What an upset! Elden Ring has shocked the video game world as it was the winner of the 2022 Game of the Year award from the Game Awards, even though it was getting hated on by so many ‘experts’.
I don’t know about you guys, but I was shocked when I saw Elden Ring getting called out for the Game of the Year Award at the Game Awards last night. But not because I thought that Elden Ring was a bad game or an underserving game.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as I came to realize that Elden Ring was the only winner the Voting Jury could have realistically selected.
Okay, I know a little-known game called God of War Ragnarök came out a few weeks ago and was the frontrunner for the award prior to the event, but after thinking over what my choice would have been, Elden Ring was the game that had the most nuance and creativity to deserve the award.
From the unique story to the awe-inspiring worldbuilding and character/item design and wrapping up with the always nail-biting Dark Souls gameplay, Elden Ring was just the overall better game between God of War and itself.
In my personal opinion, Elden Ring’s role-playing and open world design was vastly superior to the world built by Sony and Santa Monica Studio for God of War (and that’s not an insult to GOWR), while the supporting characters and bosses of the world were slightly more interesting than the God of War Ragnarök ones.
I mean, how can you say with a straight face that Melania the Blade of Miquella was a less interesting boss than the 12 Berserkers combined. Why am I comparing these bosses? It’s because they are both ‘optional’ to face to complete the main stories of both games, respectively.
Nothing against God of War Ragnarök’s boss and world design, but it just couldn’t compete with Elden Ring. When a game has all-time classic bosses that aren’t even required to beat to complete the main story, it’s impossible to beat regardless of how well-design and crafted another games’ bosses might be.
Yet, what most of these so-called gaming ‘experts’ (and many from the Triple A studios) that were trashing Elden Ring prior to the award show would harp on about is God of War’s story. Namely, Elden Ring has an incoherent, messy story versus God of War’s succinct, masterfully woven narrative.
And that would be 100% correct…if one was completely oblivious to Elden Ring’s environment and item storytelling methods.
In order to truly appreciate the genius of Hidetaka Miyazaki and the FromSoftware team’s storytelling techniques, you need to read all of the item descriptions, exhaust character dialogue options, read in-game markers, and listen closely to the stories and quests of the side characters as they often tie into the main story by providing crucial context.
I can count one hand how many games use the environment, item descriptions, and secondary character personalities/quests to piece together the main story of the game.
Normally, most games, such as God of War Ragnarök, heavily use the main story and characters to tell the story of the game in a straightforward, linear fashion, rather than leaving it up to the audience to piece together. Perhaps this is just a personally taste, but I found Elden Ring’s story to be more compelling than GOWR because I needed to solve the mystery surrounding the world and Queen Marika.
Of course, I think that the God of War Ragnarök main story was just better than the Elden Ring one, though I’d have to give the secondary quests and my other gameplay and worldbuilding choices to Elden Ring.
And that’s why Elden Ring was the rightful winner of Game of the Year for 2022. Congratulations, Hidetaka Miyazaki, FromSoftware, Bandai Namco, and everyone else involved in creating this all-time classic. You’ve earned this award!
Images Source: Featured Image: (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco) (Elden Ring)
