The 2015 Game Awards: ‘The Witcher 3’ Wins Big, Westwood Studios Gets Recognition, Konami Prohibits Kojima’s Attendance

[heirdeux]

It wouldn't be the end of the year without Geoff Keighley and The Game Awards. The big winner was "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," but the show also included some first-time reveals, and even a mention of the ongoing fallout between Hideo Kojima and Konami.

The 2015 Game Awards: ‘The Witcher 3’ Wins Big, Westwood Studios Gets Recognition, Konami Prohibits Kojima’s Attendance : Read more

 

[urishima]

Don't know about you guys, but even if I had money to spare, I would never give it to Tim Schafer.

 

[ErikVinoya]

Konami being a douche, what else is new?

 

[basroil]

Does konami even have a publicity team or were they all replaced with lawyers because of "creative differences"? Not letting Kojima go to the awards show is going to end up costing them millions.

 

[Albert Rampo]

the show was horrible it was awkward and unprofessional even the premiers were underwhelming and Jade Raymond my lord what was that she looked fking drunk or high no class
and seriously battlefront live ads ...............................ridiculous i dont think theres any other word to describe this

 

[Dave K]

Glad to see Witcher 3 pick up the well deserved goty award... they raised the bar and Bethesda will need to do something they've not done for a while - scramble to catch up.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Glad to see Witcher 3 pick up the well deserved goty award... they raised the bar and Bethesda will need to do something they've not done for a while - scramble to catch up.

While similar, TES and TW are still very different games. While TW3 is a open world you are still on a very set path and story while in TES you choose your characters beginning, middle and eventual end based on the factions and sides you pick etc.

As well TES has always been about the mods more than anything.

Not saying TW3 is a bad game, it is a great RPG. But to say Bethesda will have to do anything more than what they always do is a stretch since Skyrim is still highly played and highly modded even after so many years.

I am glad they honored Westwood. Was a great company bought up by the evil empire and whose IP was completely destroyed. Sorry but C&C 4 was just bad. I own it because I got it in a bundle sale on Steam and played only for the story but the game play was not C&C. It was EAs horrible abomination.

 

[dstarr3]

Holy *MOD EDIT*, I assumed the Video Game Awards were going to be a joke. But Witcher 3 beat out Fallout and Metal Gear for Game of the Year, Rocket League won best sports game, and Splatoon won Best Shooter over Call of Duty and Halo. So cool! It's like the industry is finally becoming self-aware!

 

[clonazepam]

Did Bloodbourne get a mention, or too dark?

 

[Dave K]

Glad to see Witcher 3 pick up the well deserved goty award... they raised the bar and Bethesda will need to do something they've not done for a while - scramble to catch up.

While similar, TES and TW are still very different games. While TW3 is a open world you are still on a very set path and story while in TES you choose your characters beginning, middle and eventual end based on the factions and sides you pick etc.

As well TES has always been about the mods more than anything.

Not saying TW3 is a bad game, it is a great RPG. But to say Bethesda will have to do anything more than what they always do is a stretch since Skyrim is still highly played and highly modded even after so many years.

I am glad they honored Westwood. Was a great company bought up by the evil empire and whose IP was completely destroyed. Sorry but C&C 4 was just bad. I own it because I got it in a bundle sale on Steam and played only for the story but the game play was not C&C. It was EAs horrible abomination.

In general I agree that they're different, but not as much as they used to be and I put them both squarely in the same sandbox (Adventure games with some action elements) allowing for fair comparison. They're also both 'open world' quest based games (that's new... this is imo the first open world Witcher) with significant/varied character development tracks. The biggest differences are setting (obviously) and the new settlement management capabilities in F4 (which are a fun addition but I don't see integrated into the plot in any way as of my current level... 24).

As far as game progression... Fallout 4 has been as linear as Witcher 3 so far... the quest line leads you by the nose and at least as far into it as I am (about 40-50 hours) faction choices have had no impact on the flow of the main quest line. The main quest (find my kid) has had some good foreshadowing that all is not well with said kid and that things might get interesting... but the quests themselves have been inferior in quality and diversity to the Witcher 3 storyline, I'm feeling like I'm repeating the same activity (go clear some area of bad guys) over and over. The tactical variation has been great (some fun maps) but the quests themselves... meh. The detective story is cool, but all he did was drag me out to clear some area of bad guys. I started the BoS subquestline and that has also been more of the same so far (but in power armor). When interesting things have happened it's been accidental... like stumbling into a BoS action (totally independent of my activities) and jumping in to lend a hand (not that the quest system was smart enough to recognize it). The world also seems a lot less alive than the Witcher 3 world... I've only had to defend settlements 3 times, the Brotherhood of Steel is the only faction that's visible moving on the map (like everyone else is hunkered down). Maybe I just need to move the Main quest forward and things will loosen up (I got bored with it after finishing reunions), and I assume the main quest will eventually split based on faction like earlier Fallout's... but multiple highly linear quest lines is not really the same thing as non-linear. I've wandered the world quite a bit for instance... and the only 'discovered' quests I've gotten have been to clear raiders threatening settlements. Some of Witcher 3's best questlines were one's I stumbled on as I wandered. Maybe I'm just missing them in F4... but The Witcher had hundreds of non-main quest related activities you could engage in (some of them complex multi-stage quests)... I'm not finding a lot in Fallout 4 yet (other than Settlement building related).

I still would argue that Bethesda has been beat soundly at a game style they pioneered... The Witcher 3 is a better Skyrim than Skyrim as delivered (and a better adventure game than Fallout 4 as delivered). Bethesda still has much better moding support... and that's not nothing, but when the next Witcher 3 add-on comes out I'll be dropping F4 to play it (assuming I'm still playing F4 at the time).

I agree that Modding will give Fallout 4 more replayability... but I still think Bethesda has been clearly outplayed on their own turf and hopefully this will push them to up their game.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Glad to see Witcher 3 pick up the well deserved goty award... they raised the bar and Bethesda will need to do something they've not done for a while - scramble to catch up.

While similar, TES and TW are still very different games. While TW3 is a open world you are still on a very set path and story while in TES you choose your characters beginning, middle and eventual end based on the factions and sides you pick etc.

As well TES has always been about the mods more than anything.

Not saying TW3 is a bad game, it is a great RPG. But to say Bethesda will have to do anything more than what they always do is a stretch since Skyrim is still highly played and highly modded even after so many years.

I am glad they honored Westwood. Was a great company bought up by the evil empire and whose IP was completely destroyed. Sorry but C&C 4 was just bad. I own it because I got it in a bundle sale on Steam and played only for the story but the game play was not C&C. It was EAs horrible abomination.

In general I agree that they're different, but not as much as they used to be and I put them both squarely in the same sandbox (Adventure games with some action elements) allowing for fair comparison. They're also both 'open world' quest based games (that's new... this is imo the first open world Witcher) with significant/varied character development tracks. The biggest differences are setting (obviously) and the new settlement management capabilities in F4 (which are a fun addition but I don't see integrated into the plot in any way as of my current level... 24).

As far as game progression... Fallout 4 has been as linear as Witcher 3 so far... the quest line leads you by the nose and at least as far into it as I am (about 40-50 hours) faction choices have had no impact on the flow of the main quest line. The main quest (find my kid) has had some good foreshadowing that all is not well with said kid and that things might get interesting... but the quests themselves have been inferior in quality and diversity to the Witcher 3 storyline, I'm feeling like I'm repeating the same activity (go clear some area of bad guys) over and over. The tactical variation has been great (some fun maps) but the quests themselves... meh. The detective story is cool, but all he did was drag me out to clear some area of bad guys. I started the BoS subquestline and that has also been more of the same so far (but in power armor). When interesting things have happened it's been accidental... like stumbling into a BoS action (totally independent of my activities) and jumping in to lend a hand (not that the quest system was smart enough to recognize it). The world also seems a lot less alive than the Witcher 3 world... I've only had to defend settlements 3 times, the Brotherhood of Steel is the only faction that's visible moving on the map (like everyone else is hunkered down). Maybe I just need to move the Main quest forward and things will loosen up (I got bored with it after finishing reunions), and I assume the main quest will eventually split based on faction like earlier Fallout's... but multiple highly linear quest lines is not really the same thing as non-linear. I've wandered the world quite a bit for instance... and the only 'discovered' quests I've gotten have been to clear raiders threatening settlements. Some of Witcher 3's best questlines were one's I stumbled on as I wandered. Maybe I'm just missing them in F4... but The Witcher had hundreds of non-main quest related activities you could engage in (some of them complex multi-stage quests)... I'm not finding a lot in Fallout 4 yet (other than Settlement building related).

I still would argue that Bethesda has been beat soundly at a game style they pioneered... The Witcher 3 is a better Skyrim than Skyrim as delivered (and a better adventure game than Fallout 4 as delivered). Bethesda still has much better moding support... and that's not nothing, but when the next Witcher 3 add-on comes out I'll be dropping F4 to play it (assuming I'm still playing F4 at the time).

I agree that Modding will give Fallout 4 more replayability... but I still think Bethesda has been clearly outplayed on their own turf and hopefully this will push them to up their game.

I wouldn't even compare FO4 to TW3 just due to the vastly different game play styles (one a fantasy setting, one a FPS/TPS RPG).

Skyrim is a better and more fair comparison but again very different in a lot of respects while still the same. TES has a lot of different ways to go. Either you are the central character or you are not (Oblivion was a prime example where you were not the central character at all) and you have a lot of different choices to make that can affect the outcome.

While I would say in a story driven RPG TW3 is better than Skyrim I think as a open world, do whatever you want game Skyrim is better and the mod support is very important. Go check the Steam game stats. Skyrim is currently 10 most played game. After being out for 4 years.

Thats why I don't think Bethesda is going to have very many problems with TES 6. They should make it better for sure but I just don;t think TW3 made a dent in the popularity of TES.