Hades took home the big award at this year’s BAFTA Game Awards. The popular game from Supergiant Games takes you on a journey of the underworld while trying to escape the world of Hades. It’s fun, inventive, and it led to the game-winning award for its narrative. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hades took the coveted Best Game award and fell in with quite the impressive line-up of games. Additional nominees in the category included Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Ghosts of Tsushima.
Hades took home a total of five awards including an award for Logan Cunningham for his work bringing Hades, Achilles, Poseidon, Asterius, Charon and the Storyteller to life. All of it is incredibly well deserved as the game brought joy to so many during our time in quarantine. Plus, other people are still trying to master all the weapons, right?
The Last of Us Part II took home some pretty great awards, too. From Animation to the EE Game of the Year, as well as an award for Laura Bailey’s work as Abby. The game that was once known as the long-awaited sequel to The Last of Us Part I is now known as the BAFTA award-winning game that is going to be adapted into an HBO series starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. With both the adaptation coming and the success of the sequel game, it’s nice to see The Last of Us recognized by the BAFTA voters.
Another big win was for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Taking home the Game Beyond Entertainment award, it normally goes to a game that deals with real-world problems and key social issues. Users find themselves working and running an island for Tom Nook while they build up their own homes, pay off their debt, and interact with friends on their own islands. For many, the last year has included escaping to the world of video games and many Nintendo Switch users became addicted to the action role-playing game. In another year, playing a game where these kinds of activities prevail might have been less successful; in 2020, it's easy to understand why New Horizons succeeded because of its gameplay.
The beloved Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales only took home an award for music. Set in the Marvel world that Peter Parker and the other Spider-family exists in, the game was a fun follow-up to Marvel’s Spider-Man. And who doesn’t want to swing around Brooklyn and the rest of New York City as Miles Morales?
Congratulations to all the games who took home awards at this year’s BAFTA celebration and thank you for a great year of games to keep us happy and entertained. Whether we were building our own island or trying to escape the clutches of Hades, we escaped with some beautiful games and they deserved all this major recognition.