If Elden Ring, BotW, ToTK and Baldurs Gate 3 came out in 2017, who do you think would've won GOTY?

Stop believing GOTY is important at all. You're so involved in this shit that you had to make up a scenario.

Tears of the Kingdom. All fantastic games of course but I think TotK would have taken the cake with the crazy level of interaction that Ultrahand mechanics allowed for.

Jesus Christ. Its a video game forum, you create scenarios for conversation purposes🤡

That's easy, the Gamers of course. Sorry but I often try to not do one of those Butterfly Effects on What If...? scenarios.

GOTY may not be important to you, but the rest of the gaming world does see it as something to celebrate that game to get recognized by the developers who worked their asses hard to achieve there moment of greatness.

Elden Ring of course.

@hardwenzen: that's not possible because development is all about iteration. There is no way Belden ring gets made without sekiro, and the other souls like games that came before it. Also Miyazaki said he took influence from botw in his game design. Totk simply wouldn't exist without botw. And as for bg3, it was always around even back from 2013, aka early access, aka beta. The only difference is the team used that as a cop out because their original game was complete ass. Imagine every dev made their game early access to escape the reviewers, then release the "final version" 7 years later. Frankly that's pathetic...and the fact that you're ok with something like that but bash cyber punk just screams hypocrisy.

GOTY was always worthless. Even ignoring that devs don't make enough worthwhile games in a year to nominate for all these different categories, the awards don't make them produce better games.

Not a filmmaker I have much love for, but Martin Campbell said it so well... "I like the fact I slipped under the radar. I just tried to get on with my career. Recognition is bullshit. It's the work that's important."

Normally wouldn't say all this, but to care so much as to ask this weird question... Wow.

Bloodborne but Elden Ring is a decent substitute.

TOTK should be removed. It lost to BG3. However, if we assume a world where BOTW does not exist, then it should be removed from the poll.

No, plenty of people prefer botw over totk. And totk lost to BG3 because totk is essentially botw 2.0 with a glue mechanic and more verticality. If botw didn't exist, totk would've had a much biggest impact than it did.

Which is my point. You cannot have both TOTK and BOTW in the same poll. It's one or the other.

If this is the real world, TOTK lost to BG3 so there's no point in asking.

If it's in a hypothetical world where TOTK would be groundbreaking because BOTW wouldn't exist, then BOTW shouldn't be in the poll.

Makes no sense to have both since TOTK winning is contingent on BOTW not existing.

Between baldur's gate 3 and elden ring. Probably baldur's gate 3

@hardwenzen: Why would a game that looks like 💩 and the performance was garbage that Namco not the useless Fromsoft had to apologise set a standard in open world games. Yeah, a standard on not how to do an open world game win GOTY 🤣

Elden Ring

It's either Baldurs Gate 3 or TotK.

BG3 beat TOTK last year and would easily beat Elden Ring if they were out the same year.

TOTK's only advantage in this hypothetical scenario is that it would be 100% new, since BOTW hypothetically didn't exist before this year. That might give it the edge against Elden Ring (which polished up a tired formula) and give it better odds against BG3.

BG3

BG3

That’s a hard choice between BG3 and TotK. But I go TotK.

@warm_gun: Jesus christ whats wrong with you. Its a question about the most prestigious award you can give a videogame, on a videogame forum. Its 100% valid and a very interesting thread topic. There are hundreds of shitty threads posted here every month, this one is actually a good one, and you're acting like OP has asked something weird

Those are four absolute titans of the industry. The only one we can rule out is BOTW. TOTK is basically better in every way from what I figured, it just wasn't as ground breaking or fresh as it released 6 years later.

BG3 absolutely hammered TOTK at the actual 2023 awards so there is no reason to believe it would not do the same in 2017 as well.

But Elden Ring is... Elden Ring.

Elden Ring would win this Super-GOTY award. Only TLOU would beat Elden Ring at this award.

Baldur's gate feels a bit different than the others and would deserve accolades on its own merits.

Between Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom and Elden Ring, I think Breath of the Wild is head and shoulders above the others. It is a complete and focused experience that achieves what it's going for better than any of the others. It's a complete and singular vision done to perfection. The most impressive open world game I've ever played because it pushes the genre further than its ever been before. It still hasn't been surpassed.

I feel like TOTK went a bit backwards on that original vision and Elden Ring is just souls again but in bigger space. I felt like I played Elden Ring several times before by the time it came out.

In that case you will find these very interesting.

Prestigious lol, Keightley's shitshow has only been going for 9yrs, it's not prestigious.

The D.I.C.E awards have been going for 26yrs and is voted on by developers, not corrupt gaming journos.

The GOTY awards show serves no one other than Keightley's bank balance with his adfest of a show.

Its clear as day Elden Ring is trashing its competition. Sheep go home, you have been surpassed by Fromsoft since the year Dark Souls 1 came out.

Haven't you figured out why he has 2 Zelda games in the poll? It's rather easy, he has put 2 Zelda games to steal votes from one another so the chances of one of the Zelda games winning is actually lower. he's clearly trying to manipulate the vote.

I'm surprised no one else has figured it out yet lol.

@last_lap: the DICE awards are completely irrelevant.

Well not completely, they are relevant when adding up the total amount of GOTY wins each game has at the end of the year. But individually it is worthless.

TGA is the official GOTY, no one cares about any of the others.

You say DICE, but then you could say BAFTA, NAVGTR, Golden Joystick, etc. etc. They're a dime a dozen.

Its the TGA (Academy Award)

and its the overall winner (most wins, compiled just like metacritic is an average of every review which on itself is meaningless, but combined they are an almost perfect indication of a games quality).

@Suddenly_Wasted: Yeah by far one of the better topics to discuss. I often think would win out of 2022, 2023 and 2017's GOTY winners.

We should make a new topic, but with 2015's TW3 v Bloodborne v MGS5 and 2018's RDR2 v GoW (if they all released in 2015).

Reviewers giving awards instead of developers is pointless and carries no integrity.

Since when and how does one gets the "official" GOTY award moniker?

@last_lap:

There are many reasons but the easiest way is:

Since you can go on any platform (Any gaming forum, any gaming subreddit, Tiktok, facebook, whatever platform or even discuss IRL) and say 2020 GOTY and immediately TLOU2 is what pops up. If we're talking about if 2023 GOTY was deserved or not, you don't need context. You know they are talking about BG3. If you say GOTY 22, you are using it synonymously With Elden Ring. BAFTA/DICE (I can't even remember which because it doesn't matter) gave it to God of War Ragnarok, but guess what? Saying GOWR is the GOTY without further context is a false statement. Elden Ring is the 2022 GOTY. For 2019 you can say:

Sekiro is the 2019 GOTY

Death Stranding is the most awarded (won the most GOTYs) of any 2019 game.

Both those two statements are true. But saying "Death Stranding is GOTY" isn't quite correct, even if it won way more GOTYs than Sekiro did. Sekiro won the big one.

This thread itself is proof. Why Elden Ring, BG3 and BOTW in particular? Cause those were the three GOTY winners of 17, 22 and 23.

Your theory on why TOTK is there also is probably correct, but in any case TOTK was likely the runner up in 2023.

if you google "Official Game of the year" on google, every single post on the front page is talking about TGA, except a wikipedia page on top that compiles multiple large awards, (including TGA).

Again, how did Keighley acquire the rights to be the OFFICIAL GOTY?

He didn't invent video game awards, there were awards shows long before he came along, just because his is televised doesn't mean 💩

I mean using things like Reddit, tiktok, Facebook etc as proof is as laughable as it gets.

On Dorito Pope show?

I think TotK would have a better chance at beating BG3 if TotK came before BotW. It would be very new to people and would most likely steal the spotlight.

Game of the year is usually given to what's most popular, not what's best. If BG3 didn't become as popular as it did, it wouldn't have a chance at winning GotY 2023.

@Litchie: Come on, you know that's a lie. On both points. 1) The best selling never wins GOTY 2) the best game always wins GOTY. The only exception is fucking Overwatch

• RDR2, some Mario game, COD Blacks Ops 4 and Spiderman all out sold the GOTY winner of 2018; God of War (which was the best game of 18)
• Sekiro wasn't even in the top 20 best selling game of 2019 (COD:MW was #1 and not even nominated) you can argue if Sekiro or Death Stranding was the best game of 2019.
• The Last of US 2 wasn't even in the top 10 best selling game of 2020. TLOU2 was easily, hands down the best game of 2022.
• I'm not even going to google this one, I already know It Takes Two was far from the most popular or best selling game of 2021.
• You almost win this one, but Pokemon was the best selling ,Elden Ring was second best selling. Elden Ring was 1000% the best game however.
• Hogwarts Legacy was the best selling. Not BG3. BG3 however, was by far the best (original) game of 2023. I specify original because RE4 Remake was damn near as good.

Imo elden ring is the best game this gen. I dont think anyone can beat ER if they go head to head with it.

you just made hardwenzen bust a nut.

Havent played BG3 yet cause I'm not really into CRPGs but out of ER, BotW and TotK my pick goes definitely to ER. Yeah, its more souls, but the depth of its world and lore were just... *chefs kiss

BotW/TotK are really good games but the become stale after a while. I could play ER for months without getting tired

@Archangel3371: I dont think so. TotK managed, somehow, to have even worse dungeons and shrines than BotW. Its underworld its just one boring biome with no variation at all. Ultrahand is cool and all but its just a very basic developers kit put "in-game", nothing more. I think BotW is the better game, at least it managed to be fresh. TotK feels to me "the same, but more and worst", Idk. Still fun, dont get me wrong, but I felt I had more fun with botw.

@vatususreturns: Not for me. I loved the dungeons and shrines in both games. Had a great time in the Underworld. Found Ultrahand to be a fantastic addition to the game. Allowed for a plethora of different ways to approach situations and interact with the game’s world and enemies. I think both games were fantastic but ToTK just took BotW and further elevated it in every way.

i really need to play bg3 but until i do its got to be elden ring

@vatususreturns: Yeah those dungeons in BOTW were god damn awful. No idea how it isn't criticised more for them.

Elden Ring is more of the same. If you played Dark Souls or Nioh, you played Elden Ring.

TotK is more of the same, but a downgrade in many respects (from what I've heard).

Baldur's Gate 3 was the only innovative one. Yes, it used an existing pen-and-paper ruleset in an established world, but it's the first D&D video game to actually bring you most of the freedom and opportunities that an in-person game with a live dungeon master would actually bring. It's a game multiplied by a game.

Also BG3 is an independent game, so it get's bonus points.

And that is where those who don't play these games, are wrong. Nioh is nothing like anything made by fromsoft, unless all action rpgs are dark souls-like.

I would think Baldur’s Gate 3 would win, considering it’s a fairly niche genre of video games and how popular it is amongst the masses I can’t see how it wouldn’t.

Eh, I gave Elden Ring, Nioh, Dark Souls, etc. an honest try. More than they deserve imo. They all subscribe to the trial-and-error method (that's an oversimplification, I admit) of gameplay, so (again, imo) they are more or less the same.

With that said, I am sure fans can point out the subtle differences and they'd be right to an extent but I can't think of any game that's as good and of as much great quality as Baldur's Gate 3. It's just an amazingly built game.

Fromsoft titles focus on exploration and iframe dodges when it comes to combat. That is not a thing in Nioh. Nioh is just a poorly made video game that happens to have a good combo based combat system (another thing fromsoft titles are not going for)

Elden Ring getting too much love :/ Lore is much less than interesting than Dark Souls. Level design (especially legacy dungeons) is worse than Dark Souls. Boring boss fights. Janky boss fights. Copy/paste boss fights. Unfair boss fights. Boring caves and mines to discover.