goose Game won “Game of the Year.”

In addition to The Goose running away with yet another “Game of the Year” award, the rest of the indie world had a pretty good night as well.

Hempuli’s Baba Is You collected statuettes for “Best Design” and the “Innovation Award,” ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium danced away with “Best Debut” and “Best Narrative,” and thatgamecompany’s Sky: Children of the Light claimed the “Audience Award.”

But the most-decorated game of the night was Remedy’s Control, which won in three categories. The mindbending action-adventure game was honored with awards for “Best Visual Art,” “Best Audio,” and “Best Technology.”

A full list of winners, nominees, and Honorable Mentions from the 2019-2020 Game Developers Choice Awards, as well as a video replay of the show, can be found after the break.

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House House’s Untitled Goose Game Wins “Game of the Year” at 2019-2020 DICE Awards

I guess The Goose can cross “Win a Few Major Awards” off of its To-Do List. And that’s because House House’s Untitled Goose Game won “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game,” “Outstanding Achievement in Character,” and “Game of the Year” at this year’s DICE Awards.

While the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’s voting body (which is comprised of more than 30,000 members) loves The Goose, it was Remedy’s Control that took home the most statuettes last night. Predictably, the outstanding action game won “Action Game of the Year,” as well as “Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction,” “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition,” and “Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction.” Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding was the only other game to win multiple awards, with the AIAS honoring it with “Outstanding Technical Achievement” and “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design.”

A nice array of other games were also big winners at the 2019-2020 DICE Awards, including Sayonara Wild Hearts (“Portable Game of the Year”), Apex Legends (“Online Game of the Year”), Super Mario Maker 2 (“Family Game of the Year”), Mortal Kombat 11 (“Fighting Game of the Year”), Baba Is You (“Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”), and more.

The complete list of winners and nominees for the 2019-2020 DICE Awards can be found after the break, along with a video replay of the ceremony.

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Untitled Goose Game is Popular Mechanics’s “Best Video Game the Year You Were Born” for 2019

Popular Mechanics has has added a handful of titles from 2019 to their ongoing collection, “The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born.”

House House’s Untitled Goose Game was picked by Popular Mechanics’s editors as the best game of 2019, both for its “havoc-causing” stealth elements and its “wholesomeness”:

There were lots and lots of great games for 2019, but none had quite the reaction (and the wholesomeness) of Untitled Goose Game. The objective to be the most havoc-causing goose in existence, and it generates so much joy its almost hard to fathom. It just goes to show that sometimes a year’s best game doesn’t need giant budgets and super crisp graphics. It just needs a goose with a bad temper.

From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding, and Electronic Arts’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order were all given “Honorable Mention” status, along with a pair of Nintendo-produced titles for the Switch (Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Pokemon Sword and Shield).

Popular Mechanics’s “The Best Video Game the Year You Were Born” will be added to the Video Game Canon in the Version 4.0 update, which should be ready to go in 2020.