N4G Game of the Year Winners

Hello fellow N4Gamers!

Thanks to your nominations and votes, one thousand three hundred three of you have decided on your winners of 2015 in video games. While some categories had some clear winners, we recognize that many categories definitely had more than a handful of strong competition. To represent this element, I've included the percentage of voters who chose our winners.

And the winners are...

NEWS STORY OF THE YEAR
Kojima leaves Konami (21%)

BEST NEW STUDIO
Moon Studios (Ori and the Blind Forest) (48%)

BEST NEW IP
Bloodborne (49%)

BEST NEW VIDEO GAME CHARACTER
Quiet (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain) (22%)

BEST SINGLE PLAYER EXPERIENCE
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (36%)

BEST MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCE
Rocket League (28%)

BEST STORY
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (43%)

BEST SOUNDTRACK
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (21%)

BEST DLC
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Hearts of Stone (31%)

BEST HANDHELD CONSOLE GAME
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (15%)

BEST MOBILE GAME
Fallout Shelter (34%)

BEST VOICE ACTING
Mark Hamill (The Joker; Batman: Arkham Knight) (31%)

BEST ART DIRECTION
Bloodborne (28%)

FAIL OF THE YEAR
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (23%)

MOST ANTICIPATED GAME OF 2016
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (30%)

BEST XBOX ONE GAME
Rise of the Tomb Raider (29%)

BEST PLAYSTATION 4 GAME
Bloodborne (58%)

BEST WII U GAME
Super Mario Maker (29%)

BEST PC GAME
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (31%)

INDIE GAME OF THE YEAR
Rocket League (35%)

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
CD Projekt RED (42%)

GAME OF THE YEAR
The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt (35%)

.

And there you have it. A hearty thank you to everyone who voiced their opinion and an even bigger thank you to the developers who continue to make our hobby what it is.

[DragonDDark]

Congrats to everyone.
Hopefully, we'll see this happen again next year :)

And by the way, can we see the runner ups as well? :3

[Christopher]

I'd rather not as it only starts arguments and bickering and essentially says "here's the people who lost".

[DragonDDark]

Heh good point.

[rainslacker]

Yeah, better to keep things civil...we don't need these kind of console war instigator things around here :)

Seriously though, it's nice to see where the community as a whole stands on games and such. I wasn't too keen on some of the nominations, but the results seem pretty good to me, as it shows at least people appreciate good games.

Hasn't N4G done this for the past couple years though?

[Christopher]

@rainslacker: Yeah, we've done this a few years now.

2014: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

2013: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

[Nineball2112]

Thanks for putting all this together, Christopher!

Very interesting results.

Looks like Witcher 3 really struck a chord with most everyone.

[Christopher]

Thank you. Also a big thank you to the guys at HAVA who, while working hard on the Beta site and other things, were able to get this stuff up and going on their end.

[DragonDDark]

Yeah I forgot to thank you.
And thanks to HAVA as well :)

[Peace_Love_and_FPS]

I really should finish that game

[Big_Game_Hunters]

35% =/= most everyone.

On that note, ignore the salt. good work putting this all together guy, we all appreciate it.

[-Foxtrot]

I honestly thought Bloodborne would have gotten some love on here...guess I was wrong.

Especially best Studio or the DLC. The Old Hunters feels like a proper expansion. No little bits and bobs, no pre order crap, just one nice DLC package.

[Christopher]

I try to tell people, who rarely listen, but the majority of people tend to favor big third-party titles. And, honestly, CD Projekt RED and The Witcher 3 really deserve the praise they receive.

That's when we were taking nominations and people were all "Bloodborne will win everything" I rolled my eyes. Even last year's results were third-party dominant. The only thing that stopped it was The Last of Us in 2013, and that was a fluke.

Having said that, it was the second biggest winning game out of them all, only surpassed by The Witcher 3.

***A little unfair for people to down play a game because it's not on more platforms in my opinion.***

I don't think they do that. They don't downplay a game, they just may not like it as much as The Witcher (or another game) or they might not even own the game so they can't say if it's better or not. I mean, I didn't vote for it for any Best Game category because I didn't play the game. I'm not downplaying it, I just can't call it better than something else I love when I haven't experienced it myself.

I also voted, and truly feel,that Psyonix deserved Studio of the Year. But, there are good reasons why others would vote for CD Projekt RED and I can totally see their point of view.

[-Foxtrot]

They deserve it sure but it's not like Bloodborne doesn't because it's first party. A little unfair for people to down play a game because it's not on more platforms in my opinion.

[neoandrew]

It is not a down play, just pure math, the more platform availability, the more people play and can vote for it.

Maybe if bloodborne was not an exclusive they would won, but the Witcher 3 is really a solid opponent.

[Concertoine]

@Foxtrot

Its more a case of less people being able to play it. I found it strange how there was a platform based award at all, how many people own all 3 consoles and a PC?

[Christopher]

***Its more a case of less people being able to play it. I found it strange how there was a platform based award at all, how many people own all 3 consoles and a PC?***

That's kind of why there are platform-based awards. Otherwise, one game pretty much is guaranteed to win it all while not recognizing any of the exclusive offerings on other platforms. We just try to specify the popularity vote rather than just the one popularity vote.

Also, if people didn't have a vote, they didn't need to vote on that platform. Of the 1,303 people who voted, only about 1,100 of those voted on XBO or PS4 games, for example.

[DragonKnight]

I don't understand the praise Witcher 3 gets. I have the game. I bought it because everyone was talking up the Witcher series and videos of it seemed good. I've been extremely disappointed with it. The only game more boring to me is MGSV, but Witcher 3 takes , and I'm wholly uninterested in the story . The game also suffers from a problem a lot of bigger open world games suffer from; that being more travelling less doing. Witcher isn't anything special in my opinion.

[Pogmathoin]

I got witcher because I love open world, but no one does it as good as Bethesda.... But can see why Witcher was greatly received, it is still an addictive game.

[DLConspiracy]

Bloodborne did get a lot of recognition on here though. Lots of people felt it was a good game. It's just sort of niche being that it's first party so not everyone can play it and it's also a game that isn't for everyone. I own and love it but I can see why some might not like it. Especially if they didn't play it.

[rainslacker]

More people played W3 though, so it was likely to get more votes than any exclusive. Pretty common for games which are voted on by a community instead of people that have experience with all the games. A PS fan isn't likely to vote for Halo, and a Xbox fan isn't likely to vote for BB, mostly because they don't have experience with the game itself.

[Arguments]

Best sountrack The Witcher 3.

In Bloodborne
We got Ludwig the Holy Blade, and the Cleric Beast song.
Both with Phenomenonal intros, percussion, bass, strings, chorus. An extraordinary composition that can only be achived by years of experience and intellect. I can even SEE the darkness in the song.

If anyone think about a witcher song of this caliber, please tell me. I need to rehear & analyze it. To see if i can change my mind.

For now i can only smile if a young person says that Miley Cyrus is better than Beethoven. I understand them. :)

[-Foxtrot]

See even that

I honestly thought MGSV would have gotten it, I don't like it but I'm man enough to say the 80s like soundtrack and the official score created for it was great

Bloodborne is another one

But the main one I think should have won is Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. It's beautiful

Seems like a "I want Witcher 3 to win everything so I'll pick the best Soundtrack aswell"

[Arguments]

Wich song or songs of everybody gtr? Do you think are good enough to win the award?

[burza1982]

I absolutely love Bloodborne but in my personal opinion neither Studio or DLC is not that good like CD RED and Hearts of Stone expansion. Hearts of Stone is simply amazing and price they charge us for that about 20h long is ridiculously low.

[DarkOcelet]

No love for Undertale or Toby Fox? Thats a shame to be honest, i expected it to win at least in two categories.

[Christopher]

There was definitely love considering they were high up in other categories, just not the winners. Considering you have Indies competing against AAA titles in various categories, getting nominations is a huge thing.

[DarkOcelet]

But i honestly thought it would win in the best Debut for a studio category.

Moon studios made an amazing game but Toby Fox made an excellent game which he made 99% on his own.

The man deserves to win something for that achievement to be honest.

[-Foxtrot]

PC one for me. I thought it would have nailed that down with it being a PC exclusive and being the best "PC" game. Witcher 3 you can get on everything else with Undertale it's just the PC, the category.

[DarkOcelet]

Yeah, i agree.

The best PC game should have been taken by a PC exclusive title in my opinion

[Anthotis]

Happy that Fallout 4 didn't win anything.

[coolbeans]

Pleasantly surprised to see so much go towards Witcher 3. I didn't even anticipate it getting Best Soundtrack + Best DLC categories.

The Great Zoltar the beans is not. :(

I'll settle for The Decent Zoltar then.

[DonkeyDoner]

thank you N4G giving bloodborne some love and no fallout 4

[Scrivlar]

Quiet for best character? Strange one. Can't remember who the other options were anymore. It's nice to see what the majority on here think though, looking forward to doing it again at the end of this year.

[victorMaje]

Congrats to everyone!

[zakir255]

Congrats!!!!

[onl001]

This year was such a weird one. It had so many great games, and still, the GOTY was hardly ever questioned.

[Nathan1993]

I messed up NEWS STORY OF THE YEAR,BEST DLC and GAME OF THE YEAR

[bomajed]

I really wasn't expecting Witcher 3 to win, I saw so much love for Bloodborne in the votes! I guess even I underestimated how much the gamers loved W3! I think Bloodborne was a close runner up, both are great games made with love and passion though.

[dota2champion]

i forgot to vote

[DarXyde]

Okay, I really enjoy The Witcher III's soundtrack, but really? It beat The Phantom Pain's?

Game of the Year going to The Witcher, I totally understand.

Soundtrack? Though great and atmospheric, I'm quite surprised it beat out MGSV's. I thought it was phenomenal.

[Geobros]

2015 was the year of RPG....Bloodborne, Wicther and Monster Hunter. I hope 2016 will be even better for gamers.

[Christopher]

I would love for every year to be the year of RPGs, to be honest.

New Deus Ex this year and maybe even Horizon... loving it.

[kaizokuspy]

Really happy about rocket league, it feels timeless like tetris. 20 years from now, as long as we still game via online, I could still play rocket league, what a time to be alive guys. Too early to live on mars, just in time to play all the amazing games in 2016. Can't wait to do this again in a years time.

[Cy]

Not at all surprised Witcher 3 won pretty much every category it was in. Disappointed, because it was one of the worst RPG's I played last year, but not surprised.

[AndrewLB]

I truly can't comprehend how the Witcher 3 could be seen as a horrible game. The only reasons i can think of would be either it ran like crap on your PC and you have an axe to grind, or because it wasn't an exclusive to your beloved console?

The Witcher 3 is likely one of the best RPG's this decade. CDPR did an amazing job.

[Cy]

Oh my god your assumptions are hilarious.

It was boring. Geralt is a terrible character, the story wasn't interesting, the entire game was filled with busywork quests, most of the side characters sucked, it wasn't fun to play, etc, etc, etc. The Witcher is easily the most overrated RPG series of the last decade.

[Scrivlar]

I kind of felt the same as Cy, To me it was really boring, I felt like because I hadn't played the first 2 games that I missed out on a lot of characters backstory's, I hated having to go around looking for ingredients to mix potions to fight certain creatures, I thought the world was beautiful but shallow to be honest, and the combat felt pretty bad compared to most other rpgs that I play. That being said huge props to them for making a game that most people loved, I would probably still buy the next one if they make another to try it and see.