The coveted award of Game of the Year is a very subjective thing until it isn't. 2022 was a frankly fabulous year for games and it turns out that not only was Elden Ring the Game of the Year at the official The Game Awards ceremony, it scored another 140 awards from media outlets across the globe. That sounds settled to me.
Specifically speaking, Elden Ring received 324 Game of the Year awards. In comparison, our own champion God of War Ragnarök received a paltry 74 awards, and then mind-melting mystery Immortality sits in third place with six awards. There's no accounting for taste, I suppose.
Just joking. Though we're certainly not one to challenge the game's standing, as we called it "unmissable" in our review, we've got to consider the impact of time and availability on Elden Ring's success.
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Elden Ring hit the shelves in February, dominated the gaming discourse through March, then well into April and beyond. On the other hand, God of War Ragnarök came out towards the end of year and was only available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. It is an achievement, though, that a game that might have traditionally turned off a fair few players for its perceived difficulty level was such a massive moment for the culture of gaming.
"Dark Souls has always been perceived as a difficult [series] and Elden Ring is a difficult game but I think with the work we've done to explain properly to our fans the way they could discover this adventure, this new game has touched a larger audience and has made it more accessible," said Bandai Namco Europe CEO Arnaud Muller in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz. "There is so much great content coming from Japan that we're very excited for the years to come, and Elden Ring, I'm tempted to say, is just the beginning of that." Buckle up, buttercups.
Topics: Elden Ring, Bandai Namco