The Game Awards have been running for 11 years in their current iteration. The Geoff Keighley Show is one of the biggest events of the year and has won dozens of awards during its run.
Ahead of this year's show, we've logged and categorized every single award given out at The Game Awards, pulling out some of the most interesting facts and findings we came across in the process.
League of Legends is the only game to win the award in four different years
League of Legends tends to go under the radar at The Game Awards. A total of four awards make it one of the most successful games of all time, putting it on par with Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Astro Bot.
But most interestingly, it won all four awards in different years, with this game winning the best esports game in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024. It is the only game to win the award at four different shows. Overwatch was the original trend, winning five awards in three years, including Game of the Year and two more in 2016, but League of Legends proved its longevity when it won its fourth year last year.
FromSoftware is the only developer to win the top prize twice
This iteration of The Game Awards has crowned 14 different winners, but no developer has won the top prize more than once — except FromSoftware. In 2019, the studio won the Game of the Year Gong for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and in 2022 it won the Elden Ring crown, making it the studio's only two-time winner.
Someone asked George RR Martin to sign a copy of the Elden Ring, but he was “so confused”
He was probably confused that he was being asked about something other than Winds of Winter.
Sony has won three Game of the Year awards as a publisher, with its individual studios winning for God of War in 2018, The Last of Us Part 2 in 2020 and Astro Bot in 2024, but no developer has been more successful than FromSoft, at least when it comes to the top prize.
Nintendo is the most successful developer of The Game Awards, Sony is the most successful publisher
Speaking of successful publishers, Sony takes the crown. As a publisher, the company has won 31 awards in various categories since 2014, including the three Game of the Year awards mentioned above. Its most successful year was 2020, when The Last of Us Part 2 won seven individual awards.
In terms of developers, Nintendo is comfortably the most successful. The company has 22 individual awards from its development teams, including wins for games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario Odyssey.
Create an action adventure game if you want to win the prize
When it comes to the most successful genre, there is only one winner: Action Adventure. Excluding all genre-specific awards (i.e. Action-Adventure of the Year), games from this genre won 44 different awards. Much of this is thanks to Sony's dedication to the genre, with The Last of Us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War and God of War Ragnarok winning 18 awards between them.
RPG is the second most successful genre in history, winning 27 awards in the last 11 years, and Platformer is third with 16 awards.
Seven games won the top prize, but they weren't the most successful game of the night
You'd think that being game of the year would make the game the best of the year and therefore garner the most awards. This rarely happens, and in seven of the 11 editions of The Game Awards, the Game of the Year winner has won the same number or fewer awards than another title.
Below you can see the years in which the winning game of the year failed to win the most awards:
- Game of 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (2), Valiant Hearts (2), Destiny (2), Mario Kart 8 (2)
- Game of 2015: The Witcher 3 (2), Rocket League (2), Her Story (2), Metal Gear Solid V (2), Splatoon (2)
- Game of 2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (3), Cuphead (3), Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (3),
- Game of 2018: God of War (3), Red Dead Redemption 2 (4)
- Game of 2019: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2), Death Stranding (3), Disco Elysium (4)
- Game of 2021: It Takes Two (3), Forza Horizon 5 (3)
- Game of 2022: Elden Ring (4), God of War Ragnarok (6)
Cyberpunk 2077's only award win was three years after the game's release
To say that Cyberpunk 2077 got off to a rocky start would be an understatement. The PS4 and Xbox One versions were simply not fit to launch and the game was riddled with bugs on a level rarely seen. Although it broke all possible sales records and made money on the first day, it was a mess. Unsurprisingly, it won no awards the year it was first eligible, despite being nominated for two (Best Score and Music and Role-Playing Game of the Year).
Cyberpunk 2077 Multiplayer Developers Say Latest Beta Test 'Exceeded All Expectations'
We're getting closer to being able to play Cyberpunk with friends.
In the following years, CD Projekt Red turned things around and Cyberpunk 2077 lived up to its promise. Three years later, he won his first gaming award. Rather controversially, after the release of The Phantom Liberty DLC, Cyberpunk 2077 won the award for the best ongoing game of 2023.
Disco Elysium remains the most successful indie game
The Game Awards is pretty good at honoring indie games. There are now two dedicated categories (Best Indie Game and Best Indie Debut), and it's also not unheard of for indies to win additional awards. Disco Elysium is a shining example of this and won a record four awards in 2019.
That total has yet to be matched in the last six years, with Cuphead and Balatro's three being the closest competitors. With Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 being categorized as an indie game at this year's ceremony, I don't see Disco Elysium's record for too long.
Cuphead won as many awards in 2017 as Breath Of The Wild
Speaking of Cuphead, one of the biggest surprises we found in our analysis is that Studio MDHR's brutally difficult running platformer won as many awards in 2017 as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
This is not meant to disparage Cuphead; it's one of the best indie games of all time, but it feels like Breath of the Wild and game. It's the sixth highest-rated game in Metacritic history, 11 points higher than Cuphead, so it feels like a bit of a travesty that it walked away with only three awards. And that brings me nicely to my next fact.
Pokemon Go and Valiant Hearts have more awards than Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy 16 and Persona 5
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's three awards is a solid haul compared to some other monstrous games. Games like Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy 16, Persona 5, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake, some of arguably the best titles of all time, only received one measly award.
Sega is right, there's no reason to buy a persona until the 'definitive edition' comes out
It turns out that releasing two versions of a 100+ hour JRPG is not a good business decision.
On the other side of the coin, Stray, Pokemon Go and Valiant Hearts each have two awards. They are not bad games; they're just not of the caliber of the above – but they've won more trophies.
Only one actor has won Best Performance twice, for the same character
As well as FromSoftware being the only developer to win Game of the Year twice, only one actor has managed to win Best Performance on more than one occasion, playing the same character.
In 2017, Melina Juergens won the Best Performance Award for her portrayal of Senua in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Seven years later, she achieved it again, winning the award for Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2.
- Location
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Peacock Theatre, Los Angeles
- Dates
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December 12, 2024
