The Game Developers Choice Awards (or GDC to its friends) took place last night in San Francisco as part of the 2016 Game Developers Conference, and we’ve got a full list of the winners for you to enjoy (and potentially disagree with).
It was a big night for CD Projekt Red’s Witcher 3 – the open world fantasy epic led the pack in terms of nominations, and ended up taking home the all important Game of the Year and Best Technology.
Indie darling Her Story also had a swell time, scooping up three awards including innovation and best mobile game. The rundown of all the winners and nominees is below.
Game Of The Year – Witcher 3
Nominated: Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V, Bloodborne, Rocket League
Innovation Award – Her Story
Nominated: Super Mario Maker, Undertale, Splatoon, The Beginner’s Guide
Best Debut – Moon Studios (Ori and the Blind Forest)
Nominated: Studio Wildcard (Ark: Survival Evolved), Toby Fox (Undertale), Moppin (Downwell), Steel Crate Games (Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes)
Best Design – Rocket League
Nominated: Metal Gear Solid V, Fallout 4, Bloodborne
Best Handheld/Mobile Game – Her Story
Nominated: Lara Craft GO, Fallout Shelter, Downwell, AlphaBear
Best Visual Art – Ori And The Blind Forest
Nominated: Witcher 3, Star Wars Battlefront, Bloodborne, Splatoon
Best Narrative – Her Story
Nominated: Witcher 3, Life is Strange, Undertale, The Beginner’s Guide
Best Audio – Crypt Of The Necrodancer
Nominated: Star Wars Battlefront, Ori and the Blind Forest, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Metal Gear Solid V
Best Technology – Witcher 3
Nominated: Metal Gear Solid V, Star Wars Battlefront, Fallout 4, Just Cause 3
A few special awards were handed out to shine a light on some efforts from the past year. The Audience Award went to Life is Strange, Markus “Notch” Persson took home the Pioneer Award, and Tracey Fullerton nabbed the Ambassador Award.
Finally, Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Well done to the winners. The losers of course, must now fight one another to the death in a pit filled with barbed wire and rabid dogs.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.