Elden Ring Wins Ultimate Game of the Year Award at Golden Joysticks

Shocking in my opinion but not surprised, it's not even a top 3 game for me personally, I kno its massively popular but it's a hype job for me. Nowhere near as good as horizon forbidden west

Except for Stray as "Playstation GOTY", pretty spot on award winners list imo.

I agree with Elden Ring being GOTY, but how can they possibly give those awards to Horizon and Stray instead of Ragnarok? What are they smoking?

Bloodborne GOTY every year

Goat trailer is great.

@kyleforrester87 conflicted mate, shocked in the sense that it's not a great game and not surprised by the fact it's massively popular and seems like a badge of honour for alot of gamers to say I did a from game. I played it and it's not for me its nowhere near as inventive as other games, it's just heard a hard game enjoy it

Elden Ring was awesome and well deserved for goty. The game absolutely blew up when it released

@kyleforrester87 it doesn't come close to endwalker or HFW

GOWR AND HFW deserved it for me
More than Elden Ring.

Elden Ring definitely started to show its warts the more hours I put into it. Ultimately it’s way too long and unbalanced with the end bosses having insanely brief attack windows between combos. It’s still does soo much right though.

@QualityGeezer Horizon is a fine open world game in the vein of Ghost of Tsushima or a recent Assassin’s Creed but it in no way matches the ambition of Elden Ring. To each their own but Elden Ring just dwarfs it in almost every aspect besides graphics.

How the hell did Stray beat HFW and Ragnarok?!?!

@kyleforrester87 gamers are always the winners mate

thats a horrendous list. bar elden ring arguably.

the whole game award is pointless anyway

The real winners are us the PS4 and PS5 owners.
A very good year for Sony AAA exclusives.
Let’s hope they can match it 2023, 2022 will be a tough year to beat.

At least everyone can agree that Stray was a bit balls. Fortunately PS Plus Extra has had a lot of good value since then.

Not surprised as it is a great game, but I did find it a slog near the end and didn't appreciate the reuse of assets and bosses. I still prefer demon souls, bloodborne, and DS3.

It hasn't pushed the bar from the witcher 3 tho, I'm hoping but doubting anything will be

Grounded over Pentiment is the real shocker here. Elden Ring is absolutely deserved though, tempted to play it again.

Tunic was robbed.

Nothing for A Plague Tale: Requiem? Like Drogba once said, it's a f**king disgrace.

Honest question, I'm not a hater if you enjoy it you enjoy it, but is it because from games are difficult? Because there's no narrative no great world I just dont get it

I find it to be very strange that Stray and Horizon Forbidden West beat GoW. Curious to know how many PS fans actually did the voting. As much as I enjoyed HFW it's not something I'd call best storytelling. Gameplay I'd get but not storytelling. And Stray is a very strange choice for the best game. Can't have been many PS voters

I can't comment on Elden ring tbh, never played it. But I understand alot of people have and love it, so I get why it's GOTY, now Stray.. I don't understand that one bit. Don't get me wrong, I played it and enjoyed it for what it was, but I would have been disappointed in paying for it. There's only one playstation game of the year here and that's Mr Kratos. Such a good game.

Here comes the salt...

@QualityGeezer I don't enjoy FromSoft games because they're difficult, exactly. If I just wanted difficulty I'd just whack up the difficulty on everything (I actually play on normal or even easy on most other games)

I think it helps that there's no difficulty levels.

And when I beat a boss, if it's on my own (with Spirit ashes or NPC summons admittedly) there's a sense of accomplishment. If I do it with a mate or two, and we're communicating different strategies, it's immensely satisfying. There's almost always a sense of overcoming something.

Plus FromSoft games are 99% gameplay. I love that games are getting more cinematic and story driven, but there's nothing more frustrating than getting in the rhythm and flow of combat before a walking section, then a fairly mediocre puzzle and a long cutscene.

I absolutely understand why the difficulty of the games puts a lot of people off. I had so many moments in ER where I was ready to quit, whether it was Margit or Caelid in general. Or Malenia. The difficulty spikes in this game could get disgusting at times. Which is why I can also understand ER winning best Multiplayer :')

Sorry, turned into a bit of a ramble

@QualityGeezer I thought the world was amazing. The lore is cool, even if it's hard to piece the story together. I think stumbling across NPCs out of nowhere is so cool. And the combat is really fun. It's not really about being hard at all, it's just a fun game to explore and fight monsters.

@Shepherd_Tallon I can smell what you're cooking.

Elden ring and stray? Seriously?

Elden Ring deserves a lot of the praise it has gotten. Easily my personal GOTY with Plague Tale Requiem and shockingly Sonic Frontiers as close runner-ups.

The real head scratcher is Stray for best Playstation game. Very strange choice there but I never played it so I can't judge it too harshly. Must be a lot of cat lovers out there I guess!

@Hindenburg so a 40 year old man who doesn't like from games is a baby?

@Hindenburg @QualityGeezer it's like me saying are narrative driven games too hard on your brain, theres a STORY WOW

@QualityGeezer @Hindenburg
I mean I like Fromsoft games as well as games like Assassins Creed and Horizon. So what does that make me? A baby teen man?🤔

@Hindenburg I dont usually reply like this but your a dick I'm autistic and you think your comments are funny but they have offended me

@Korgon makes you have a normal opinion mate

As someone that openly admits I only buy a PlayStation for it’s exclusives. To me God of War should have won. It is nearly much like the 2018 game, perfect. Some of the best production values in a game ever. Sure that don’t mean it’s more fun or anything but when you add in story, graphics, gameplay etc etc, pound for pound GOWR has no equal in 2022 for my money.

@Korgon I can't fathom going from riding a real bike to a tricycle. Enjoying both definitely is weird.

Unsurprising but Stray that hunk of junk best playstation game of the year, not even close not even same galaxy as some of this years and last year releases

@Hindenburg what do you mean my choice of games seem appropriate?

@Hindenburg thanks keep them coming another to add to the abuse you've given me, hats wrong with having a mental condition?

@QualityGeezer I am not being rude right now

@Hindenburg this is a community dont ever make fun of disabled people

@QualityGeezer I never have

@Hindenburg just made fun of my autism and called me stupid

I don`t usually post a comment, but after reading this section, i think it might be helpful to people who didn`t watched the event, btw it was an amazing event, you should probably check it out if you love games quite a bit, like me! . God of war Ragnarok has only 2 weeks of lifetime, people didnt played or finished the game yet, of course it is an amazing game and it deserves all the love in the world, but to be fair it shouldn`t be part of any category in this event, i am surprised it was even nominated. For the event itself, it is WAY better than The Game Awards, you probably should check it out, it is amazing, you as part of the community and your vote actually means something. Have a great end of the year everyone!

@QualityGeezer sure. Say whatever makes you feel happy

@wennik People care about these events for the trailers not the awards tough

Sorry If ive over reacted but I've never been offended like that on in this site, I'm not stupid I'm autistic and that's triggered me I will leave he doesnt get kicked

@QualityGeezer No one is offending you. I am offending the game design of Ubisoft and Guerilla games.

@kyleforrester87 I'm 40 years old no one t takes advantage of my autism sorry mate

@Hindenburg I mean that was it for me, i am happy with the whole thing.

@kyleforrester87 I know mate it's just a massive trigger for me

just sharing good things in life you don`t wanna miss anything right? life is too short

I hate being called stupid I have a law degree I'm just ill

Thanks for your support means alot 😍👏👍

Sorry if I've caused a scene

At this point why Sony even invest in first party games Sony spend all this money on they’re games just to get rob.

Both Elden Ring and GoW Ragnarok are worthy of GotY so i'm happy that one of them won. Both are 2 of the best games out and are why i love this hobby.

@4kgk2 GoW has already made a ton of sales and will make a ton more, i think Sony care more for that then statues plus coming 2nd or 3rd to Elden Ring is no bad thing.

I have platinumed both Elden Ring and God of War:Ragnarok (twice so far) and tbh neither are game of the year.

I have no problem with the goty winner but the rest of the list is bizarre at best!

HFW winning storytelling is strange as that's easily the worst part of the game also while I'm a self declared fanboy of Stray there is no way it's better then Horizon and freaking GOW 😅

Cat jumping on things and often napping beats Angry God Killer and Huntress of Giant Robot Beasts 😁😁

So God of War and Horizon were 2nd and 3rd place for game of the year after Elden Ring, but Stray wins best playstation game? I'd like to understand the logic there.

Sorry, but I’m immediately disqualifying these awards as being legit, simply for selecting Stray over GOD OF WAR: Ragnarok as best PlayStation game. I mean seriously - WTH?!?!?!

Ragnarok was #2 game of the year but Stray wins best PlayStation game of the year? How does that work 😂😂

Rightfully so. Elden ring was great

@W0rl0ck Impressive! Just curious what game(s) you would nominate for GOTY then?

A game with some of the most busted ass co-op I've ever seen wins best multiplayer? Lolol

Probably BoI or Hades again. (It's the games i play most) otherwise it really would be Stray

@Sgt_Peppa probably Stray

Hehe pretty sure the folks at the Golden Joysticks have been reading PushSquare comments bashing HFW and they're like "we'll show'em!"

As for Elden Ring, not surprised. I mean a game where almost every square inch of space in the open world is important because you're likely to discover something, is never before seen. RDR2 does that also but ER takes it to a crazy level. Most open worlds, places off the beaten path don't matter, they're just vegetation fillers. And it's also not surprising it won visual design. It's that classic From Software art style.

Stray is a new and original experience, while GoW and Horizon are both so close to they predecessors, you often can not distinguish them. Sony played it very safely here, and not too few are worried that this is what the future of PlayStation is looking like, plus live-service multiplayer games. I get that from a creative standpoint, you don’t want to support that.

@QualityGeezer
> Shocking in my opinion but not surprised

what? lol

Horizon winning story category instead of Ragnarok is ridiculous, what a blunder!

Forbidden west WON best story?

That’s the worst part of the game honestly. It should’ve won best graphics.

How exactly is Stray the best Playstation game of the year when Elden Ring also released on PS4? It's not like Stray is an exclusive; I believe it launched day and date on PC.

Horizon Forbidden West... no comment, as I haven't played it, but I get the sense that particular nomination will annoy some people.

GoW Ragnarok not winning any noms makes me think it missed a cutoff date or something.

Also, even as someone who enjoyed Pokemon Legends: Arceus (it's a minor miracle how stable and relatively bug-free that game was, even at launch, considering the state Scarlet/Violet released in), it seems absurd to rate it higher than Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika

Yeah I got bored with Stray super quickly.

It had an interesting premise but the gameplay was so rudimentary that it couldn’t keep me entertained.

It failed at what a developer who worked on Halo: Combat Evolved called “the 30 second effect.” A game needs to keep the player invested with all aspects of its nature in repeated 30 second intervals or it’ll lose said player.

@Max_the_German

Stray was new and boring. The gameplay loop was super boring and repetitive. I got an hour in and lost interest.

For all of its faults (and it has a ton related to the story) Forbidden West gets the 30 second entertainment loop down thanks to how complex the robot fights are.

I’m fine with sequels being extensions of their predecessors and I think most people feel that way. Where Horizon failed was that the story didn’t live up the story of the original game. But they upgraded the combat and the basic gameplay in meaningful ways that kept it fun to play throughout. Although like most open world games it does drag towards the 50-80 hour of gameplay mark, not helped by a fairly sup par plot and poor story pacing.

I haven’t played GOWR yet so I can’t comment on it.

I put 8 hours into stray and it was fun, perfect length and lovely wee story.

I put 140 hours into Horizon Forbidden west and loved it. Could have fleshed out the "villains" a bit more but excited for the next game with the real villian and more Sylens.

Currently 51 hours into Ragnarok and really want to kill Odin after what just went down and the side content is up there with Forbidden west and Witcher 3 for me.

Meanwhile Elden Ring has sat on the shelf unplayed, Hopefully get to it soon though.

Sorry for the long post but at the end of the day it's all subjective with entertainment. Everyone will feel differently about stories and how long you are doing the same thing for over and over.

As gamers we are all winners unless you are a miserable sod, but it's ok to not like everything and have different opinions. Awards don't mean anything to us they are for the creators!

For clarity, Ragnarok was only nominated for Ultimate Game Of The Year, it had no other nominations at this awards.

These awards...games are so subjective that award show are just an expensive piss up.

I don't see the point in it. Ragnarok has a superior story to Forbidden West. Elden Ring or Ragnarok could have won this award...both are excellent but Elden Ring is not in the technical league of Ragnarok. Elden is also multiplatform...

Either way some of the other awards are questionable.

@Max_the_German How was it original and new? Aside from the choice of the playable character, this has been done a thousand times and it has been done much better as well

Horizon is far away from best story telling, even I do find the way the present the story as boring and unfinished with some dull dialogue.

@dschons Maybe it is the best original PS exclusive of 2022 in a poor year for original PS exclusives.

@kyleforrester87 When you consciously zap yourself.

Elden Ring should deserve a spot on the list but I don't get why did it get "Best Multiplayer Game" award when COD just released and is far superior in the multiplayer aspect.

Without a doubt, people voted Stray as GoTY as a joke. That game was MAYBE a 6/10. Some peoples kids….

Best Storytelling — Horizon Forbidden West

no chance i found it to be poor compared to the first game

@jrt87 totally agree with every point forbidden west was the most disappointed in a game ive been for years.

"Naff dialogue and boring narrative that leaves you with no interest in what could happen next "

spot on the storytelling was poor no way it deserved that award

Like "The Game Awards", the games eligible and picked don't even make sense. You didn't even nominate Ragnarok in the PlayStation game of the year category(but somehow it is eligible for the Ultimate Game of the year) and Stay ends up beating Elden Ring lol. It's like folks collectively lost there damn minds . HFW won best storytelling. Like how? Look at what was eligible, is that really the best we had this year? Best Hardware, an NVME drive was nominated. Is it because Cerny recommended the drive for PS5 when the update first came out? lol. Like what are we doing?!!!?!? We are not sending our best voters.

@Max_the_German

God of War II is a poor PS original?

I haven’t played it yet but judging by reactions here and all over the internet the game is basically a masterpiece.

Elden ring vs god of war for game of the year.word up son

@OrtadragoonX No, it’s not a poor PS original, but obviously a fantastic PS game which looks and plays the same as its fantastic predecessor. Sony Santa Monica played it very safely here, which is great from an entertaining and commercial standpoint. Same is true for HFW, TLoU Part 1 and GT7. But what I want from a game award is that it honors new creative experiences and risk, and they did it. Returnal was such a game, GoW 2018 and the original TLoU, to name a few. And, by a much smaller degree, Stray. Maybe Ghostwire: Tokyo would have a chance, but they say it’s not great, and it is also available on PC.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika

It’s a staple of good game design.

Halo: Combat Evolved was built completely around it. If you go back and play it you’ll notice that every 30 seconds the game is throwing something at you. A new type of enemy, old enemies with modified AI routines, a big battle sequence followed by a quiet moment, a vehicle chase battle, a small engagement with super strong enemies, etc.

It’s always done in roughly 30 second chunks. Eventually they start to repeat themselves a bit but that’s ok because of how many cycles you’ve been through up to that point. You don’t recognize the events repeats theirselves because of how varied the events are.

There’s only one level in the game that fails to live up to that aspect of game design, and it’s the Library mission. Mainly because Bungie wasn’t sure if players could pay attention to both the exposition dump by 343 guilty spark and do 30 second chunks of combat against complicated enemies. So the basic Flood pods and basic Flood infantry are used because the fight against them is so simple that you can easily focus on the exposition from Guilty Spark.

Imo, Combat Evolved is nearly a perfectly paced shooter game. Because of how they used human nature and exploited the 30 second effect. Only the Library fails in its execution and it’s widely known as the game’s most tiring mission. They underestimated players. They learned that lesson and applied it to Halo 2, which doesn’t have a mission structured like the Library.

@OrtadragoonX I don't really know if this 30 second rule would hold up today. There was a time when games would have short intervals between action but games of today are far more complex and nuanced. Say, for example, how does this rule hold up with respect to interactive novel type games like Zero Escape, Danganronpa or Phoenix Wright?

There are also games with substantial downtime. The Last of Us had plenty of moments where you were just casually wandering around abandoned districts and streets. One of Elden Ring's most appealing aspects to me was how I could just walk and enjoy the scenery, appreciate the level of detail in the environments.

@Mythologue

The 30 second rule has evolved over time with certain games.

The original TLOU is actually a great example of doing it (the rule) right by leveraging its game world, lore, and story to fill in the gaps between action and cool down. It has long cool down sessions but it makes use of that time by weaving a very well written story, characters, and its extensive world building. It’s keeping you interested for each 30 second chunk of play, even if it’s just holding your hands at times. It uses other aspects beyond combat and active gameplay to keep the immersion going.

That’s where the TLOU 2 kind of lost me. Because its story and characters were far less developed and interesting, I was only finding myself truly entertained during set-piece action, the combat challenges, and some of the world building aspects, which hit those 30 second intervals very well. But because of writing problems there were times where I had to force myself to keep going during the cooldown sections. I’m not sure how ND could have fixed it though, because the story we ended up with is the story they wanted to tell. I think they were really taking film style story telling and trying to shove it into a video game. And that doesn’t work most of the time and doesn’t leave itself compatible with all aspects of the 30 second rule.

I think the rule still generally applies, but it’s evolved with game design.

As for visual novel games I think their inability to take advantage of the rule is shown in their rather niche status. I happen to really like Phoenix Wright. But those games require a particular kind of player who likes that sort of pacing and story telling. Sort of like JRPGs, which have never played by that rule but found major success despite avoiding it almost entirely.

LOL, again, another year of JUNK ending up on the list...NOT one of those games are or will ever be in my library...IMO they all sucked...If you see a game release, and don't hear one word about it after release, it's junk....FYI, an opinion, don't need the twits arguing my opinions...Toodles!

Loved Elden Ring, a worthy winner. Not sure about it winning Multiplayer award though.