This has been a banner year for gaming releases, one that will likely be remembered in the same breath as the halcyon year of 2007 – the hits just haven’t stopped coming.
The 20th annual Pocket-lint Awards, sponsored by new EE, celebrate the very best of the best products across 20 categories representing most of the tech world.
The shortlist for Game of the Year was as tight as any we can remember, pretty much full to the brim with modern classics, but the votes were tallied and now we have a winner.
Game of the Year: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Nintendo / Pocket-lint
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
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A standout game in a standout year, Tears of the Kingdom has game designers blushing with how ludicrously inventive and freeing it is. An enormous world to explore in whatever way you see fit, it offers up tools and ideas with joyful abandon, and is a worthy winner.
Is anyone doing it like Nintendo right now? Its hit rate is astronomically impressive, and Tears of the Kingdom is the second time a Zelda game has managed to blow away game designers the world over on the Switch’s ageing hardware.
This unbelievable expansion of the ideas presented in Breath of the Wild basically redefines the idea of player freedom, making for unbelievably memorable moments and a world that begs to be explored. It pushes the Switch to its limit to offer up some unbelievable sights and concludes with a sense of real majesty.
It’s now rightfully crowned as our Game of the Year, and we can’t wait to see how it influences game design for years to come.
Highly commended: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Polished to a sheen, Insomniac’s latest Spider-Man game is a beautiful example of what an expert studio can do when it’s had time to really bed in with both a series and some hardware, pushing the PS5 to some wonderful heights.
Its story flits between Peter Parker and Miles Morales’ messy, villain-filled lives nicely, but it’s the sheer joy of swinging around an expanded New York cleaning up crimes and side quests that really sees it grab players’ imaginations. There are few feelings in gaming that can match that traversal.
The best of the rest
Baldur’s Gate 3
Larian Studios
A role-playing game that revives both a beloved franchise and the age-old dream of a truly reactive world, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a terrific success. Its tightly wound story adapts and reacts to your every choice, as does its cast of vivid characters, and great tactical combat makes its action a thrill, too.
The fact that it does all of that while looking superb and having a voice cast that simply excels makes this a bit of a dream come true for Dungeons & Dragons fans.
Dead Space
EA
Horror games should all aspire to this level of atmosphere – the Dead Space remake is an unbelievable bit of work, updating the hulking spaceship USG Ishimura to once again be a simply terrifying labyrinth to sneak through.
With audio that feels simply out of this world using a good headset, and that same crunchy, booming gunplay, it’s one of the best faithful remakes ever, and a must-play for anyone looking to get scared. It also sets a new standard for how to update a classic game without losing any of its soul.
Final Fantasy 16
An epic in every sense of the word, the most recent mainline Final Fantasy game tells a ravishing story of longing and rebellion, led by the brooding Clive Rosfield as he seeks to upset the world order and rid the world of Valisthea of its towering, oppressive mother crystals.
It’s melodramatic in all the right ways, has a stunning soundtrack, and some truly memorable boss fights to pair with its newly action-packed hack-and-slash combat. We were hugely emotionally invested by the end of this thrilling journey.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Nintendo/ Pocket-lint
Mario’s the mascot for a reason – this most recognisable of all videogame characters so rarely slips up, and Wonder is his latest star appearance. It’s a fantastic 2D platformer that quietly updates huge swathes of how Nintendo builds a classic Mario game, all for the better.
Each and every stage holds a superb twist, the movement mechanics feel as good as they ever have, and it all looks and sounds simply amazing, making Wonder one you can’t miss.
How the EE Pocket-lint Awards judging works
The winner for the Best Game category was decided by the Pocket-lint team, along with a panel of expert judges from publications across the industry. Following a rigorous scoring process, the Best Game winner for 2023 was announced at an in-person event on 9 November 2023, along with the winners from the other 20 categories.
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