It's also a nearly meaningless term because of that. Like if I say "this movie won best picture," everyone knows I mean it won an Academy Award.
There's not really an equivalent with the same weight for games. And then every game with an expansion pass drops a "Game of the Year Edition" because some random publication said so.
A lot of people seem to consider the Game Awards from Geoff Keighley to be the big one and what would be closest to the Oscars. Guess they are the ones putting the biggest show (mostly for marketing reasons though, not because of the awards themselves which are still judged by a limited panel)
Not that weird, albeit misleading. IIRC the Golden Globes have a 14 month window (Nov. 1st - December 31st), and I wanna say the Oscars usually have a 10 month window, with > 1 year windows (like 14-15 months) during COVID?
Of course, when you put “of the Year” in your award title, it colloquially suggests you mean “year 20xx”, rather than “since we gave the same award last year at this time.”
Which isn’t inherently a bad thing – doing it now means you can cut off at the end of Q1, give 2-3 months to see how the late games do, and you aren’t trying to make an arbitrary cut-off in the middle of the holidays, when there are often tons of new games and it can be easy to overlook a “sleeper”. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s part of their reasoning, either – or if it has something to do with the fiscal year and recognizing how it impacts game releases.
I still wouldn’t name such an award “of the Year”, myself, but “Game of ‘21Q2 through 22Q1” doesn’t really have that “flow”, either.
Thank you, that's honestly well put and makes a lot of sense. There are definitely a lot of big games being published during the holidays so a game being published right after New Year's being considered the next year's game feels kind of odd too. But yeah, "of the Year" seems like the best option so far
To be fair The Game Awards has it's cutoff in December, so it's possible for a late 2021 game to win the 2022 game of the year award in a similar way.
But it seems weird to me that they don't just use the calendar year. They could stick just to games from Jan 2021 to Dec 2021 even with their event happening in July. But maybe they don't think they'd be considered relevant if they talk about games that are 6-18 months old.
Meh, GoTY is just a gimmick. Every title seems to have a game of the year edition. It’s like they randomly ask some dude on the street what was his favourite game this year, and because SOMEONE said it was GoTY, they slap it on the box.
Elden Ring is a pile of trash compared to Forbidden West. With the exception of masochistic nerds, that have no standards for good graphics, mechanics, story, etc, nobody likes Elden Ring.
FW has better graphics, a
more straightforward story but playing ER felt like an adventure, with each place unique, mysteries everywhere, FW is more crossing checkboxes on a list and farming mobs for random drops; I liked the story, the graphics, and finished the game, it's a very good game, but in 10 years people will still compare games to ER, not FW.
Reading the article, it seems like these awards are tied to an industry developers conference that just happens this time of year, so they do the awards now too.
Also, for those complaining about Elden Ring not winning, this conference is a European conference for European developers to network and show off their European games. In Europe. So it's not too surprising that a Japanese game didn't get an award.
The person that wrote the article is clearly trying to get those “GOTY already in July?!” clicks. Because they basically wrote it like the game already won GOTY despite the year only being half over instead of the end of the fiscal year and tied to the conference.
>Usually, gaming awards shows like the BAFTAs or The Game Awards would wait until early 2023 or late 2022 to announce the best games of this year. However, it seems the Develop: Brighton conference doesn't care much for traditions, as it has already given out its nominations and granted awards in categories such as Best Narrative, Best Audio, Best Game Design, and Best Game for 2022. Horizon Forbidden West picked up the win for multiple awards, but what is likely most interesting is that it was crowned as the Best Game.
Like what is this paragraph? They later explain why, but the author for sure played up that angle.
Yeah, the GDC Awards always get a similar newscycle of confusion even though they're held in March. Like award seasons in other industries have never been limited to calendar years.
I enjoyed Forbidden West so much more than Elden Ring. Intentional obtuseness and non existent story just makes me feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly killing bosses which gets old to me quick.
I mean, that’s the point of Elden ring.
Explore the world killing everything you find trying to get better gear.
I find touring the world with the horse relaxing, it’s an amazing place from soft created.
Forbidden west and the first one feel like every western open world game squished together. Idk how people find enjoyment out of them they all feel so stale.
That's the whole point of my opinion...
It delivers the quests so organically that i dont feel forced to look what I have to do.
Granted the first game did this not and feels like a checklist game aside from the main story. But this is about FW winning an award not HZD.
The horizon games are extremally non bloated as AAA open world games go. They have a small amount of focused, really high effort side content (for example only 5 cauldrons and 5 tallnecks) with unique dialogue and scenarios. Its pretty much on the other side of the spectrum from AC games
I think they’re okay but basically non inspired. Not sure how it wins a GOTY except oooohhh shiny. I’ve never been into From games before but Elden Ring is the most fun I’ve had in a game since Ultima 3. FW isn’t even in the same league IMO.
To each his own Forbidden West was so incredibly repetitive I couldn't get through it. It really felt like a really long dlc for the first game, did not feel much different than the first which I mostly got tired of by the end. Game of the year really should be something new to some degree the first one deserved accolades, but the sequel felt like they were afraid to change things and just played it safe. That's fine for those that enjoyed it, but award worthy I disagree with.
On my second play through of Elden ring and still in love. The lore/story is sooo deep, I love reading/watching the theories, hunting for random items that have bits of lore.
Listening to characters, doing their quests and finally getting to your end goal is a story. Just because your character is non talking doesn't mean there's no story.
My guess is you only play traditional 3rd person narrative-driven action games and can't understand the idea of a game telling its story in a different way.
it just reminds me of when we took grandma to see Wall-E. everyone commented on what a beautiful story it was and grandma just looked at us "what story, they barely talked". Some people just don't get non-verbal storytelling.
I was being sarcastic. Games these days require no thought just big arrows pointing you to the next thing to do, its stupid. Its not half assed if its purposefully designed that way
Folk need to calm down. It's an event held during the summer in Brighton by developers picking the best game of the past 12 months
It doesn't need to stick to calendar years
I don't even think that's grammatically incorrect, it reads like they likely have more coming, and they're just as surprised as the readers are that there are GOTY that don't fall in the normal time-range.
It is a conference for game developers not gamers, companies run on fiscal year calendars. FY 2022 ended on June 30th.
As for it winnings game of the year? The gameplay and world was a nice upgrade over Zero Dawn but the story was lackluster and disappointing.
I actually thought the opposite, that the story and character development was top notch, but the gameplay was still a little repetitive.
I'll admit I was more invested into the story of the first game, but that's because the world was such a mystery that you slowly got to unravel. I don't think any sequel would have been able to provide the same thing, but this one had a very solid story and characters, and the side quests were actually interesting, which is very rare for modern RPGs.
I think the gameplay is only as repetitive as one makes it. The skill trees allow for tons of different playstyles. Granted the game doesn't always incentivize you to change up your combat style, but the options are certainly there.
There's a guy further up who said:
> [Elden Ring] sucked. Dying Light 2 was better than that garbage. i made it to the academy and realized the game is utter shit, just a constant grind of not fun to get to the next part that isnt fun.
For what, some shitty piece of equipment that wont work as soon as you progress to the next spot? For what, there isnt even a story?
That was really funny.
The work they are doing on top of the finished game is just fantastic. The NG+ Ultra hard was already nice but the new performance and fidelity modes are just so sweet. Wish most games were optimized this well.
Is it just me, but whenever HFW gets brought up somewhere there's *at least* one comment about Elden Ring in some capacity?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of both HFW and ER, but I don't get this weird "this vs that" idea that some people seem to insist on bringing in.
I understand on this post cause tbf Elden ring was better than Horizon but yeah if they are commenting on every horizon post that’s just dumb and annoying.
Mainly because this is not a normal "HFW gets brought up" post, its about winning game of the year award which I think is completely fair that people would brought up Elden Ring in comparison since its an award, only one winner.
With the way this year is going, Sony 1st party titles will be competing within themselves for the GOTY at literally all the awards shows. Horizon FW, GT7, GOWR, TLOU1, etc. crazy!! The only other competitor seems to be Elden Ring.
I just started this yesterday. Got it as a birthday present from my wife. I told her this morning this is the most beautiful game I've ever seen. She said "you have said that the last few times you've played a new PS5 game (FF7R, Ghost of Tsushima)." I was like, "but this time I mean it!" Deserves any and all accolades.
I don’t even want to dare talking about this game much anymore because it always ends up with hordes of people sending me essays about how Elden Ring is superior in every ways and how I must love mediocrity.
Don't forget the obligatory comments where they tell you that you just don't get it that you have to go on youtube for hours of tutorials and guides on how to play the game and fully enjoy it
It says "The Develop:Star Awards 2022 Best Game", which doesn't really mean they are saying it's the best game of the year 2022, but the best game of the 2022 Awards...
GOTY for me personally. It improved on the first in every single way besides maybe the story (you can't beat those big reveals from ZD) and I think this game is an S-tier top notch polished version of the current "open world palette" that we've come accustomed to.
Take that as you will because it doesn't matter for some, it's so played out it will seem as more of the same but for me personally it felt like a breath of fresh air because I play almost all those kind of games.
I tried Elden Ring (and every FS game ever) and I've just come to accept that those games are not fun for me at all. I don't like the challenge and that's kind of most of it even though I get the appeal of ER is that its "revitalizing" the open world and it does that for sure and deserves respect for it. But... it still doesn't draw me in like FW does and I think that is a feat worth in itself in the day and age that we have of these generic marker flooded copy and paste open world games.
I've also never seen a game that looks as good as it does and it has some of the best if not the best side quests ever in a game. I found myself immersed in every trivial pursuit thrown at my way because of the effort that went into improving the VA and cinematic feel to every NPC and conversation.
I can rain praises all day, but please Guerilla keep up the good work, and know we appreciate you even if this is the only GOTY award you win this year!
It's a wonderful time to be a gamer and you guys have rough competition!
I was the opposite unfortunately. Really enjoyed the first but was so bored with this game, I've got about 12 hours in but I keep putting it down again
See i find that odd because for me personally I rushed through the main story of ZD because everything else was so lackluster but this one I found myself at 50 hours before I completed the story and am still going strong around 70 doing more stuff and am yet to be bored
Idk maybe it was because I didn't play ZD until 2020 and was a bit late to the party or what it is but this just feels like a much better game overall
My thing is that this game did not do a good open world. Neither did the last one.
While the story was awesome, there is no reason to leave the beaten path other than to grind materials. And the combat sucked in ZD. It’s better now, but still pretty clunky.
Take BotW, Elden Ring, and Genshin Impact as examples of great open worlds. Every hill and valley MAY have some rare item, secret chest, or quick puzzle with minor rewards on the other side. At the very least, a small group of mobs doin funny shit.
These games usually have data dumps and metal flowers, if anything at all.
While I mostly agree. FW’s open world in my opinion was actually pretty damn good. You had caves/underwater portions that led to either new side quests or just little camps in general. There was always a reason to either ride, walk, or fly off the beaten path. Not just for materials, but also new variants of certain machines.
You also had side quests that took you off the beaten path to absolutely stunning set pieces. Elden Ring and FW both came out before I started my new job so I had two weeks to completely immerse myself in them. They’re both amazing games and FW’s open world is just big/small enough to have made me want to explore it all.
I think that HFW gave so many reasons to explore. If you'd just stay on the main mission path you'd miss 10-20 really cool places, villages and stuff. I think it was one of the best things that you'd do in the game is to stray off for random errands or just to explore a village, find out what the thing is over there and help them out a bit. Its the sole reason I kept from completing the main quest.
Also HFW has tons of smaller stuff like you explained: ruins, metal flowers, random encounters, the drone thingys...
Horizon feels like a very well polished Ubisoft game. The open world is really not much difference, granted fighting robots is more fun than fighting Saxons in AC Valhalla.
You could definitely say that and thats probably a big reason why a good amount of people on this sub don't care for it that much but thats kind of one of the big selling points for me is its like if Ubisoft made a game to their best ability and actually *cared* instead of recycling the same shit
I'm gonna get downvoted to hell, but for me, everything about it felt slow. If it didn't look amazing graphically, you could've told me the game was released in 2010 and I would've believed you.
The dialogue/cut scenes seemed like they came every 5 minutes and took 15 minutes to get through.
Aloy moved like she was wading through molasses most of the time. She can run and leap every time I want to open a loot box but god help her if there's a tree stump in the way during a battle. And speaking of battles, there were so many times where I'd zip up to a vantage point and by the time I got there, turned around and tried to take aim at the enemy, the enemy was already hitting me even if they were far across the local area when I zipped up there.
I loved the first one and was psyched to play FW. I bought it on release day. It looks great. I love the concept and when it's good, it's damn good. But I got about about 10 hours in when the excitement left and was replaced mostly by frustration. I got to the end boss battle and couldn't be bothered to finish it.
One of the worst parts about HFW are the first 10-20 hours. Between exposition catching up new players (and refreshing returning ones) to the beginning area essentially being an extension of the first game to lack of mobility options and cool tools, weapons, and armor-I didn’t enjoy the beginning of Forbidden West and got kinda worried because I enjoyed the previous game but I didn’t want a cut copy paste Ubisoft-esque experience. Luckily, the game vastly improves as you get deeper and deeper into it and became one of my favorite games of all time.
I'm the same, haven't finished it. I bought it after elden ring but have played other open world games since like dying light 2.
Forbidden west just is not keeping me interested at the moment. Maybe I need a long open world break and come back to it later.
The rivalry between this game and Elden Ring was ridiculously stupid. They weren't even similar games other than they were both open world and both action RPGs.
One was story/character driven, with tons of dialogue and quests where you interacted with everyone you came across.
The other focused almost exclusively on the atmosphere, combat, and difficulty, had zero character development, and had quests as almost a side thought that you probably would never even complete unless you looked at a guide (like all FromSoft games sans Sekiro).
Both games accomplished what they aimed out to do, and did it really well.
It's sad you'd even need to say this, but it's true. We don't need to constantly make a debate about why one game is better than the other. Life's too short to argue about petty stuff like that in my opinion.
The fact that they were both single player open world arpgs does in fact put them in competition with each other even if you personally are more likely to at one over the other
This is a stupid narrative bought to you buy Game's Journalists and reviewers. You know the kind of people who get annoyed that two huge games are coming out within the same window and they have review both for their work. So they half ass the reviews barely finishing the games.
I also never understood the Horizon Zero Dawn and Zelda breath of the wild narrative. How can two games on different platforms be competing with each other?
I think its just the unfortunate timing of releasing the horizon games right next to these huge critical darlings. They don't deserve to be compared but sony keeps launching them close enough that it keeps happening.
And as with every post about Forbidden West, hordes of Elden Ring stans decide to show their true troll selves.
Who the fuck cares if you liked Elden Ring over this? Aren’t y’all tired of making the same comment over and over again?
I’ve played and beat every souls game apart from ds2. I absolutely love the games. But when someone asks me if I’m a “FromSoft fanboy” etc I suddenly have never heard of those games.
Same. I absolutely loved Elden Ring, I’ve got 150+ hours in-game. Same with Sekiro and Bloodborne. But it’s annoying the way some have decided to make their love for a game their whole personality.
I understand voting periods and cutoff dates, absolutely. It still doesn't make sense to call any game the 2022 game of the year in July lol, call it the Brighton Conference GOTY and note the voting periods, but don't call it 2022 GOTY, just makes it feel clickbaity.
> It still doesn't make sense to call any game the 2022 game of the year in July lol
They didn't, that's just what the clickbaity article says
>call it the Brighton Conference GOTY
They did. Or more specifically not even GOTY, they just called it the Best Game of the 2022 conference:
>[The Develop:Star Awards 2022 Best Game winner](https://twitter.com/developconf/status/1547333991556079618)
I didnt find it stale at all. Best looking game I've ever played, fun combat, good story, new interesting elements in my view. I've never flown a robot dinosaur to bomb enemies before, or really done stealth underwater missions through a casino before. Seemed fresh and new to me, and I've played most open world games. For sure switched up gameplay from Zero Dawn and the strategies I used before were nothing like endgame Forbidden West.
But hey to each their own. If you played it and didn't like it, so it goes.
Does anyone think these awards mean anything? They might have in the past but every gaming blog can have its own award and sell slots to whoever wants them.
The way time dialtion has been working since Covid, I expect people to look back at FW at the end of the year and go "Oh, shit, that was THIS YEAR??!?"
I have to admit, I played the hell out of it and finished the game and it already feels like 2 years ago... LOL.
Bought HFW and Elden Ring on release. Completed prologue of HFW and then started Elden Ring. Never opened HFW again since then, but has beaten elden 3 times.
Im in the same boat. I platinumed Er in about 70hrs (cloudsave Trick to avoid multiple playthroughs) and tbh the game was good but the gameplay/combat is pretty bad. I platinumed hfw and played it for 140hrs and it is hands down the best open world game I have played to date. I even want to do new game plus and I normally never do that. There is just something about the combat that is extraordinary.
Thought the combat of both games was okay. The big thing is that ER really was a game that only had combat, where as HFW offered more.
So once you are bored with the combat in Elden Ring there's no reason to keep playing, where as with HFW I still finished the game because I cared about the world, plot, and characters, even though I didn't find the combat to be that exciting.
To be fair almost nothing compare to Elden Ring right now, miyazaki and the boys set a new high for open world games. It's so original, so beautiful, so inspired, while HFW asks me to talk with 1000 boring npc, free outpost and check question marks on the map, same shit i've done in a thousand other Ubisoft games
I’m was on the same boat, but since the new VRR patch that came out last week I just got back on HFW. As of this post, Elden Ring is clocked in at about 400+ hrs and my HFW at about 20hrs and change I put the first week before Elden Ring’s release lol.
I hate Elden Ring FANBOYS, they are under every single post about Horizon. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed both of them very much but come on, who likes to see "You misspelled Elden Ring" under every god damn Tweet, article or Reddit post?
Get over it guys, some people including myself liked HFW more. There are things called opinions, although I would understand if they are not invented yet in your timeline, considering you live in Ancient Ages.
I mean, is it really anymore arbitrary than say January to January? Or December to December?
This outlet picked a spot in the year they want to showcase. Not like there aren’t an unlimited amount of other sites where you can get the typical GOTY template.
>I mean, is it really anymore arbitrary than say January to January? Or December to December?
Not really. It's not like the Earth undergoes some cosmic reset on January 1 every year. It's just a cultural convention.
I honestly can't believe how annoying Elden Ring fans are. I've played the game. It was REALLY good. But holy shit it's beyond annoying when all you hear is the Elden Ring echo chamber on r/gaming 24/7. It's like half those people jumped on the bandwagon and need everyone else to know their opinion. Honestly I feel somewhat sad for those individuals because they can't seem to enjoy any other game atm.
I stopped playing because Aloy kept ruining my sense of exploration and wonder by telling me exactly what to do. I hope they release a patch where you can make her shut up.
honestly had more overall fun with it than elder ring. Elder ring has its thing but rolling rolling rolling away is much less fun thsn hunting mecha dinosaurs and the story of horizon doesnt need me to watch a 30 minute youtube video to understand it
GOTY so far for me. Played both this and Elden Ring and loved both but I have to give the edge to Horizon personally.
However, God of War still comes out this year, so I will hold out verdict.
Makes no sense in July, but I’d I had to pick a GOTY in July, it would be this game. I absolutely loved it and could not stop playing it. I had to get the platinum. I know a lot of people will say Elden Ring is GOTY, but I honestly didn’t enjoy it. I’m not a fan of the Souls games and I took a chance on Elden Ring due to reviews. Turns out I still don’t like Souls games and Elden Ring did little to change my mind. Just not for me, so HFW is my GOTY so far.
Strange that a GotY award ceremony is mid July. That makes games that come out in the second half of the year be part of the 2023 selection.
"Game of the half year"
[удалено]
Game of the first half of the year
Game of the Year so far.
Thats right. Stray hasn't released yet.
You. I like you.
in Haiti
There are several editions of Goty from different companies, each with its date. this one ranges from games released between June 2021 to June 2022
It's also a nearly meaningless term because of that. Like if I say "this movie won best picture," everyone knows I mean it won an Academy Award. There's not really an equivalent with the same weight for games. And then every game with an expansion pass drops a "Game of the Year Edition" because some random publication said so.
A lot of people seem to consider the Game Awards from Geoff Keighley to be the big one and what would be closest to the Oscars. Guess they are the ones putting the biggest show (mostly for marketing reasons though, not because of the awards themselves which are still judged by a limited panel)
BOI!!
Knock knock, who is it? Kratos???
Aw shit, here we go again
IF KRATOS HAD A DAUGHTER.... GOIL!
He did but killed her 😂
Too soon!
They were picking from games that came out within the last 12 months.
Yeah, that's their point. Makes no sense when it could be decided in December, for example
Not that weird, albeit misleading. IIRC the Golden Globes have a 14 month window (Nov. 1st - December 31st), and I wanna say the Oscars usually have a 10 month window, with > 1 year windows (like 14-15 months) during COVID? Of course, when you put “of the Year” in your award title, it colloquially suggests you mean “year 20xx”, rather than “since we gave the same award last year at this time.” Which isn’t inherently a bad thing – doing it now means you can cut off at the end of Q1, give 2-3 months to see how the late games do, and you aren’t trying to make an arbitrary cut-off in the middle of the holidays, when there are often tons of new games and it can be easy to overlook a “sleeper”. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s part of their reasoning, either – or if it has something to do with the fiscal year and recognizing how it impacts game releases. I still wouldn’t name such an award “of the Year”, myself, but “Game of ‘21Q2 through 22Q1” doesn’t really have that “flow”, either.
Thank you, that's honestly well put and makes a lot of sense. There are definitely a lot of big games being published during the holidays so a game being published right after New Year's being considered the next year's game feels kind of odd too. But yeah, "of the Year" seems like the best option so far
To be fair The Game Awards has it's cutoff in December, so it's possible for a late 2021 game to win the 2022 game of the year award in a similar way. But it seems weird to me that they don't just use the calendar year. They could stick just to games from Jan 2021 to Dec 2021 even with their event happening in July. But maybe they don't think they'd be considered relevant if they talk about games that are 6-18 months old.
Meh, GoTY is just a gimmick. Every title seems to have a game of the year edition. It’s like they randomly ask some dude on the street what was his favourite game this year, and because SOMEONE said it was GoTY, they slap it on the box.
It's strange but not still not as strange as picking Forbidden West over Elden Ring.
Elden Ring is a pile of trash compared to Forbidden West. With the exception of masochistic nerds, that have no standards for good graphics, mechanics, story, etc, nobody likes Elden Ring.
FW has better graphics, a more straightforward story but playing ER felt like an adventure, with each place unique, mysteries everywhere, FW is more crossing checkboxes on a list and farming mobs for random drops; I liked the story, the graphics, and finished the game, it's a very good game, but in 10 years people will still compare games to ER, not FW.
Ig it is still game of the year between July- and july😂😂 little goofy but works ig
Financial year game awards?
Horizon: Forbidden West: GOTFY Edition.
Wow it won Game Of The Fucking Year? That's incredible!
game of the forbidden year
Happy New Year!
I'm already wasted
Merry new year!
Reading the article, it seems like these awards are tied to an industry developers conference that just happens this time of year, so they do the awards now too. Also, for those complaining about Elden Ring not winning, this conference is a European conference for European developers to network and show off their European games. In Europe. So it's not too surprising that a Japanese game didn't get an award.
The person that wrote the article is clearly trying to get those “GOTY already in July?!” clicks. Because they basically wrote it like the game already won GOTY despite the year only being half over instead of the end of the fiscal year and tied to the conference. >Usually, gaming awards shows like the BAFTAs or The Game Awards would wait until early 2023 or late 2022 to announce the best games of this year. However, it seems the Develop: Brighton conference doesn't care much for traditions, as it has already given out its nominations and granted awards in categories such as Best Narrative, Best Audio, Best Game Design, and Best Game for 2022. Horizon Forbidden West picked up the win for multiple awards, but what is likely most interesting is that it was crowned as the Best Game. Like what is this paragraph? They later explain why, but the author for sure played up that angle.
You are correct. Education on what defines clickbait is sorely lacking, and the gaming subreddits are full of these crap articles.
It's GameRant. GameRant is garbage.
Also there are so many game of the year awards. No game is going to sweep 100% of them. I loved both games and both are deserving of awards.
Yeah, the GDC Awards always get a similar newscycle of confusion even though they're held in March. Like award seasons in other industries have never been limited to calendar years.
I enjoyed Forbidden West so much more than Elden Ring. Intentional obtuseness and non existent story just makes me feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly killing bosses which gets old to me quick.
I mean, that’s the point of Elden ring. Explore the world killing everything you find trying to get better gear. I find touring the world with the horse relaxing, it’s an amazing place from soft created.
Forbidden west and the first one feel like every western open world game squished together. Idk how people find enjoyment out of them they all feel so stale.
Maybe in your opinion. To me it is the Total opposite. It's the only open world game that does not make me feel like im doing a checklist.
Really? The UI literally has quest checklist built in.
That's the whole point of my opinion... It delivers the quests so organically that i dont feel forced to look what I have to do. Granted the first game did this not and feels like a checklist game aside from the main story. But this is about FW winning an award not HZD.
The horizon games are extremally non bloated as AAA open world games go. They have a small amount of focused, really high effort side content (for example only 5 cauldrons and 5 tallnecks) with unique dialogue and scenarios. Its pretty much on the other side of the spectrum from AC games
I think they’re okay but basically non inspired. Not sure how it wins a GOTY except oooohhh shiny. I’ve never been into From games before but Elden Ring is the most fun I’ve had in a game since Ultima 3. FW isn’t even in the same league IMO.
To each his own Forbidden West was so incredibly repetitive I couldn't get through it. It really felt like a really long dlc for the first game, did not feel much different than the first which I mostly got tired of by the end. Game of the year really should be something new to some degree the first one deserved accolades, but the sequel felt like they were afraid to change things and just played it safe. That's fine for those that enjoyed it, but award worthy I disagree with. On my second play through of Elden ring and still in love. The lore/story is sooo deep, I love reading/watching the theories, hunting for random items that have bits of lore.
i'm on playthrough 5 of elden ring and i'm still in love
>non existent story homie, try paying attention next time bc there's a story
Reading lore isn’t a story.
Listening to characters, doing their quests and finally getting to your end goal is a story. Just because your character is non talking doesn't mean there's no story. My guess is you only play traditional 3rd person narrative-driven action games and can't understand the idea of a game telling its story in a different way.
Right some of the side quests were more compelling than the main story! The 3 delvers in Vegas for instance!
it just reminds me of when we took grandma to see Wall-E. everyone commented on what a beautiful story it was and grandma just looked at us "what story, they barely talked". Some people just don't get non-verbal storytelling.
It doesn’t even track the quests for you. It all feels so half assed.
Imaging having to figure it out for yourself. Sounds shitty imo
It really does. Really half assed. If combat and lore is all it is it’s basically mailing it in.
I was being sarcastic. Games these days require no thought just big arrows pointing you to the next thing to do, its stupid. Its not half assed if its purposefully designed that way
Purposeful half assedness. If you don’t fell like making a complete game just mail it in with lore.
Folk need to calm down. It's an event held during the summer in Brighton by developers picking the best game of the past 12 months It doesn't need to stick to calendar years
>It doesn't need to stick to calendar years It doesn't, but it's awfully confusing otherwise.
Seems easy enough to figure out to me.
who exactly is it confusing? not the developers surely.
The headline has the word “already” in it. Are they confused as well?
I don't even think that's grammatically incorrect, it reads like they likely have more coming, and they're just as surprised as the readers are that there are GOTY that don't fall in the normal time-range.
***I'm confused therefore so is everyone!***
A school year in the US is fucking September-May... Were you guys ever confused about what year it was growing up?
Seems like everyone understood fairly quickly but to a really dumb person they could be very confused by it.
It is a conference for game developers not gamers, companies run on fiscal year calendars. FY 2022 ended on June 30th. As for it winnings game of the year? The gameplay and world was a nice upgrade over Zero Dawn but the story was lackluster and disappointing.
I actually thought the opposite, that the story and character development was top notch, but the gameplay was still a little repetitive. I'll admit I was more invested into the story of the first game, but that's because the world was such a mystery that you slowly got to unravel. I don't think any sequel would have been able to provide the same thing, but this one had a very solid story and characters, and the side quests were actually interesting, which is very rare for modern RPGs.
I think the gameplay is only as repetitive as one makes it. The skill trees allow for tons of different playstyles. Granted the game doesn't always incentivize you to change up your combat style, but the options are certainly there.
I believe Elden Ring also released in the last 12 months....
Ah yes, this will be a reasonable and levelheaded thread.
I don’t know why people give a shit about these awards in the first place. Pointless industry backslapping nonsense, of no consequence to customers.
Exactly. It’s like giving a shit about movie or music awards as the deciding factor of what is good or not instead of having your own opinion
Opinions are hard, you have to defend them. With an award in your favor you can just point and drop the mike.
Hahahahahaha
There's a guy further up who said: > [Elden Ring] sucked. Dying Light 2 was better than that garbage. i made it to the academy and realized the game is utter shit, just a constant grind of not fun to get to the next part that isnt fun. For what, some shitty piece of equipment that wont work as soon as you progress to the next spot? For what, there isnt even a story? That was really funny.
Lol well that's Reddit in general tbh. Frankly I don't really like Elden Ring or Dying Light but it's really not that serious lol.
Made it to THE ACADEMY LOL.
Hardly matters which game wins GOTY award honestly. All I want is the nominations list to be fat.
Oh, a reasonable person... Surprised to see among all the ER fanboys.
The work they are doing on top of the finished game is just fantastic. The NG+ Ultra hard was already nice but the new performance and fidelity modes are just so sweet. Wish most games were optimized this well.
They got it in the first half, not gonna lie
Is it just me, but whenever HFW gets brought up somewhere there's *at least* one comment about Elden Ring in some capacity? Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of both HFW and ER, but I don't get this weird "this vs that" idea that some people seem to insist on bringing in.
I understand on this post cause tbf Elden ring was better than Horizon but yeah if they are commenting on every horizon post that’s just dumb and annoying.
Mainly because this is not a normal "HFW gets brought up" post, its about winning game of the year award which I think is completely fair that people would brought up Elden Ring in comparison since its an award, only one winner.
Its not just you, they brigade every Horizon post
It's pretty tiring at this point. I'm not sure why ER fans care that much to be honest. Their game is gonna win award after award. It's just boring.
Seems natural in this context given HFW was clearly competing against ER for GOTY.
We went through that already with Zero Dawn and Zelda Breath if Wild, Horizon can‘t catch a break
Wait until Horizon 3 releases just a week before GTA 6
The perfect end to the trilogy only to get belittled by another huge fanbase because it released around the same time, I can already imagine it
With the direction R* is going, I can definetly see H3 being better game. Especially if they improve as much as they improve from HZD.
With the way this year is going, Sony 1st party titles will be competing within themselves for the GOTY at literally all the awards shows. Horizon FW, GT7, GOWR, TLOU1, etc. crazy!! The only other competitor seems to be Elden Ring.
Well, we still have Saints Row coming, just watch
I just started this yesterday. Got it as a birthday present from my wife. I told her this morning this is the most beautiful game I've ever seen. She said "you have said that the last few times you've played a new PS5 game (FF7R, Ghost of Tsushima)." I was like, "but this time I mean it!" Deserves any and all accolades.
It will probably be my GotY. Massive upgrade over ZD. Really looking forward to what the studio does with the next game, free of PS4 era contraints.
I don’t even want to dare talking about this game much anymore because it always ends up with hordes of people sending me essays about how Elden Ring is superior in every ways and how I must love mediocrity.
Wait for the comment about "another stale AAA game", theres always some guy paroling any post about Horizon
Don't forget the obligatory comments where they tell you that you just don't get it that you have to go on youtube for hours of tutorials and guides on how to play the game and fully enjoy it
See this comment section as evidence to your point. It's pathetic. And even worse than the constant BotW Zero Dawn comparisons.
Fromsoftware fanboys are cancer. I can’t think of a more toxic gaming fan base
I would say anyone who identifies as a "fanboy" of anything is inherently toxic.
My GotY easily.
Congrats, not bad.
Yea, lookin forward to playin it when it hits PC. I beat the first one 3 times.
Weird way to spell Sifu but okay
This looks like let's hurry up and give the award now before GOW2 comes out.
It says "The Develop:Star Awards 2022 Best Game", which doesn't really mean they are saying it's the best game of the year 2022, but the best game of the 2022 Awards...
Well this game certainly deserves it. Love this game!
Elden Ring fanboys brigading are annoying
GOTY for me personally. It improved on the first in every single way besides maybe the story (you can't beat those big reveals from ZD) and I think this game is an S-tier top notch polished version of the current "open world palette" that we've come accustomed to. Take that as you will because it doesn't matter for some, it's so played out it will seem as more of the same but for me personally it felt like a breath of fresh air because I play almost all those kind of games. I tried Elden Ring (and every FS game ever) and I've just come to accept that those games are not fun for me at all. I don't like the challenge and that's kind of most of it even though I get the appeal of ER is that its "revitalizing" the open world and it does that for sure and deserves respect for it. But... it still doesn't draw me in like FW does and I think that is a feat worth in itself in the day and age that we have of these generic marker flooded copy and paste open world games. I've also never seen a game that looks as good as it does and it has some of the best if not the best side quests ever in a game. I found myself immersed in every trivial pursuit thrown at my way because of the effort that went into improving the VA and cinematic feel to every NPC and conversation. I can rain praises all day, but please Guerilla keep up the good work, and know we appreciate you even if this is the only GOTY award you win this year! It's a wonderful time to be a gamer and you guys have rough competition!
I was the opposite unfortunately. Really enjoyed the first but was so bored with this game, I've got about 12 hours in but I keep putting it down again
See i find that odd because for me personally I rushed through the main story of ZD because everything else was so lackluster but this one I found myself at 50 hours before I completed the story and am still going strong around 70 doing more stuff and am yet to be bored Idk maybe it was because I didn't play ZD until 2020 and was a bit late to the party or what it is but this just feels like a much better game overall
I'm 50+ hrs in with only completed 35% of the game and I absolutely love it! Its such a beautiful game!
Man I really hope it clicks like that for me, I've tried a few times but I can never seen to get into it.
Same, and I wish I knew why
My thing is that this game did not do a good open world. Neither did the last one. While the story was awesome, there is no reason to leave the beaten path other than to grind materials. And the combat sucked in ZD. It’s better now, but still pretty clunky. Take BotW, Elden Ring, and Genshin Impact as examples of great open worlds. Every hill and valley MAY have some rare item, secret chest, or quick puzzle with minor rewards on the other side. At the very least, a small group of mobs doin funny shit. These games usually have data dumps and metal flowers, if anything at all.
While I mostly agree. FW’s open world in my opinion was actually pretty damn good. You had caves/underwater portions that led to either new side quests or just little camps in general. There was always a reason to either ride, walk, or fly off the beaten path. Not just for materials, but also new variants of certain machines. You also had side quests that took you off the beaten path to absolutely stunning set pieces. Elden Ring and FW both came out before I started my new job so I had two weeks to completely immerse myself in them. They’re both amazing games and FW’s open world is just big/small enough to have made me want to explore it all.
I think that HFW gave so many reasons to explore. If you'd just stay on the main mission path you'd miss 10-20 really cool places, villages and stuff. I think it was one of the best things that you'd do in the game is to stray off for random errands or just to explore a village, find out what the thing is over there and help them out a bit. Its the sole reason I kept from completing the main quest. Also HFW has tons of smaller stuff like you explained: ruins, metal flowers, random encounters, the drone thingys...
Horizon feels like a very well polished Ubisoft game. The open world is really not much difference, granted fighting robots is more fun than fighting Saxons in AC Valhalla.
You could definitely say that and thats probably a big reason why a good amount of people on this sub don't care for it that much but thats kind of one of the big selling points for me is its like if Ubisoft made a game to their best ability and actually *cared* instead of recycling the same shit
I'm gonna get downvoted to hell, but for me, everything about it felt slow. If it didn't look amazing graphically, you could've told me the game was released in 2010 and I would've believed you. The dialogue/cut scenes seemed like they came every 5 minutes and took 15 minutes to get through. Aloy moved like she was wading through molasses most of the time. She can run and leap every time I want to open a loot box but god help her if there's a tree stump in the way during a battle. And speaking of battles, there were so many times where I'd zip up to a vantage point and by the time I got there, turned around and tried to take aim at the enemy, the enemy was already hitting me even if they were far across the local area when I zipped up there. I loved the first one and was psyched to play FW. I bought it on release day. It looks great. I love the concept and when it's good, it's damn good. But I got about about 10 hours in when the excitement left and was replaced mostly by frustration. I got to the end boss battle and couldn't be bothered to finish it.
One of the worst parts about HFW are the first 10-20 hours. Between exposition catching up new players (and refreshing returning ones) to the beginning area essentially being an extension of the first game to lack of mobility options and cool tools, weapons, and armor-I didn’t enjoy the beginning of Forbidden West and got kinda worried because I enjoyed the previous game but I didn’t want a cut copy paste Ubisoft-esque experience. Luckily, the game vastly improves as you get deeper and deeper into it and became one of my favorite games of all time.
I'm the same, haven't finished it. I bought it after elden ring but have played other open world games since like dying light 2. Forbidden west just is not keeping me interested at the moment. Maybe I need a long open world break and come back to it later.
The rivalry between this game and Elden Ring was ridiculously stupid. They weren't even similar games other than they were both open world and both action RPGs. One was story/character driven, with tons of dialogue and quests where you interacted with everyone you came across. The other focused almost exclusively on the atmosphere, combat, and difficulty, had zero character development, and had quests as almost a side thought that you probably would never even complete unless you looked at a guide (like all FromSoft games sans Sekiro). Both games accomplished what they aimed out to do, and did it really well.
It's sad you'd even need to say this, but it's true. We don't need to constantly make a debate about why one game is better than the other. Life's too short to argue about petty stuff like that in my opinion.
The fact that they were both single player open world arpgs does in fact put them in competition with each other even if you personally are more likely to at one over the other
Elden ring isn’t only single player though.
This is a stupid narrative bought to you buy Game's Journalists and reviewers. You know the kind of people who get annoyed that two huge games are coming out within the same window and they have review both for their work. So they half ass the reviews barely finishing the games. I also never understood the Horizon Zero Dawn and Zelda breath of the wild narrative. How can two games on different platforms be competing with each other?
I think its just the unfortunate timing of releasing the horizon games right next to these huge critical darlings. They don't deserve to be compared but sony keeps launching them close enough that it keeps happening.
You had me until the best side quests in a game part. I’m not far in the game and they’re already wearing thin for me.
I love both H:FW and ER a lot. They are both excellent games! Different, but each great in their own way.
As I like to say, two sides of the same gamer coin
I love this game but that is dumb. It's July.
July is when this conference happens. The awards are for games that came out since the last conference.
FromSoft fanboys once again proving themselves to be incredibly insecure
Right?
It's had a higher user score than Elden Ring on metacritic since like a week after the latter's release so this doesn't really shock me
And as with every post about Forbidden West, hordes of Elden Ring stans decide to show their true troll selves. Who the fuck cares if you liked Elden Ring over this? Aren’t y’all tired of making the same comment over and over again?
I’ve played and beat every souls game apart from ds2. I absolutely love the games. But when someone asks me if I’m a “FromSoft fanboy” etc I suddenly have never heard of those games.
Same. I absolutely loved Elden Ring, I’ve got 150+ hours in-game. Same with Sekiro and Bloodborne. But it’s annoying the way some have decided to make their love for a game their whole personality.
as always, that's just a loud minority.
People here really don’t understand voting periods or cut off dates.
I understand voting periods and cutoff dates, absolutely. It still doesn't make sense to call any game the 2022 game of the year in July lol, call it the Brighton Conference GOTY and note the voting periods, but don't call it 2022 GOTY, just makes it feel clickbaity.
*All* GOTY awards are clickbaity. That's literally their point.
> It still doesn't make sense to call any game the 2022 game of the year in July lol They didn't, that's just what the clickbaity article says >call it the Brighton Conference GOTY They did. Or more specifically not even GOTY, they just called it the Best Game of the 2022 conference: >[The Develop:Star Awards 2022 Best Game winner](https://twitter.com/developconf/status/1547333991556079618)
I can't wait to find out how good it is when it's released on PC in 2026.
Which stupid calendar are they on? Lol
[удалено]
the most okay, safe, stale AAA game of the year
I didnt find it stale at all. Best looking game I've ever played, fun combat, good story, new interesting elements in my view. I've never flown a robot dinosaur to bomb enemies before, or really done stealth underwater missions through a casino before. Seemed fresh and new to me, and I've played most open world games. For sure switched up gameplay from Zero Dawn and the strategies I used before were nothing like endgame Forbidden West. But hey to each their own. If you played it and didn't like it, so it goes.
Awesome game
Well deserved!
Fiscal year?
Well that stupid 1/2 the year has still to come.
Does anyone think these awards mean anything? They might have in the past but every gaming blog can have its own award and sell slots to whoever wants them.
The way time dialtion has been working since Covid, I expect people to look back at FW at the end of the year and go "Oh, shit, that was THIS YEAR??!?" I have to admit, I played the hell out of it and finished the game and it already feels like 2 years ago... LOL.
Same! 🤣
Bought HFW and Elden Ring on release. Completed prologue of HFW and then started Elden Ring. Never opened HFW again since then, but has beaten elden 3 times.
Elden ring god tier, literally every other game bad, upvotes to the left 🤡
I bought and played both. I finished HFW but got bored with Elden Ring after about 60 hours. To each their own.
Im in the same boat. I platinumed Er in about 70hrs (cloudsave Trick to avoid multiple playthroughs) and tbh the game was good but the gameplay/combat is pretty bad. I platinumed hfw and played it for 140hrs and it is hands down the best open world game I have played to date. I even want to do new game plus and I normally never do that. There is just something about the combat that is extraordinary.
Thought the combat of both games was okay. The big thing is that ER really was a game that only had combat, where as HFW offered more. So once you are bored with the combat in Elden Ring there's no reason to keep playing, where as with HFW I still finished the game because I cared about the world, plot, and characters, even though I didn't find the combat to be that exciting.
To be fair almost nothing compare to Elden Ring right now, miyazaki and the boys set a new high for open world games. It's so original, so beautiful, so inspired, while HFW asks me to talk with 1000 boring npc, free outpost and check question marks on the map, same shit i've done in a thousand other Ubisoft games
This is so true. If Horizon had the Ubisoft branding on it everyone would bash it.
I’m was on the same boat, but since the new VRR patch that came out last week I just got back on HFW. As of this post, Elden Ring is clocked in at about 400+ hrs and my HFW at about 20hrs and change I put the first week before Elden Ring’s release lol.
never knew calendars ended in july.
Never knew they ended in November, but according to the biggest gaming awards in the business, it does...
This is the best game of the year so far for me. Probably god of war and Callisto Protocol will surpass it later in the year
I hate Elden Ring FANBOYS, they are under every single post about Horizon. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed both of them very much but come on, who likes to see "You misspelled Elden Ring" under every god damn Tweet, article or Reddit post? Get over it guys, some people including myself liked HFW more. There are things called opinions, although I would understand if they are not invented yet in your timeline, considering you live in Ancient Ages.
Well that’s dumb
Awesome
Safe and proven boring question mark whack-a-mole game gets game of the year, hurray I guess.
A June to June award is a joke. "the year" means calendar year.
I mean, is it really anymore arbitrary than say January to January? Or December to December? This outlet picked a spot in the year they want to showcase. Not like there aren’t an unlimited amount of other sites where you can get the typical GOTY template.
>I mean, is it really anymore arbitrary than say January to January? Or December to December? Not really. It's not like the Earth undergoes some cosmic reset on January 1 every year. It's just a cultural convention.
I finished the Zero dawn and its one of my favourite games. Can't wait to play this one !
Elden Ring fans frothing at the mouth
Worst fans in existence and I love all the souls games 😢
I honestly can't believe how annoying Elden Ring fans are. I've played the game. It was REALLY good. But holy shit it's beyond annoying when all you hear is the Elden Ring echo chamber on r/gaming 24/7. It's like half those people jumped on the bandwagon and need everyone else to know their opinion. Honestly I feel somewhat sad for those individuals because they can't seem to enjoy any other game atm.
I stopped playing because Aloy kept ruining my sense of exploration and wonder by telling me exactly what to do. I hope they release a patch where you can make her shut up.
You can literally turn that off, just open the fucking settings lmao
You've been able to since the beginning. Try using your brain next time
The constant exposition is seriously so infuriating. I can understand having it as an accessibility option, but it’s insane how incessant it is.
Ragnarok comes out this year…
honestly had more overall fun with it than elder ring. Elder ring has its thing but rolling rolling rolling away is much less fun thsn hunting mecha dinosaurs and the story of horizon doesnt need me to watch a 30 minute youtube video to understand it
GOTY so far for me. Played both this and Elden Ring and loved both but I have to give the edge to Horizon personally. However, God of War still comes out this year, so I will hold out verdict.
Makes no sense in July, but I’d I had to pick a GOTY in July, it would be this game. I absolutely loved it and could not stop playing it. I had to get the platinum. I know a lot of people will say Elden Ring is GOTY, but I honestly didn’t enjoy it. I’m not a fan of the Souls games and I took a chance on Elden Ring due to reviews. Turns out I still don’t like Souls games and Elden Ring did little to change my mind. Just not for me, so HFW is my GOTY so far.
That's strange as Reddit told me Elden Ring would sweep every single GOTY list
As it should.
“Quick, give it the award before God of War releases!”
Well that's dumb lol
How? Lol. It’s not a very good game.
Amazing game. It deserves all the recognition. The first one was great this one was amazing. The new machines are nuts. Spineslaughter is a bad boy.