Elden Ring Dominates God of War Ragnarok in GOTY Awards, Breaks The Last of Us 2's Record

"Continue your pointless arguments in the comments section below"

well played. But yes, it is deserving of every single one of them.

As an avid souls fan, this felt like a step back for me. I liked the linear feel to the soulsborne games and ER felt well too big and a tad bloated. However, bringing the soulsborne genre to a wider audience cannot be discredited.
Whilst it wasnt my personal game of the year i can see why so many voted for it so fair play. I will go back and get the platinum one day but for now i have way to many games in my backlog that peak my interest more.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika sounds like you're saying it's not about winning awards, it's about the games we played along the way

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Not corny, just realistic. People get all caught up on these pointless fights over which game was best whereas the wise thing to do is just enjoy as many of them as you can.

Meh, doesn't really matter at the end of the day. I've mentioned it several times that looking from the outside I appreciate and respect what From Software does but no matter how many awards its games win (and it seems like the studio's games always receive tons of critical acclaim and end of the year awards), what it makes is never going to click with me. There are tons of 7/10, even 6/10 rated games that I'd rather play than Elden Ring. TLoU 2, for all the awards it got, is my least favorite Naughty Dog game and one of my most-hated games of all-time eventhough I completed it. I don't really think these awards mean as much as hardcore fans of certain brands do but instead of just enjoying games people use this in their you know what waving contests.

It's just dark souls in an open world lol...good game obviously but I personally think it's been overhyped

True artists often get recognised by the industry post-best work. As if sorry for overlooking that, let us make it up yeh you’re too late buddy; on the decline now just give me the vanguard award

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika That's spot on, regardless of which one I think was better, I enjoyed them both this year, and also enjoyed other like HFW, and Plaque's Tale.

I actually don't care what won most GOTY awards. It was an excellent year, much better then I expected going in, there was something for anybody to call their own GOTY.
Except maybe for MS folks.. 😉 (sorry, had to)

It's deserving of all the awards but lemme just say game critics going forward should be more forgiving of map markers. I'm blown away by AC Valhalla right now and it does a lot to hide stuff though there's still some feint markers. Always hated how your eagle in Odyssey points you to a target and Alexios says something like "there he is" like are you the eagle now... Valhalla eliminates all that and makes things more obscure. But then again if these games say they're going to hide all markers, it's gonna be insane and we might bash them for it. So yeah critics would have to make up their minds.

There were a lot of great games this year no doubt but Elden Ring was truly something special. Honestly the best game I think I've played since Persona 5 in 2017. From deserves all the praise it has received.

Wow Horizon Forbidden West got 3 nods! That's 3 more then I thought it would get, hopefully for part 3 they go all out and maybe try new things here and there.

I guess a massive multiplatform game was always going to have further reach than any exclusive. Considering this, I'm kinda stunned to learn TLOU pt.II has so many!

Will be great to see what From do with the Armoured Core franchise now.

A game so heavily divisive wasn't bound to keep that record for long.

Being on multiplatform definitely helped with that. But with that said, yeah, I do agree it deserves it. Plus this probably one of the most accessible From Software games even if you're not good at Souls like games.

Well deserved, it was indeed the best game of the year, by a long shot.

Elden ring and god of ragnarok are 2 of the best games ever made.if its one game i dont mind that win over god of war ragnarok is elden ring.both games are masterpieces.congratulations to from software.word up son

Well deserved imo. Both games are great but Elden Ring is something else, it just ticks all the right boxes for me.

I’m sad that I didn’t find Elden Ring as amazing as some people. It was fine to me, minus the last boss. I think From has developed such a cult following that it helps with this stuff. I think it also blinds critics and fans to obvious issues with the game, technically and graphically it wasn’t spectacular.

Elden Ring is not so good and cant understand all hype.

Bosses are some of the worst in souls game.
Open world they failed on, good in start but couldnt keep up for rest of game.
Fighting is like most souls game so not much complain there.

They made a worse game and more easy and people love it somehow.

If they made Elden Ring 2 I might not play it.

Elden ring. The Billy eilish of gaming. Win a lot of prizes but the product sucks.
Yes it is the hottest of takes.

Couldn’t be happier with either winning GOTY as they are both clearly the most deserving of it.

With Elden Ring on almost everything PS4, ONE, PS5, SERIESX/S and all of PC isn't it only natural for it to receive more goty awards in comparison to TLoU2 only being on one console the PS4

@johncalmc I mean, we're still talking about God of War (2018).

Well there is not much more i can say about elden ring..amazing game and so much more than just "dark souls in an open world." Well deserved..

Put well over 100 hrs into it, Beat it 4 times and platinumed it and mostly enjoyed it as much as you can "enjoy" a soulslike. Yet I still don't think it is the best game of the year, nor deserving of its overrated praise. I think hype before and after release created its lasting high marks with a mentality akin to.... "well everybody says I should love Elden Ring and claimit a masterpiece, so I guess I'll fall in line and agree and defend that position."

It's another unpolished dark souls in an open world setting complete with reused animations and designs from previous Fromsoft games including the baseline lore framework, decades old UI, boss movesets and enemy designs, items, and armor(with re-skins), etc. As well as lazy repetitive side dungeons using the same very few assets, in mildy different configurations, dozens and dozens of times throughout the game.

The supposed genre defining gimmick is nothing more than eliminating some of the played out open world hand-Holding gimmicks. Gimmicks that for the last two plus years can be turned off or kept on as a CHOICE in many great open world games.

If you like souls likes, it's another decent one but it's just what I said, another one with an open world setting and a very unfinished and sloppy back third.

Couple that with very poor technical polish and a studio unwilling to humble themselves to acknowledge and fix their issues or even update there aged engine in favor of doubling down on these copy and past games and it's hard for a lover of the genre to overlook these facts and pretend that Elden Ring is the greatest game ever just because this copy and past iteration was in an open world setting.

In fact I would argue a great deal was lost in terms of level design by going open world, especially with the continuing decline in quality of the legacy dungeons as the game progresses into the second half.

To each their own, however

@FatalBubbles cult, schmult.

It was my first souls game, and I loved it. I'm pretty sure I am in the majority, and that is why it has done so well. It is accessible to people like me, and is so good that you forgive it it's flaws. Like other great games (KCD, TW3, RDR2, GoW, GoT, they are all flawed in certain ways to some, yet all phenomenal in their own right)

But as it has those flaws, or elements that people don't like, of course there will be a lot of people that do not enjoy it as much, as with all games, and that's fine. But the huge number of people that do enjoy it kind of proves it's worth it.

It's absolutely huge sales will always mean it will have a large number of people that don't like it as much too lol it's simply a percentage situation, and doesn't detract from its overall worthyness as Lord of all games 2022

But the community of PushSquare think Horizon is better 😆😉 Yeah well deserved as its a fantastic game and easily one of the best ever made, its clearly going to impact gaming in the years to come and has really cemented From as one of the best Devs to ever grace gaming

This game filled me with wonder. That alone makes it stand above everything else I've played in the last few years

I had initially scored it a 9, due to the random graphical gripes and bugs, but I've since gone back and changed it to a 10.

The reason?

I have played many more games since, all great games, games that were always great and came out before Elden Ring too. But each time there was always this empty feeling that everything played after Elden Ring doesn't feel quite as epic. Or it doesn't have enough boss fights. It doesn't push the wonder levels quite as far. Or it simply isn't as joyous to explore blind.

We are in the Post ER Era, and developers must now strive for even more to make a game as memorable. And this is a very good thing

But hey, God of War Ragnarok dominated on Playstation Blog and Playstation's Push Square. 😂

Anyway, FromSoftware earned it. They did a lot during past 12 years and released superb open-world game in 2022.

@Flora2122 fromsoft games are so subpar when it comes to performance. However the games are so good it just doesn’t matter 😂

@WallyWest I definitely preferred horizon to Elden so what? 😂😂

@Ravix I’m glad you enjoyed it so much but it’s pretty hard to deny the cult like following From has. I played other souls games and aside from an open world it’s more or less the same to me. 🤷🏼‍♂️

So over 400 GOTY awards I thought there was almost 40 guess those are the only the big publications?!.

How a game without a good story gets universal acclaim is beyond me. For me, that (followed by gameplay) is the most important aspect of any game. Generally don't like the open world much as they are too time-consuming. I really enjoy games like heavy rain, and Detroit even though they don't have a lot of gameplay elements.

I’m not sure any other game has ever received this many game of the year awards. Absolutely deserved. As for story, I find that can often get in the way of good gameplay and actually takes me out of the feeling of immersion. Plenty of good things to watch or read if I really need a story.

Yes! It's absolutely clear a much better game. Literally no comparison

@Mikey856 horizon is terrible! I hate the long dialogue & the story is abysmal

@nedbvai you said the exact same to me on another thread. What did Aloy do to you?

& the most overrated game award goes to .... Not saying it's a bad game just not quite as revolutionary as many souls fans claim lol

How many gaming "journalists" are there out there? How many of these gaming "news" outlets get to claim enough authority over gaming ideals that there are over 400 GOTYs considered?

I mean how many of these gaming "authorities" wrote "Elden Ring has good memes lolz" and gave it their version of a GOTY written with crayon on fingerpaint paper?

Now don't get it twisted. I loved Elden Ring. I played the literal crap out of it. No, I did not beat all the bosses, but it was a fun place to explore and create my own story around. My only problem is that at the Game Awards this year GoW: R won in almost every category they were nominated in yet Elden won GOTY. Just seems weird that you don't need to be the best game to win GOTY.

Elden Ring did create a kind of zeitgeist around it, and FromSoftware is a bit of an industry darling with some very rabid fans so I can see how it got game of the year at most of these fan sites that are considered gaming journalism outlets.

I mean honestly, I would like to see the list of these games of the year in its entirety.

Elden Ring 2022 on PS4, ONE, PS5, SeriesX/S and PC has sold almost 18 million copies as of November 2022. Very impressive even if it releases on almost everything and its barely a year on the market, still very impressive. A massive breakthrough for Souls games in comparison to previous releases. Only going to increase more in the next couple years but by how much is the real question

GoW 2018 only on PS4 and now more recently on PC has sold almost 23 million copies as of September 2022. Only a small chunk of that is from PC. Very impressive numbers for a game that's only released on one console

Zelda Breath of the Wild 2017 only on Nintendo Switch and WiiU has sold almost 28 million copies as of November 2022. Guessing only a very small portion of that is from WiiU. Switch is on another level and truly boggles the mind especially when considering many of their games poor performance in comparison to other recent console releases. Many games not even at 1080 nevermind 4K

What's the point of this comment I don't really know tbh but it's filled full of facts and there's nothing pointless about facts. Maybe it's about Elden Ring fans on their high horses I'm not sure

@jrt87

Is it too hard for yot to like something without hating on something else? (insert eye roll)

Best game since Balan Wonderworld. Shame it doesn't quite hit those lofty heights.

@TaMpA_bLaCk

I mean who are these people giving out the GOTY...150 GOTY awards are probably from FromSoftware Fan sites...lol...

@Beerheadgamer82

lol. I love this post. Elden Ring wins GOTY and then Breath of the Wild says "now sell this game 6 years from now for the same price as it released at and make it to 28 million copies on 1 system and then we can talk"

@grapetrap Switch games at almost full price many years after release, a good point I forgot to mention. Switch truly boggles the mind even more

@grapetrap Tell that to RDR2, it also won the most awards yet GoW18 won GOTY.

@TheArt

Right?!?!? I guess they do it at the Academy Awards and the Grammys as well. When there are 2 or 3 things that deserve awards they got to split them up.

@Beerheadgamer82

It does boggle the mind. 114 million units as of November 2022. And the amount of evergreen titles they have is just astonishing.

Are there any titles on the Playstation or Xbox that can brag about that many full-priced sales? ...not likely! Also when was the last time Playstation or Xbox sold an exclusive game that compelled someone to buy either of their consoles?

@Ravix

Post Elden Ring era...sheesh. Just so you know, as much as some people wish it to be so...Elden Ring is an outlier and not the new normal.

Most gamers still want some things that Elden Ring could not give them. The first is a story that plays out in front of them as they progress through the game not a jumble of clues that make no sense until it's too late and you have already screwed up your playthrough. The second thing is a little more contentious...difficulty settings...sorry, I said it. Third happiness...or at least hope.

Again, don't get me wrong here. I really liked Elden Ring and played the crap out of it, I also think it deserves game of the year based solely on the conversation surrounding it. I just hope I don't have to play anything like it until Elden Ring 2 comes out in 8 years.

@grapetrap it certainly looks like I was hating on the Switch, believe me I wasn't, its more of me being brutally honest more than anything else which can easily come across as hating. Is the Switch a dedicated home console or is it a dedicated handheld no its both its a hybrid so there's the answer to its hugely successful numbers. Not only does the Switch satisfy those at home on the big house tv it also has the massive Nintendo handheld crowd combined. If numbers you want in comparison to Switch just look at the PS2 numbers and if you combined those PS2 lifetime sales numbers with PSP numbers like the Switch has combined, then it be even bigger

@Beerheadgamer82

I know you weren't. I was sharing the moment with you about how dominant the switch actually is in the market. Lots of "Hard Core" gamers dismiss Nintendo as a kiddie machine. Then they go off and play Elden Ring like it's not just Breath of the Wild with more dyeing...lol..

@grapetrap oh yes, not like it in that way, I agree there. What I mean is developers will have to add more and more content, fights and exploration that feels worth it etc depending on the genre. I love games with a strong narrative (come on, I'm a playstation gamer, of course I do) but the sense of wonder and the pure amount of the stuff that Elden Ring does well that they give you is unreal.

Basically games will have to do MORE of what they themselves do well. Something like a Ghost of Tsushima 2, give me more cinematic duels, give me more areas to explore, give me more emotional moments and vistas of pure beauty, for example. Give me more of everything you do well, even stuff like more gear, unique items etc. Don't settle for a great game, make it a great game that has an insane amount of value to the player beyond what they would expect

@TheArt for a game to remove markers, it has to also be exceptionally well planned. I myself don't mind markers, but I also loved the exploration of Elden Ring, as it was designed in a circle so you could really see things you want to go to, and then go there. Most games aren't designed this way, but there can be a balance. Plus the rewards for exploration were high, which means a core of the game has to be designed with quests, loot and certain big reveals in mind for it to feel worth exploring.

Valhalla is a very good game, the quest takes you on a nice tour of England and it's pretty well planned out, people just hate Ubisoft and clutter, but it's also good because you dont even have to do all of the things it offers to enjoy it, because it's not vital, it is clutter or optional stuff, I think some like to clear every last mark and that becomes a slog, but it's not exactly required. And they remain great games for history lovers

Also, you chose Alexios for Odyssey? that's what we call a schoolboy error, no wonder it was annoying 🤣

@bremkat35 I just don't like the game I paid Full price & really tried to like it. I like open world games but found this one to be dull. The characters didn't grab me

@nedbvai considering it made most top ten games of the year lists I think it’s hardly terrible

Of Elden Rings specialness I can say only that I've bought every Souls game and played no more than 4 hours of any of them, can't really stand them at all. But elden ring, while I won't be beating all the bosses or "competing"the game for sure, I will definitely be spending a good amount of time in it's world. That's quite the accomplishment to make someone that dislikes the base series want to spend time exploring the world anyway. Quite a special game.

@FatalBubbles Definely true, but I think the exact same thing can be said of Nintendo and Sony in equal measure. Whenever any of them release anything it's viewed by critics and fans through rose colored goggles that it's automatically superior to any other studios game. I'm a souls hater through and through, but this game feels special all the same.

@mrbone it's a different mindset in game design. In the Sony sphere many would agree with you, they've made that a focus in their own games. Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo, who technically invented the concept of putting stories in video games when putting a sort of narrative to the donkey Kong arcade cabinet, today is strongly against more than basic story in a video game. With quite a few goty winners from his own designs, it's safe to say the design difference of story vs no story is purely a development and preference difference.

Personally I'm a huge jrpg fan, and a big visual novel fan, so I obviously love a good story. But I also appreciate pure video game design. Nintendo, and clearly From Soft designs gameplay first, then sticks a story to the gameplay to tie it together. That ideology works for them. Rpgs tend to have two design groups, one doing gameplay systems (numbers based in RPGs) one doing story. Sonys studios seem to work more like film studios these days. They design a narrative then make gameplay to attach to it. Some people like that. Personally I feel it makes games lacking in being games. The gameplay comes first to me. Story should be serviceable, and it's great if it's wonderful. Obviously unless it's a visual novel then story is all there is. Personally I absolutely dislike the naughty dog design template if interactive movies and am disappointed God of war has gone that way. To me the gameplay is just ok, it's all about story and to me that makes it a just ok game. Otoh I liked guardians of the Galaxy, and the gameplay was really monotonous and still so it was about story... But also about exploration I liked I suppose it's not really one size fits all I suppose.

It should also be noted that TLOU2’s awards are mostly fraud because the guy who ran that site is a huge biased PlayStation fanboys who counted any award he could find. This includes awards from social media polls, fan-made brackets, and twitter accounts. Once he got exposed for that he went inactive.

He was rooting heavily for Ragnarok over Elden Ring & he stopped updating the site once Elden Ring started winning way more awards. So TLOU2 probably has even less awards than what’s currently seen.

@grapetrap this has to be trolling. PlayStation this year alone has God of war 2, Horizon 2 and Gran Turismo 7. It then had a stellar year with the base ps plus. Over on xbox you have Horizon 5 dlc, Citizen sleeper and Immortality. At the end of the day if your yearly gaming consists of a dozen Nintendo games redone for 40 years more power to you. Most of us see Nintendo as a side course with quality reliable games. The Ford focus of the gaming industry.

@Ravix

I get ya. I was going to say that since I replayed it again waiting for good games that Ghost of Tsushima was my personal game of the year.

Honestly, though, I don't think western game companies are going to use Elden Ring as the new template for how they make games. Western game companies have their own look and feel that targets what they feel their customers want, and for the most part, it is.

It's only occasionally that we "deep in the weeds" players crave something different like Elden Ring where we see all of the potential in gaming.

@themcnoisy

I know it sounds like trolling because it's an odd thing to say on a Playstation fan site, but Nintendo is probably more often than not the second option for anybody who is an Xbox or Playstation gamer. Nintendo has brilliant games that you cannot find anyplace else plus they are more affordably portable than anything else on the market.

Full disclosure though, I played zero Nintendo games this year so ya im kind of a hypocrite. But I am a fan of what Nintendo does with their brand and as soon as there is a new Zelda or Mario game I'm gonna dust that thing off and screw up my controller muscle memory for the short term.

@Ravix Well said. And the other thing about Ubisoft is they release too many games and kill the shine or respect for the games, but then AC for instance is very good. Haha no I went with Kass on 1st playthrough but she was okay just like Alexios on 2nd. Valhalla and Origins I feel are more immersive.

@Akurusu Do you have a source for that? I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I've been following that site for a couple years now as I was under the impression it was purely unbiased. If it is in fact as biased as you say I'd like to get some confirmation so I can avoid using it in the future

@TheArt yeah, I enjoyed them all, Origins I really liked the gameplay loop, I loved taking out an entire fort in different ways depending on mood. And how the main quest dumped you off next to side quests, it was quite efficient in that way lol. But I didn't explore every inch of the game or like to revisit areas for other side quests as some of it didn't come together in a way that made me want to do any more so I just continued the story to finish it.

Odyssey again with the forts, but also a lot of other combat and exploration and naval stuff which gave me black flag vibes, also Greek history is just fantastic, especially the Peloponnesian wars, and I was familiar with a lot of the major game characters taken from real history, which just makes it more immersive, and incredibly funny at times. Kassandra was slightly awkward and cringey and in a way out of place for her time with how jovial she is all the damn time, and yet a lot better than Bayek for enjoying a game. And the less said about Alexios the better.

And Valhalla being Norse in England during Saxon times, which again is something I'm very interested in and familiar with. And the gameplay was quite a bit different than the first two new style AC games, but still incredibly fun. And I quite liked grumpy and sometimes randomly mad as a hatter Eivor (female) and the breaks we get away from her character too.

I'd still like a Ubisoft game to fill me with the sheer wonder of Elden Ring though, and be a little more focused on what it does best, rather than focused on everything possible ever shoved in to their titles. But there is a reason the AC franchise is now pretty much getting 9/10 and 8/10 every release

@themcnoisy You haven’t played or paid much attention to Nintendo because they aren’t just Mario and Zelda only like some people think. They’ve had Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Splatoon, and now Bayonetta, Advance Wars has also made a comeback & they’re not “kiddy” just because of the lack of sex scenes or cussing. They’re not the same game re-done for 40 years & it’s also worth noting that they have more variety than cinematic shooter Sony games. It’s the truth.

@Tchunga Pushsquare doesn’t allow links but I assure you if you look you’ll see that he was counting “awards” given from twitter accounts with less than 50 followers and user-made brackets. That site also won’t be getting used again. He was rooting for Ragnarok hard and when it was getting more awards than Elden Ring he stopped counting. There’s that, and once his methods were exposed he went inactive on resetera and hasn’t updated his site.

Deserved. Fast became one of my favourite games of all time. It's just so refreshing to see a separate take on the open world formula that isn't this same Ubisoftified design that's been done to death to the point of sheer boredom.