We’ll have a pretty good idea of its chances when its metacritic score is out.
The lowest scoring winners were Dragon Age Inquisition and It Takes Two (both at 89). So if it can score that or higher, it’ll have a pretty good shot.
As of right now, it could do well enough to get nominated, which I think would be enough to show Bioware is back even if it doesn't win. I did a post examining nominees in the past at The Game Awards and [the absolute bottom score for a game that has been nominated in the past decade is an 83 on Opencritic, which came in the weakest year 2019 from The Outer Worlds, Control, and Death Stranding.](https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18efrdp/examining_a_decade_of_goty_nominees_at_the_game/)
[If you look at the top games on Opencritic so far,](https://opencritic.com/browse/all/2024/score) a lot of them are either DLCs, in early access, remasters, niche as hell, or smaller AA games/indie games that likely have no real chance to make The Game Awards five finalist shortlist if we are being realistic barring the rest of this year being really weak for something like a Balatro to slip in.
Right now, for the games that do not fall into those categories you have the following with at least an 83, and even these have exceptions:
- 93 - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Highest rated new release this year, is technically a remake but changes things up enough to be a new thing. Not played it, but from what I've seen online it has an odd reception and has not lived up to sales for being the best game to release so far.)
- 90 - Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Really the only one of these that has no glaring issue as far as I know and is likely helped that it is, critically speaking, the peak of a long-running series.)
- 90 - Tekken 8 (Going to be held back by its genre as a fighting game.)
- 88 - Unicorn Overlord (It is a tactical RPG and also has the niche genre issue despite being a AAA game that Tekken has.)
- 87 - Dragon's Dogma 2 (Reception online seems to have been mixed to it.)
- 83 - Helldivers 2 (Has an advantage as the breakout game of the year, but it is a multiplayer only game which might hurt it and might not have the same steam it had towards the end of the year as opposed to when it released.)
So yeah, the door seems to be wide open if Veilguard can have a good showing. The issue is that the second half of the year is coming up, and that is usually when we see the heavy hitters. So if it has competition, this is also when it could pop up.
3/5 finalist from last year for example came out between September-October and before Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 everyone assumed the award was Tears of the Kingdoms to basically lose.
I think Rebirth had an oddly muted reception on the sales front because it’s the second of three games. People got excited to try the first one and find out if the remake was going to be any good, but for the second piece I think a lot of folks said maybe I’ll wait till the last game is closer. I know I did. I’ve seen a lot of comments about its place in a trilogy affecting who was willing to pick it up at full price, and I’m inclined to agree with them.
yeah they kinda got it mixed up, people who played it generally really like it, but its sales arent crazy. So, unless DAVs story is top tier and its world/gameplay amazing, i dont see it beating rebirth, which has amazing combat, world, music, characters etc.
Im expecting DAV to get like an 8.5 tbh, they're obviously hyping it up but i dont think what they've shown has been anything mind blowing on any front, just potentially good.
I was very disappointed with Dragon's Dogma 2, it's not even a finished game.
Before launch it was shaping up to be GOTY material for me but now I cringe at the thought of it.
As far as its chances for GOTY, we don’t have enough information, and we still have a ways out before the game is released.
With that said, it’s still going to be challenging to win GOTY because there have been some highly rated games that have already been released:
Balatro
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Helldivers 2
FF7: Rebirth
Animal Well
Unicorn Overlord
Then we have some games that have garnered tons of interest that are still yet to come out in 2024:
Avowed
Star Wars Outlaws
Stalker 2
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2
That’s just to name a few. Every year, there always seems to be a game that comes out of nowhere to win a lot of rewards. It could be Balatro, or even something like Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
Listen, I played and adored DD2, but even I would shit my pants if it won GOTY. Hell, I’d be surprised if it even got nominated at all. That game has some SERIOUS issues that should rightfully prevent it from getting any kind of big award like that.
I really need to know what was going on during the development for DD2 to have come out the way it did.
I am not just talking about technical problems although that is worth a mention. Aperantly it was the NPCs that caused alot of the performance issues because “a large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and dynamically calculates the impact of their physical presence in various environments”. This baffeles me because the NPCs were so lame and boring with equally boring side quests.
They had a great base to bult of off not just the base game of DD1 but also its fantastic DLC Dark Arisen. It feels like they just decided to start from zero though with less monsters than the first game, no endgame content like Bitter Black Isle and a downgraded armor and vocation system.
The game is also 100% unfinished. Not just because of the lack of enemies. This can be seen best with the second desert region because you basically just speedrun through it with nothing interesting going on there. Althought thats not unique to that region. I remember when the Director of the game said that "you dont need fast travel when you make the exploration fun". That is true when you actually make the exploration fun. The open world is boring with the only thing keeping you busy beeing millions of groups of the same 3 enemies every 2 minutes. The open world is comoletley forgettable and boring to look at.
Not to mention the vocations. There is no reason for the Illusionist or whatever it was called to have those unique colors. It made everone think we would get cool new vocations but instead the ones we already had were downgraded. All vovations only having access to one weapon and only 4 skills is a decision I will never understand. The DD mmo has better voacations than the actual sequal and way more content and monsters. I havent played it but it just looked like the way better sequal.
Again I really need to know what was going on during development. Was the game actually too ambitious and they decided to just release it because it woouldnt have gotten much better anyways? Because for me the game is without a doubt unfinished. Or was it the game director himself Hideaki Itsuno? I heard he wasnt really apart of Dark Arisen which for many was the best part of the first game and he wasnt apart for the MMO which unironically just looks like a better game and I hate MMOs. Fact is I will never be touching a game made by him again.
Sorry for the rant. The hate just posessed my fingers. The text is probably an incoherent mess because I kept getting reminded about things about the game I absolutly hate.
Edit: I hope Dragon's Dogma will be the only RPG with "Dragon" in its name coming out this year that dissapoints me. Well there is still Dragon Ball Sparking zero. Dragon.
I don't think DD2 can win it. Helldiver 2 would be a good darkhorse, the game is really something unique.
Space Marines 2 is a long shot. I have no doubt it'll be a fun game to play, but I don't think it'll be remarkable enough for be in contention for the award.
I’d say Helldivers 2 would be the front runner if not for the whole log-in/Sony account drama.
FFVII Rebirth also seemed to be a let down for a lot of fans? But I’d guess it is the current front runner.
I think Balatro and Unicorn Overlord can be striken from the list. Both are good games, but dont have the mass audience to get goty. Dragon's Dogma 2 fell flat on its face. Animal well is supposed to be good but similar to first two it doesnt have the audience mass to get goty.
So I think that leaves FF7 Rebirth, Helldivers 2, Star Wars Outlaws and Space Marine 2 to compete. The real compeition is FF7 Rebirth and Hell Divers 2, Datv is gonna have to be stellar to beat either since both games are peak of their genre
FF7 Rebirth also does what earlier Dragon Age games did that DATV is abandoning (switching between party members mid-combat, controlling your whole party manually if you want). And it does this while being a full action game.
Yeah. I'm mostly just saying it proved that DAO-DAI's gameplay style works in modern action RPGs with complex fast-paced combat. So the claim that they had to drop party control to make the game more actiony and fast-paced has a direct comparison to know "yeah that's not a thing."
So hades was an indie game that won goty, and after 2 years of early access there was an announcement after launch they had sold 1mill copies. Only a few months before they won goty.
Balatro hit 1 million sales after a month. I think it’s got a broad enough audience
Hades managed to be known and seen by people that didnt buy the game. I didn't see talk of Balatro outside of the sphere of people who had played it. Hades had characters and music which let it reach more people, even if they didnt play it.
I’m gonna put it out there but I don’t see Star Wars outlaws doing all that well. It’s open world Ubisoft. I just- it’s Ubisoft. I feel like they don’t have the best rep for a smooth experience. That being said I hope it finds the people that love it.
It hasn’t really been on my radar, but I saw some combat gameplay and it seems kinda like the MJ missions in spiderman which were okay, but like I don’t love that kinda gameplay? Idk if the whole game is like that but yeah it just seems bland?
Among these I belive only FF7 rebirth has chances to win. DD2 will not win for sure, helldivers and balatro might but still unlikely.
Still, coming this year there are some promising games. Avowed, wukong, Refantazio. It won't be easy for dragon age, especially with the enormous amount of negativity surrounding it.
I think the biggest competitor so far is FFVII rebirth. But with all the great information we are getting on veilguard it just might be a worthy contender to go against rebirth for GOTY
Awesome, this game looks really fun and I love the world of Eora created for the Pillars of Eternity.
5 months for Xbox to realize they make more money when games aren’t platform-exclusive… I’d much rather play this on console than PC.
Out of all these games, the only one I see getting nominated is Helldivers 2. DD2 got a lot of bad publicity, and despite the majority of it being misinformation, I don't think it really recovered from that. Outlaws and Avowed are probably doomed because the average gamer goes, "Ubisoft/Xbox bad, won't even try already bad game".
I don't think the average gamer is there yet because Ubisoft is still pumping and dumping reskinned games on us a few times a year. Look at all the hype around AC Shadows.
I think if they don't win GOTY it'll be because they weren't highly acclaimed, and they haven't been in years because they're reskins going back to 2013 in some franchises' cases. But you said the average gamer won't *try* the game because it's a Ubisoft (or Xbox) title, I was just observing that they're the ones who are actually trying them every time in droves, they're just not enjoying them enough for awards to be handed out lol
Elden Ring’s DLC expansion is also coming out this week. I feel like that will be on the top of people’s minds because of the hype from the first game.
Yeah, but it can't compete for GOTY, since they didn't nominate Phantom Liberty, which might be DAVe's saving grace here.
Avowed could certainly take it, tho, if it releases in a good state. As could FFVII Rebirth. And tho it's a bit of a long shot AC:Shadows could as well. The last AC game this studio did - AC: Odyssey - got nominated.
Rebirth, Helldivers, LAD, and potentially SW Outlaws are the ones I see seriously competing with DAV. That said, your general point stands—Inquisition didn’t have a lot of competition that year. That isn’t true of this one.
Regardless of your preference, it goes to show that the narrative of 'lol2014hadnogames' is false. There were other competitors, they just weren't that big. And the same goes this year.
Dragons Dogma 2 does not deserve to be in the running for GOTY. They managed to take so many steps backwards from Dark Arisen it's not even funny. Flat out the biggest letdown I've experienced in gaming.
Good optimization and a bug free experience? Shiiiiiiit, Baldur's Gate 3's Act 3 ran like molasses despite not testing any graphical benchmarks and had thousands and thousands of bugs for mmonthsyet still won all the GOTY awards. I don't wanna hear ANYONE, *especially the media*, whining about bugs in GOTY discussions ever again.
True, but I think BG3 is still appreciated even with Act 3 bugs because Larian was very responsive in terms of actually hearing feedback and dropping patches. Which, unfortunately, seems to be rarer than it should in the gaming industry. (A very low bar I know) That and people could have still been playing the first 2 acts.
Yeah but Larian doesn’t have a dedicated hate-base the way BioWare does. Like there are people actively rooting for DAV to fail because they dislike BioWare, and who will probably nitpick every perceived flaw (they’re already doing this tbh).
Larian is as likeable as companies go, same with CD Projeckt which is why they got a pass when they fucked up. Bioware or at least EA bioware is not a likeable company.
For now. I remember when over a decade ago when people said the same about BioWare. And CDPR got a lot of crap at the launch of Cyberpunk, they were just able to recover and have people forgive them. If CDPR fucks up again or Larian messes up multiple times, watch the tables turn and them develop a hate base.
Yeah, not sure what is going on here.
People haven't even seen any non-scripted gameplay but already talking about which kind of awards it could receive..
People really want Bioware to get a metaphorical win, as much as a literal one. It's not inconcievable, as the only game so far that can grab GOTY is Helldivers. The competition isn't too fierce this year so far.
Too early to call it on competition - AC Shadows might surprise people
Gameplay alone is already much better than what we have seen from Dragon Age Veilguard - if they can smash it on story as well they'll see a lot of success.
- Final fantasy VII Rebirth
- Assassin’s Creed shadows (this is the same team that made game of the year award nominee assassin’s Creed Odyssey)
- Dragon’s dogma 2
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
- Balatro (reviewers went gaga over it)
- Hades 2
It has stiffer competition than dragon age inquisition did. So there’s no “exploit”.
I didn’t even include Star Wars outlaws because that just doesn’t *feel* like a GOTY nominee, but I could be wrong.
If Dragon's Dogma 2 wins a single award then things are very wrong. That game was terrible in every possible way. If gaming had Razzies, it would sweep.
Well, it's definitely the year for this game to release. DD2 was divisive and didn't really live up to the hype. For now, there's really just Rebirth as the frontrunner. I own that game too and like it a lot, but there are some conventional things it does like open world filler that definitely show a space for it to be outperformed.
The key thing will be how much people are put off by the frankly bizarre decision to limit skills so much. I think people would be a lot more comfortable with the action combat if we had at least six abilities to scroll through from the wheel for both Rook and each companion. I was also dumbfounded when it was revealed that each companion only had five possible skills to unlock for the whole game. That is...rather shocking.
There are just some strange design choices that could hold it back even if everything else turns out good.
The game has potential though.
>The key thing will be how much people are put off by the frankly bizarre decision to limit skills so much.
As long as the gameplay is fun and not boring, I don't think it'll matter. However, to be in the GOTY contention, you first need to make a game worthy of contention. That's the key thing here in my opinion.
>I think people would be a lot more comfortable with the action combat if we had at least six abilities to scroll through from the wheel for both Rook and each companion
After giving some thought to it, I think that for Rogues and Warrior, this won't matter much. In previous games, both classes had skills that can be replicated with light/heavy attacks combo, or other parry/dodge combination.
Like how we saw Rook using the Double Fang skill with a jump attack during the gameplay trailer, or how Mighty Blow (for Warrior) can just be replicated with a charged heavy attack.
The main issue will come to how they'll manage Mages gameplay. I don't think it's impossible to link skills like Fade Step to the dodge attacks, or that succesfully shielding from attacks also grant a temporary defense buf companions (similar to Heroic Aura), but I don't know if it's something BioWare wants to do
>After giving some thought to it, I think that for Rogues and Warrior, this won't matter much. In previous games, both classes had skills that can be replicated with light/heavy attacks combo, or other parry/dodge combination.
That's a great point. I agree with that. I never really liked playing as any kind of melee fighter in past Dragon Age games. In Origins, it felt like I was just auto-attacking and then running away to lure them to doorways, and in Inquisition I still didn't feel like I had satisfying freedom of movement and dynamic control of my actions.
It's the mage gameplay that I'm worried about, as it seems antithetical to the restrictive skills changes BioWare has implemented. I guess we'll wait and see.
Yes. I think the Rogue and Warrior gameplay will benefit a lot from the new combat system (I must admit that the Slayer specialization for Warriors is very intriguing, I am really hoping we'll get to play with crazy weapons)
The Mage gameplay will be the biggest wildcard. It'll be a huge change from what we were used to. Part of me suspects that one reason spells were so important for mage was because regular attacks were so boring and uninspiring, which the new gameplay will definitely fix.
However the fun part about playing Mage in previous games is how many spells you can unleash on your enemies. So changing of gameplay while keeping the fun of the Mage build will definitely be challenging.
>Part of me suspects that one reason spells were so important for mage was because regular attacks were so boring and uninspiring, which the new gameplay will definitely fix.
It seems you called it. The latest tweet from the game director reveals that actions that were previously tied to spells are now essentially free/modified actions that are done dynamically. It's seemingly a departure from the past when your mage just fired generic blasts from a staff before being able to use a spell to actually do something interesting.
I'm curently replaying DAO and Awakening and seriously i \*hate\* having like 2 dozen abilities on my ability bar. I have 2-3 sustained abilities that do more or less the same thing. Just give me a few super useful abilities like in Andromeda and I can make a build and playstyle around that, no problem.
I'm more worried about the unavoidable, at this point, review bombing by haters the game will receive, than anything else, and the impact this might have on public opinion. Hopefully it will be well-received by critics enough to at least be a candidate for some awards like Narrative, Performance, etc.
If the last of us 2 can survive, reviews bombing and win GOTY, then so can this.
Depends on what else comes out, though. 2014 wasn't a particularly strong year for GOTY.
I think the big contenders this year are gonna be Dragon Age, FF7 Rebirth, Hellblade 2 maybe, SW Outlaws? AC Shadows?
I'm looking at the releases this year and there...have not been a ton of big ones. Biggest is probably Shadow of the Erdtree and that's a DLC.
Yeah, Shadow of the Erdtree would run away with GOTY if expansions were eligible for that award. As it is, I think it's gonna come down to Rebirth and Dragon Age unless some game comes along that surprises everyone.
Hopefully, BioWare pulls a Larian and is also ambitious and receptive with post-launch patches.
Not entirely sure if Bioware can pull it off. Larian has the advantage of being an indie company that had the passion and willpower to pull it off. And while Bioware could have the latter, it's also owned by EA. A company memetically known as the worst company in America.
Of yeah, this game is getting review bombed. It’s ’Woke Age’ now. (They clearly never familiarised themselves with DA 🙃). Either way, it’s on Grummz’s radar on Twitter meaning that the chuds will come in droves)
Review bombing can also kinda be helpful because it’ll be like this game is getting review bombed. People will be like lol why. And if the reason is dumb people will more than likely actually try out the game if critic reviews are high and gameplay looks good. Like if I see a game with great gameplay, great reviews and a review bomb. I know it’s likely because there’s some community just crying over the fact that SBI was involved even when they never were…
I feel like there’s no such thing as bad publicity if the product itself is actually really good. Maybe a movie is exceptionally good, but it’s getting review bombed because a character had a blue hair instead of red like in the book. If it’s a really good movie, the bad reviews complaining about hair colour just make people go, oh, if that’s the only bad thing of the movie, I don’t care about that. I’ll go watch it. If that makes sense.
surprised that none is mentioning Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as a competitor, the first was very good but limited by budget, devs already said the 2 is the initial vision with no restraints, by their trailers and talk i'm sure it will be nominated
Too hardcore for most gaming jouros. It took most of them like 4 or 5 games to even consider a Souls game as a GOTY candidate. Now they all act like they've been fans since day 1 lol. Anything for clicks.
Placing the cart before the horse there. A few cautiously optimistic journalists aren't enough to base this games quality on, particularily when the gaming community as a whole still remains divided on what we've seen of the game.
Besides, I strongly doubt it stands a chance against a game like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
I've been saying that this game is at the very least going to be a contender for GOTY before we even got the reveal and now I'm more certain than ever. Winning it is very difficult because a lot of games are going to be released still, but I think being nominated is more than enough to heal Bioware's reputation.
I remember getting very excited with Anthem, preordered and got disappointed by the technical issues.
I definitely won't preorder for Veilguard, most likely by waiting 1-2 months after release before purchasing.
Don't get me wrong, I like what I saw so far but I don't want to fall into the same hole twice.
I don't think you'll have to wait 1 or 2 month to decide whether or not it's worth purchasing.
After one or two weeks, you'll know if the game is good or not.
The game won't go on sale this year.
You might get a sale "buy DA:TV and for $10-$15 more you'll get the previous DA game" but I really doubt we'll see something other than that in 2024.
Id like to mention that anthem had a much shorter alpha testing stage than DAVe, ofc we dont have DAVe yet so I defo wont tell you to get it but it does sound like it \*could\* be promising at least.
Based on the competition, I think it could win if :
* The quality of its technical implementation is very high. No buggy cut scenes, no immersion break bugs, smooth in-game animation, fast and responsive.
* The writing is back on track. The story, the quests, the characters, all of it. The game needs to be very immersive and you were involved emotionally in the story and the characters.
* Regardless of the art style, the environments need to be beautiful.
* It needs to be fun. I know it should have been the first point, but if the game isn't fun to play it won't win.
Regarding the competition, I think the biggest competition will be Elden Ring's DLC. Outside of that, DA:TV has its chances of winning over Avowed, AC Shadow and ~~Wulong~~ Wukong Black Myth.
I think the quality of the writing can definitely give it an edge over AC Shadow and ~~Wulong~~ Wukong, and even Avowed if Obsidian is releasing another game like Outer Worlds.
I think gameplay wise, it will be a challenge. It has the possibility it worsen a lot of the experience which could ruin their chances at the award. AC has a gameplay that well refined by now, this won't be a problem for them, and Obsidian is not new at making RPGs with a first person camera angle.
I like DA:TV chances regarding how beautiful the environment can be. Frosbite's big strength is rendering beautiful environment, so I believe what we'll be seeing can outshine AC and Avowed.
Edit: I also think Helldiver II has strong chances at the title.
Can a DLC win GOTY? I know Shadow of the Erdtree is likely to be big, but I'm not sure it's qualified to be Game Of The Year contender because it's not a separate game.
Considering how everybody has been gushing about the extension, how long and how deep it is, if there is going to be a year where a DLC can win it, it's going to be this year.
Edit: apparently there is a DLC category now. Forget what I said.
But even if Shadow of the Erdtree can't be in the competition for GOTY it's going to be the one against every game will be judged
Assuming it really is as great as reviewers hype it up to be. I don't know why, but I have this fear that people have been overselling it and many are going to be dissapointed. Hopefully I'm wrong. Not long until we know!
It's complicated. Reviewers opinion shouldn't really be taken at face value because they are kinda biased, if they heavily criticize the game before it releases they might not get to do a preview again.
But at the same time, if reviewers are hyping all games regardless of their quality, nobody will care about their opinion.
In DA's case, most of the people who either played the game or saw it agreed to say it was fun. So let's hope it's true.
It's almost a shame FFXIV's Dawntrail is out this year, that's the one DLC I'd expect to be able to compete well in a DLC category usually... but I feel like Shadow of the Erdtree is going to absolutely smash it!
Wu Long was last year, you mean Wukong (conveniently the one with the ape). There is a chance it will implode depending on the actual performance, especially on console (game can’t run on series s at all)
DLCs can only win in the best ongoing game category (at least that is what it was labelled in 23 TGA)
If Rebirth can’t win GotY, there is no chance Ubisoft games will; maybe Star Wars outlaws if it doesn’t’t follow Ubi formula
Rebirth so far is the strongest game
Environments shown so far have been top tier. Honestly amazing. Gameplay is said to be the most fun gameplay in a dragon age by Mark Darrah. A lot of the leads are very happy with combat in this game and have said they’ve put a lot of effort into it.
Technical issues will hopefully be ironed out mostly. Hopefully but we’ll see.
Story snippets we’ve seen have this game potentially being really cool in terms of story.
There’s a lot of good they’ve shown. I’m keen to see more. I think the only real concern imo is technical/bugs. I’m hoping they’ve been able to QA well to mitigate a lot of them so we aren’t Andromeda levels on release.
As others have mentioned 2014 was a dry year for games. Moreover we're not in 2014 any more, and you don't need to be an open world action rpg not from an AAA studio to be a contestant.
Upcoming Hades 2 from Supergiant with GotY nomination for Hades, SNT:V and P3:R from Altus, second part of FFVII remake and the list goes on and on. Repeating Inquisition's 'perfectly above average, nothing game changing' probably won't cut it out this year.
dude why are you setting the bar at this astronomical height? do you know what kind of miracle it would take for DAV to be GOTY quality? DAI got lucky in 2014, and expectations got infinitely higher since with games like bg3 and tw3, and so far DAV isnt even convincing the fans that its going to be better than DAI.
lower that expectation to 'hopefully its a decent game and not just kinda mediocre', which seems more reasonable and should be enough. stg all it takes is one gameplay video and some sponsored media hype and boom you think goty, its wild.
I only just watched the trailer yesterday since I was on vacation...and I honestly have NO IDEA why everyone was so negative towards it. I thought it looked great, and got me curious about all the new faces and locations.
As far as the Dragon Age-team goes, I have never been concerned. Every game has been better than the last for me.
Human nature I suppose.
Why do I care about a hockey team 4000 miles away from my home winning a championship that's played in a league based in another continent?
Wait for what? As far as predicting an award winner, I'd say the best time to speculate is before the release of the game/movie/whatever. Just harmless fun.
Speculating on an upcoming game's possible critical success based on its immediate predecessor's critical success seems like a fine discussion to me.
Especially since we spent so many days with nothing but doom and gloom posts
I'm not saying you reacted negatively. I'm saying that after that trailer dropped I saw infinitely more negativity and dooming on this subreddit than I've seen at any other time in the 7 years I've been active in this sub. And now someone has an optimistic speculative post and a lot of people are like whoa we can't talk about this because it could be trash and looks mediocre lol
I mean I did hear this game did go through development problems which is probably why some people were turned off but I think people are kind of exaggerating a bit.
Slow down there, talking about GOTY already? From what we’ve seen so far i’ve seen nothing groundbreaking that would award such a thing. I’m all for DA getting goty but lets be honest, inquisition got the reward because nothing else released that year not because of its quality, i mean look 1 year later we got Witcher 3.
I'm trying to keep my expectations fairly grounded, but I got a similar feeling from the Game Informer article like you did, that this game is a significant step up from Bioware's previous work. The members of the Bioware's community council (who got to play the game) seem to be pretty positive as well. Maybe the growing popularity of rpg genre has convinced EA to give Bioware the time and resources they need to make a good game. I certainly hope so.
It's a bit early to be speculating about GOTY though. So far, the trailer was a miss, but everything else after has been mostly well received. It's a good start, but it's not enough to convince me that the game could be GOTY material.
I the two biggest competitors DAV has for the moment are Dragon's Dogma 2 and Avowed. I personally don't think DD2 is going to win GOTY because the story and the rpg mechanics in that game are not very good, even if the gameplay is (I still had fun with DD2 though!).
Avowed on the other hand could be a surprise winner as Obsidian doesn't often miss with their games. I'm hoping that Avowed is a success as well and that the community doesn’t start a war over which game is better (like what happened with Witcher 3). Having more great rpgs is always better!
> that this game is a significant step up from Bioware's previous work.
I'm not sure the article author is the best judge of that. They said they spent 50 hours in DAI in 2014 and "dabbled" in DAO and DA2. They also said they're an action game fan (no mention of being an RPG fan), and I don't know if this is just the writing style, but imo they repeatedly seemed excited or amazed by basic RPG and Bioware features.
>I'm not sure the article author is the best judge of that. They said they spent 50 hours in DAI in 2014 and "dabbled" in DAO and DA2.
That is a fair point. The writer is definitely no Dragon Age expert or maybe even rpg expert, but I don't think it means that his impressions don't have merit.
He has tried the previous games, but didn't like them that much. This one seemed to grab his attention enough that he went from being somewhat indifferent towards the game, to saying that it's now his most anticipated rpg for the year.
I'm sure many of the more casual fans are in the same train as he is and it's those people Bioware needs to convince if they want DAV to be a success. BG3 convinced even looter shooter fans to give a turn based rpg a chance and I do think it's a merit for Larian that they succeeded in doing that. If Bioware can do the same, I will be happy.
Here's what the writer had to say at the end of the article:
https://preview.redd.it/yd9f8zzzdq7d1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=02cefec0d78880829ae20192b121029c71436c61
I think DA:TV has the opportunity to gather fans who like action gameplay and fans who like narrative based games.
Fans of tactical gameplay will be left hanging in my opinion. The game isn't addressing itself directly at them, if they play it it'll be because they want to try the story.
There’s also weird contradictions or jumps in the article. They talk about being a Qunari Warrior for the Minrathous level but then for the Arlathan level they talk about being a Qunari Mage. In a single paragraph they talk about how Rook is only the protagonist because of their competency and not a magical mcguffin and like 2 sentences later they say Rook is intricately linked to the fade because of what happened in the ritual.
Edit: Missed the line where they said they switched save files
> They talk about being a Qunari Warrior for the Minrathous level but then for the Arlathan level they talk about being a Qunari Mage.
Whoever was playing for them (Busche, I think?) switched between saves to show them a different Rook. It wasn't clear to me whether they also skipped to a different part of the game.
Here's the quote, from page 35, emphasis mine: "Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the prologue's events, something is up here. Three rings of massive rocks fly through the air, protecting what appears to be a central fortress. Demon Sentinels plague the surrounding lands, and **after loading up a new save, we're in control of a human mage.**"
Even DD2's combat goes to shit once you out level everything. If that game is seriously in contention something is wrong.
I hear Balatro is getting a lot of praise.
What I saw in the gameplay reveal was an average game with an uninspired combat/talent/skill system and an all-around safe approach to making an RPG, nothing new or revolutionary.
Just same old, same old.
If the story is good then it will be worth playing for that alone, but I wouldn't necessarily give GOTY award to an average game with better than average story.
While I love that there is reason for optimism, I do think it's worth pumping the breaks a bit on any GOTY talk. BioWare's last two brand new games haven't just fallen short of that bar... They were outright bad to one degree or another. While I would certainly take a GOTY-quality game, even just a *solid* game would be a win.
I also think it's worth keeping in mind that pre-release coverage can only provide so many reassurances. I remember following the Andromeda coverage before that game released, and a lot of what was coming from Game Informer sounded pretty decent. Then the game released and... Well, that was curtains lol.
With that said, I am happy that there seems to be a lot of behind-the-scenes positivity around this game, and I remain cautiously hopeful!
Look I am excited to see how the game does once released but BioWare used to be a pre-order for me, today BioWare is a wait and see until after release.
>fun combat.
The combat seems like the worst part of the game, which is worrying for a game
I mean ymmv bc it's a matter of taste, some people like hack and slash games a lot, but the fact that the reporter for the game magazine didn't even get to play it but instead just watched the dev play it screams "red flag" to me
like it's not responsive, or the combat doesn't flow, or something. It does not instill confidence on a reader
No big RPG of this kind lets you get hands on with the game months in advance.
Source: I am in the press. It's always presentations and hands-off stuff because you simply can't properly demo games of this complexity in an hour or so.
>but the fact that the reporter for the game magazine didn't even get to play it but instead just watched the dev play it screams "red flag" to me
I don't necessarily agree. The reporter isn't here to test the game and takes the time to discover learn and use every nuance of the combat during his time there.
There is a schedule planned ahead, I doubt it includes a timeslot to learn how to play the game in order to review it properly.
I don't think DAV can win with a subpar game like Inquisition did, mainly because there are good games this year. Apparently Rebirth is a good game and the frontrunner, and there's also DD2.
So for DAV to win it needs to be a good game, and for that we'll have to wait and see. We also don't know how the launch will be. There is always the chance of Bioware releasing a buggy mess of a game.
Except that Inquisition was a good game. It was easily as good (related to 2014, at least) as DD2, and Rebirth isn't exactly a big success, either. Plus, games released early in the year must really be stunning to make a lasting impression that carries them all the way to GOTY. I doubt that's the case for either of those two games - they are no Elden Ring or The Witcher 3.
Commercial success isn't a requirement to win the award. It is related to how good the game is, so obviously each winner have strong sales, but it is not taken into account when deciding who the winner should be.
I do not think Inquisition would've won if it had better competition that year, so I disagree on that aspect.
But I do agree that the competition isn't as impressive this year either. I just think it's better than it was in 2014, so DAV would need to be better than what Inquisition was.
I do not disagree that Inquisition wouldn't have won in another year. That doesn't mean it was a 'subpar' game. It was simply not genre-defining.
In 2014, it still deserved the win.
It didn't even deserve the win in 2014. As divisive as Dark Souls 2 was it was the better game out of the nominees and out of the games released that year Alien: Isolation probably deserved it the most.
Also, buggy seems like the least of the worries, to be honest. The game is more compact, handcrafted, not open world, and has been in Alpha for over twice the amount of time of any BioWare game before.
I don’t feel confident. I’ll play it eventually but right now I’m more disappointed about stuff like no blood magic and some of the big decisions meaning nothing.
Nope. Even if Shadow of the Erdtree isn't in contention, it would still get beat by FF: Rebirth, Animal Well, and several others. It's not the best year in gaming, but it's at least better than 2014.
If it lives up to the previews then I think it has a very good chance of being nominated. However, going up against Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Helldivers II, and now likely Astro Bot (also judging by previews) and winning is a tall order.
I'd love nothing more than for it to be so good it sweeps the awards though.
I think that there is alot of bioware hate right now so people are going to be looking for any reason to complain and be negative about the game. Even if the game is good it will still receive alot of hate just because that's the popular position.
Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I think the GotY awards are more about popularity than objective quality. Given how a) DA:V is a Bioware game, and for many years now it's been in fashion to bash Bioware, and b) even among the fandom itself there's a no small amount of people ready to hate on the game, I don't expect it to win Best Game of the Year.
Of course, that's not even considering how the competition is pretty high this yer, and will get even higher with the releases slated for later months.
All in all, I'll be happy if DA:V wins Best Narrative and Best RPG (provided, of course, it turns out to be as good as we hope it to be).
Andromeda became good after its most egregious issues were ironed out, though it was still Andromeda. Nothing mind-blowing, just a fun shooter.
DAI was a miracle that it launched and was received as well as it was.
And then, we had Anthem.
Never pre-order. Wait for release and judge it on its live state, especially given the release issues of AAA titles in general nowadays. It is exceptionally early to even think about game awards for this game.
Andromeda became technically passable after its most horrific bugs were fixed. There was no salvaging its character writing, restricted power options, or story.
How much did they see? All I've heard about (other than the Game Informer article) is people seeing the character creator and about the first hour of the game, which apparently includes the 20 minute gameplay reveal video and content that video cut around. Did anyone report seeing more than that? Any content that isn't super early game?
GameInfromer spent better half of the day at BioWare watching Busche and other leads play for several hours, and saw some higher level fights (or at least fights where you had the full ability set)
Given the currently announced games, if FFVII: Rebirth won’t receive GOTY The Game Awards will be officially dead. There is not a single universe where The Veilguard will be able to top the Rebirth. It’s just not possible given what we know. It still can be a good game, but not GOTY good.
I honestly don’t know about that, some great games have come out and plenty yet to come. I’m fully onboard for more Dragon Age but mainly just the story, combat doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done before (it devolves imo).
If it comes out with solid performance and is polished etc. I can see Black Myth: Wukong having a fair shot at GOTY.
Let's be honest, it won game of the year in a pretty weak year for games and might not even have been nominated let alone won the award if it had been up against the competition from almost any other year (except perhaps 2021).
When you look down the list of game award game of the year winners it seems pretty out of place.
The only reason DA:I won goty in 2014 was because there wasn't really any worthy contender that year, this year we have DD2, Rebirth, (hopefully) Avowed and Wukong. And lucky for all of these Shadow of the Erdtree can't compete for goty lol.
Sidetracking a little bit, next year is insane, Monster Hunter, GTA, DOOM, Civ 7, Fable and DS2
None of those games are particularly threatening. DD2 has an average score of 86; you don't win GOTY with that. The only one to contend with is Rebirth, but despite high reviews, the game is already largely forgotten following a commercial flop (it sold even worse than FFXVI). It doesn't have momentum.
What do you mean? The gameplay reveal trailer turned off even more people.
The combat looks mid if you like that style fo combat and the climactic moment of the trailer was: break scaffolding to stop the evil ritual. Very dumb. Anyone who wanted tactical combat saw that trailer and died inside.
The Veilguard failed to convince me, in fact—it disappoints me with every new information released—and I'm otherwise a huge fan of Thedas' world-building. I doubt it will convince the wide public.
The rough part is the bar is just so high these days. It could be the best BioWare game hands down but if it’s not the next boulders gate, elden ring or Witcher 3, rage baiters will call it a woke flop. The issue is dragon age has never really been the must buy title of the year.
If it comes out actually like the 2nd coming of Mass Effect 2 as GI has been saying (and my sense is that it will be outstanding) I can see it winning best Narrative if not GOTY...but if it's anything less than stellar then it'll be a fight. These last few months have a lot of good coming out.
...that's all if Shadow of the Erdtree isn't allowed to run again (I think I should be...it's long enough)
Best RPG is going to be a tough go this year with FFVIIR, Avowed, and especially Metaphor coming out. Infinite wealth as well.
I am confident that if it really is going to be that good, it will win some awards if not GOTY. Assuming Shadow of the Erdtree isn’t eligible, which I doubt it will be. Avowed could be a big contender as well. I think Rebirth might be hurt by it not being playable on Xbox (I am just salty)
As much as I'm put off by the art direction and tone, and as little as I could care about the style of combat gameplay--I know I'll feel at home with the characters and story. Luckily that's what I care about most, and Bioware hasn't let me down too much in that area yet. Anything... literally anything after having gone through BG3's character writing will make me happy (Astarion and Laezel were good, but everyone else... Jesus H. Christ).
Thing is this year will be good for video games.
Dragon's Dogma 2
Helldivers 2
Black Myth Wukong
Star Wars: Outlaws
So there is competition this time around.
Though I must say that Dragon's Dogma 2 has no chance of winning because it was over hyped and just not that good. Even now it still has issues with performance and + that microtransaction debacle. Game has so much questionable systems. World is dull, combat is not that good, enemy variety is same as in Mass Effect Adromeda, pawns are so artificial it hurts.
So it will not be walk through the park.
Theres no juggernaut game this year like a Baldurs gate 3 so if the game is good it could get a couple awards. So far I think there’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows/Star Wars Outlaws from Ubisoft. I’m not sure about Dragon Dogma 2 because I didn’t play it, and then Avowed is coming out later this year. Call of Duty will probably be the most successful but those types of games usually don’t win a lot of awards. Final fantasy rebirth also is a big game that came out. The difference between Veilguard and Inquisition is people say there was no competition in 2014, they can’t really say that about this year theres some tough competition. So if BioWare managed to win GOTY somehow that would be a great achievement for them after everything they went through the past couple of years.
Something worth remembering, BG3 wasn't anticipated to be such a Juggernaut before its release.
A good game and great RPG ? Yes. Such a big success ? No.
I am not saying DA:TV, will do the same, but maybe another game (Star Wars Outlaw, AC Shadow, Avowed, Wukong, or something else) will.
Thats fair but the playing field does feel a little leveled this year (last year also had Spider man 2, Alan Wake 2 and Tears of the Kingdom) we’ll just have to see its still too early to tell
2014 also had some pretty good games on the level of 2024. They just weren't GOTY-stealing behemoths like The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, or Baldur's Gate 3, and the same is true this year.
I dunno. Shadow of the erdtree will win in every outlet that will put dlc up for goty. The game awards doesn’t so it has a chance, so far the front runner is still ff7 rebirth which I’m proud of and also disappointed lol.
The year inquisition won was also one of the worst years in gaming, not to be negative, but I think the only competition was shadow of Mordor?
Nearly no major outlet will put DLC up for GOTY. Almost everyone has separate categories nowadays
FF7 Rebirth as you said is not a smash hit by any means.
Yes, 2014 wasn't the most competitive year and 2024 is much the same. That's the point.
We’ll have a pretty good idea of its chances when its metacritic score is out. The lowest scoring winners were Dragon Age Inquisition and It Takes Two (both at 89). So if it can score that or higher, it’ll have a pretty good shot.
As of right now, it could do well enough to get nominated, which I think would be enough to show Bioware is back even if it doesn't win. I did a post examining nominees in the past at The Game Awards and [the absolute bottom score for a game that has been nominated in the past decade is an 83 on Opencritic, which came in the weakest year 2019 from The Outer Worlds, Control, and Death Stranding.](https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/18efrdp/examining_a_decade_of_goty_nominees_at_the_game/) [If you look at the top games on Opencritic so far,](https://opencritic.com/browse/all/2024/score) a lot of them are either DLCs, in early access, remasters, niche as hell, or smaller AA games/indie games that likely have no real chance to make The Game Awards five finalist shortlist if we are being realistic barring the rest of this year being really weak for something like a Balatro to slip in. Right now, for the games that do not fall into those categories you have the following with at least an 83, and even these have exceptions: - 93 - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Highest rated new release this year, is technically a remake but changes things up enough to be a new thing. Not played it, but from what I've seen online it has an odd reception and has not lived up to sales for being the best game to release so far.) - 90 - Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Really the only one of these that has no glaring issue as far as I know and is likely helped that it is, critically speaking, the peak of a long-running series.) - 90 - Tekken 8 (Going to be held back by its genre as a fighting game.) - 88 - Unicorn Overlord (It is a tactical RPG and also has the niche genre issue despite being a AAA game that Tekken has.) - 87 - Dragon's Dogma 2 (Reception online seems to have been mixed to it.) - 83 - Helldivers 2 (Has an advantage as the breakout game of the year, but it is a multiplayer only game which might hurt it and might not have the same steam it had towards the end of the year as opposed to when it released.) So yeah, the door seems to be wide open if Veilguard can have a good showing. The issue is that the second half of the year is coming up, and that is usually when we see the heavy hitters. So if it has competition, this is also when it could pop up. 3/5 finalist from last year for example came out between September-October and before Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 everyone assumed the award was Tears of the Kingdoms to basically lose.
I think Rebirth had an oddly muted reception on the sales front because it’s the second of three games. People got excited to try the first one and find out if the remake was going to be any good, but for the second piece I think a lot of folks said maybe I’ll wait till the last game is closer. I know I did. I’ve seen a lot of comments about its place in a trilogy affecting who was willing to pick it up at full price, and I’m inclined to agree with them.
Also a lot of people know it's coming for PC eventually and are waiting
yeah they kinda got it mixed up, people who played it generally really like it, but its sales arent crazy. So, unless DAVs story is top tier and its world/gameplay amazing, i dont see it beating rebirth, which has amazing combat, world, music, characters etc. Im expecting DAV to get like an 8.5 tbh, they're obviously hyping it up but i dont think what they've shown has been anything mind blowing on any front, just potentially good.
There’s also stuff that hasn’t released yet like Star Wars Outlaws and Metaphor ReFantazio which will surely be contenders as well.
I was very disappointed with Dragon's Dogma 2, it's not even a finished game. Before launch it was shaping up to be GOTY material for me but now I cringe at the thought of it.
Yeah. Around 9 and it can take the prize this year.
I'm at least hoping for a Best Narrative award.
As far as its chances for GOTY, we don’t have enough information, and we still have a ways out before the game is released. With that said, it’s still going to be challenging to win GOTY because there have been some highly rated games that have already been released: Balatro Dragon’s Dogma 2 Helldivers 2 FF7: Rebirth Animal Well Unicorn Overlord Then we have some games that have garnered tons of interest that are still yet to come out in 2024: Avowed Star Wars Outlaws Stalker 2 Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 That’s just to name a few. Every year, there always seems to be a game that comes out of nowhere to win a lot of rewards. It could be Balatro, or even something like Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
Listen, I played and adored DD2, but even I would shit my pants if it won GOTY. Hell, I’d be surprised if it even got nominated at all. That game has some SERIOUS issues that should rightfully prevent it from getting any kind of big award like that.
I really need to know what was going on during the development for DD2 to have come out the way it did. I am not just talking about technical problems although that is worth a mention. Aperantly it was the NPCs that caused alot of the performance issues because “a large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and dynamically calculates the impact of their physical presence in various environments”. This baffeles me because the NPCs were so lame and boring with equally boring side quests. They had a great base to bult of off not just the base game of DD1 but also its fantastic DLC Dark Arisen. It feels like they just decided to start from zero though with less monsters than the first game, no endgame content like Bitter Black Isle and a downgraded armor and vocation system. The game is also 100% unfinished. Not just because of the lack of enemies. This can be seen best with the second desert region because you basically just speedrun through it with nothing interesting going on there. Althought thats not unique to that region. I remember when the Director of the game said that "you dont need fast travel when you make the exploration fun". That is true when you actually make the exploration fun. The open world is boring with the only thing keeping you busy beeing millions of groups of the same 3 enemies every 2 minutes. The open world is comoletley forgettable and boring to look at. Not to mention the vocations. There is no reason for the Illusionist or whatever it was called to have those unique colors. It made everone think we would get cool new vocations but instead the ones we already had were downgraded. All vovations only having access to one weapon and only 4 skills is a decision I will never understand. The DD mmo has better voacations than the actual sequal and way more content and monsters. I havent played it but it just looked like the way better sequal. Again I really need to know what was going on during development. Was the game actually too ambitious and they decided to just release it because it woouldnt have gotten much better anyways? Because for me the game is without a doubt unfinished. Or was it the game director himself Hideaki Itsuno? I heard he wasnt really apart of Dark Arisen which for many was the best part of the first game and he wasnt apart for the MMO which unironically just looks like a better game and I hate MMOs. Fact is I will never be touching a game made by him again. Sorry for the rant. The hate just posessed my fingers. The text is probably an incoherent mess because I kept getting reminded about things about the game I absolutly hate. Edit: I hope Dragon's Dogma will be the only RPG with "Dragon" in its name coming out this year that dissapoints me. Well there is still Dragon Ball Sparking zero. Dragon.
Kingdomcome deliverance 2 is also coming out this year
Isn't it coming in December? So, it won't be eligible for 2024, it will have to wait for 2025.
Oh true you have a point my bad 😅
I don't think DD2 can win it. Helldiver 2 would be a good darkhorse, the game is really something unique. Space Marines 2 is a long shot. I have no doubt it'll be a fun game to play, but I don't think it'll be remarkable enough for be in contention for the award.
I’d say Helldivers 2 would be the front runner if not for the whole log-in/Sony account drama. FFVII Rebirth also seemed to be a let down for a lot of fans? But I’d guess it is the current front runner.
Yeah I kinda doubt Helldivers 2 will be there because the drama around it was insane.
I think Balatro and Unicorn Overlord can be striken from the list. Both are good games, but dont have the mass audience to get goty. Dragon's Dogma 2 fell flat on its face. Animal well is supposed to be good but similar to first two it doesnt have the audience mass to get goty. So I think that leaves FF7 Rebirth, Helldivers 2, Star Wars Outlaws and Space Marine 2 to compete. The real compeition is FF7 Rebirth and Hell Divers 2, Datv is gonna have to be stellar to beat either since both games are peak of their genre
FF7 Rebirth also does what earlier Dragon Age games did that DATV is abandoning (switching between party members mid-combat, controlling your whole party manually if you want). And it does this while being a full action game.
Well it does all that while simultaneously being Final Fantasy VII. It does have nostalgia on it's side which can be a pretty big advantage.
Yeah. I'm mostly just saying it proved that DAO-DAI's gameplay style works in modern action RPGs with complex fast-paced combat. So the claim that they had to drop party control to make the game more actiony and fast-paced has a direct comparison to know "yeah that's not a thing."
So hades was an indie game that won goty, and after 2 years of early access there was an announcement after launch they had sold 1mill copies. Only a few months before they won goty. Balatro hit 1 million sales after a month. I think it’s got a broad enough audience
Hades managed to be known and seen by people that didnt buy the game. I didn't see talk of Balatro outside of the sphere of people who had played it. Hades had characters and music which let it reach more people, even if they didnt play it.
I’m gonna put it out there but I don’t see Star Wars outlaws doing all that well. It’s open world Ubisoft. I just- it’s Ubisoft. I feel like they don’t have the best rep for a smooth experience. That being said I hope it finds the people that love it.
Yea its a shame, but I have 0 faith its gonna anything more than a 3rd person far cry - ac mix with lackluster everything
It hasn’t really been on my radar, but I saw some combat gameplay and it seems kinda like the MJ missions in spiderman which were okay, but like I don’t love that kinda gameplay? Idk if the whole game is like that but yeah it just seems bland?
Would be surprised if DD2 even got nominated, zero chance it'd win.
Its fun but God damn is it limited, hope you enjoy fighting the same 6 mobs for 60 hours with borderline no story to speak of.
UO was great for those of us that like games like that but by no means has it any chance of Game of The Year… the writing was just barely passable
Dragon's dogma 2 was just a worse version of their earlier game though, I had high hopes on that one but just disappointing to see
Among these I belive only FF7 rebirth has chances to win. DD2 will not win for sure, helldivers and balatro might but still unlikely. Still, coming this year there are some promising games. Avowed, wukong, Refantazio. It won't be easy for dragon age, especially with the enormous amount of negativity surrounding it.
I think the biggest competitor so far is FFVII rebirth. But with all the great information we are getting on veilguard it just might be a worthy contender to go against rebirth for GOTY
Killer Bean
Is Avowed confirmed for a 2024 release? I haven’t heard much about it lately.
Early November 2024 if I remember correctly
Awesome, this game looks really fun and I love the world of Eora created for the Pillars of Eternity. 5 months for Xbox to realize they make more money when games aren’t platform-exclusive… I’d much rather play this on console than PC.
Wukong is this year too
Out of all these games, the only one I see getting nominated is Helldivers 2. DD2 got a lot of bad publicity, and despite the majority of it being misinformation, I don't think it really recovered from that. Outlaws and Avowed are probably doomed because the average gamer goes, "Ubisoft/Xbox bad, won't even try already bad game".
I don't think the average gamer is there yet because Ubisoft is still pumping and dumping reskinned games on us a few times a year. Look at all the hype around AC Shadows.
Sells millions, yes, but when's the last time they were even nominated for GOTY? It's no more likely to win as this year's CoD reskin.
I think if they don't win GOTY it'll be because they weren't highly acclaimed, and they haven't been in years because they're reskins going back to 2013 in some franchises' cases. But you said the average gamer won't *try* the game because it's a Ubisoft (or Xbox) title, I was just observing that they're the ones who are actually trying them every time in droves, they're just not enjoying them enough for awards to be handed out lol
You're right, my bad. I guess what I meant kind of came out wrong. You're right it is the average gamer trying games like this.
We can safely assume that DD2 won't even be nominated, there is too much controversy surrounding the game and the audience reception was terrible.
Elden Ring’s DLC expansion is also coming out this week. I feel like that will be on the top of people’s minds because of the hype from the first game.
Yeah, but it can't compete for GOTY, since they didn't nominate Phantom Liberty, which might be DAVe's saving grace here. Avowed could certainly take it, tho, if it releases in a good state. As could FFVII Rebirth. And tho it's a bit of a long shot AC:Shadows could as well. The last AC game this studio did - AC: Odyssey - got nominated.
Rebirth, Helldivers, LAD, and potentially SW Outlaws are the ones I see seriously competing with DAV. That said, your general point stands—Inquisition didn’t have a lot of competition that year. That isn’t true of this one.
I think Alien Isolation should have won back in 2014.
Regardless of your preference, it goes to show that the narrative of 'lol2014hadnogames' is false. There were other competitors, they just weren't that big. And the same goes this year.
Metaphor Refantazio too, from the makers of Persona
I do wonder if kingdom come 2 will come out of nowhere and do incredibly well this year. The original was a real hidden gem
Dragons Dogma 2 does not deserve to be in the running for GOTY. They managed to take so many steps backwards from Dark Arisen it's not even funny. Flat out the biggest letdown I've experienced in gaming.
A lot of things must work if BioWare want a GOTY award. From good optimization and bug-free experience, to a great gameplay and story.
Good optimization and a bug free experience? Shiiiiiiit, Baldur's Gate 3's Act 3 ran like molasses despite not testing any graphical benchmarks and had thousands and thousands of bugs for mmonthsyet still won all the GOTY awards. I don't wanna hear ANYONE, *especially the media*, whining about bugs in GOTY discussions ever again.
It took so long for people to get to act 3 that most people didn’t notice until it got better.
True, but I think BG3 is still appreciated even with Act 3 bugs because Larian was very responsive in terms of actually hearing feedback and dropping patches. Which, unfortunately, seems to be rarer than it should in the gaming industry. (A very low bar I know) That and people could have still been playing the first 2 acts.
Yeah but Larian doesn’t have a dedicated hate-base the way BioWare does. Like there are people actively rooting for DAV to fail because they dislike BioWare, and who will probably nitpick every perceived flaw (they’re already doing this tbh).
Larian is as likeable as companies go, same with CD Projeckt which is why they got a pass when they fucked up. Bioware or at least EA bioware is not a likeable company.
For now. I remember when over a decade ago when people said the same about BioWare. And CDPR got a lot of crap at the launch of Cyberpunk, they were just able to recover and have people forgive them. If CDPR fucks up again or Larian messes up multiple times, watch the tables turn and them develop a hate base.
I'd say fun gameplay rather than great, but overall yes. I agree.
Yeah, not sure what is going on here. People haven't even seen any non-scripted gameplay but already talking about which kind of awards it could receive..
People really want Bioware to get a metaphorical win, as much as a literal one. It's not inconcievable, as the only game so far that can grab GOTY is Helldivers. The competition isn't too fierce this year so far.
Too early to call it on competition - AC Shadows might surprise people Gameplay alone is already much better than what we have seen from Dragon Age Veilguard - if they can smash it on story as well they'll see a lot of success.
I am going to believe all the high praises from journalists, only when the game become available to play and it shows the goods.
Unrated but Is that Malice pfp? Truly best "accidentally destroying all laws of reality as a whole" daughter fr.
That is her, indeed. One spicy snake-girl :p
- Final fantasy VII Rebirth - Assassin’s Creed shadows (this is the same team that made game of the year award nominee assassin’s Creed Odyssey) - Dragon’s dogma 2 - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - Balatro (reviewers went gaga over it) - Hades 2 It has stiffer competition than dragon age inquisition did. So there’s no “exploit”. I didn’t even include Star Wars outlaws because that just doesn’t *feel* like a GOTY nominee, but I could be wrong.
If Dragon's Dogma 2 wins a single award then things are very wrong. That game was terrible in every possible way. If gaming had Razzies, it would sweep.
Well, it's definitely the year for this game to release. DD2 was divisive and didn't really live up to the hype. For now, there's really just Rebirth as the frontrunner. I own that game too and like it a lot, but there are some conventional things it does like open world filler that definitely show a space for it to be outperformed. The key thing will be how much people are put off by the frankly bizarre decision to limit skills so much. I think people would be a lot more comfortable with the action combat if we had at least six abilities to scroll through from the wheel for both Rook and each companion. I was also dumbfounded when it was revealed that each companion only had five possible skills to unlock for the whole game. That is...rather shocking. There are just some strange design choices that could hold it back even if everything else turns out good. The game has potential though.
>The key thing will be how much people are put off by the frankly bizarre decision to limit skills so much. As long as the gameplay is fun and not boring, I don't think it'll matter. However, to be in the GOTY contention, you first need to make a game worthy of contention. That's the key thing here in my opinion. >I think people would be a lot more comfortable with the action combat if we had at least six abilities to scroll through from the wheel for both Rook and each companion After giving some thought to it, I think that for Rogues and Warrior, this won't matter much. In previous games, both classes had skills that can be replicated with light/heavy attacks combo, or other parry/dodge combination. Like how we saw Rook using the Double Fang skill with a jump attack during the gameplay trailer, or how Mighty Blow (for Warrior) can just be replicated with a charged heavy attack. The main issue will come to how they'll manage Mages gameplay. I don't think it's impossible to link skills like Fade Step to the dodge attacks, or that succesfully shielding from attacks also grant a temporary defense buf companions (similar to Heroic Aura), but I don't know if it's something BioWare wants to do
>After giving some thought to it, I think that for Rogues and Warrior, this won't matter much. In previous games, both classes had skills that can be replicated with light/heavy attacks combo, or other parry/dodge combination. That's a great point. I agree with that. I never really liked playing as any kind of melee fighter in past Dragon Age games. In Origins, it felt like I was just auto-attacking and then running away to lure them to doorways, and in Inquisition I still didn't feel like I had satisfying freedom of movement and dynamic control of my actions. It's the mage gameplay that I'm worried about, as it seems antithetical to the restrictive skills changes BioWare has implemented. I guess we'll wait and see.
Yes. I think the Rogue and Warrior gameplay will benefit a lot from the new combat system (I must admit that the Slayer specialization for Warriors is very intriguing, I am really hoping we'll get to play with crazy weapons) The Mage gameplay will be the biggest wildcard. It'll be a huge change from what we were used to. Part of me suspects that one reason spells were so important for mage was because regular attacks were so boring and uninspiring, which the new gameplay will definitely fix. However the fun part about playing Mage in previous games is how many spells you can unleash on your enemies. So changing of gameplay while keeping the fun of the Mage build will definitely be challenging.
>Part of me suspects that one reason spells were so important for mage was because regular attacks were so boring and uninspiring, which the new gameplay will definitely fix. It seems you called it. The latest tweet from the game director reveals that actions that were previously tied to spells are now essentially free/modified actions that are done dynamically. It's seemingly a departure from the past when your mage just fired generic blasts from a staff before being able to use a spell to actually do something interesting.
I'm curently replaying DAO and Awakening and seriously i \*hate\* having like 2 dozen abilities on my ability bar. I have 2-3 sustained abilities that do more or less the same thing. Just give me a few super useful abilities like in Andromeda and I can make a build and playstyle around that, no problem.
I'm more worried about the unavoidable, at this point, review bombing by haters the game will receive, than anything else, and the impact this might have on public opinion. Hopefully it will be well-received by critics enough to at least be a candidate for some awards like Narrative, Performance, etc.
Review bombing really isn't much of a factor when deciding things like GOTY.
If the last of us 2 can survive, reviews bombing and win GOTY, then so can this. Depends on what else comes out, though. 2014 wasn't a particularly strong year for GOTY.
I think the next big game release is Wu Kong, and from previews, it’s mostly just gonna be a boss rush with barren areas and a lot of invisible walls.
I think the big contenders this year are gonna be Dragon Age, FF7 Rebirth, Hellblade 2 maybe, SW Outlaws? AC Shadows? I'm looking at the releases this year and there...have not been a ton of big ones. Biggest is probably Shadow of the Erdtree and that's a DLC.
Yeah, Shadow of the Erdtree would run away with GOTY if expansions were eligible for that award. As it is, I think it's gonna come down to Rebirth and Dragon Age unless some game comes along that surprises everyone. Hopefully, BioWare pulls a Larian and is also ambitious and receptive with post-launch patches.
Not entirely sure if Bioware can pull it off. Larian has the advantage of being an indie company that had the passion and willpower to pull it off. And while Bioware could have the latter, it's also owned by EA. A company memetically known as the worst company in America.
Review bombing is really only a concern for audience scores, and it’s usually critic scores that influence these kinds of awards.
Why are we worried about review bombing before the game is even out?
Due to the reaction both the trailer and the gameplay reveal have received. I strongly hope it won't happen, but the above is evidence it might.
Of yeah, this game is getting review bombed. It’s ’Woke Age’ now. (They clearly never familiarised themselves with DA 🙃). Either way, it’s on Grummz’s radar on Twitter meaning that the chuds will come in droves)
Review bombing can also kinda be helpful because it’ll be like this game is getting review bombed. People will be like lol why. And if the reason is dumb people will more than likely actually try out the game if critic reviews are high and gameplay looks good. Like if I see a game with great gameplay, great reviews and a review bomb. I know it’s likely because there’s some community just crying over the fact that SBI was involved even when they never were…
I guess in a “*There's no such thing as bad publicity”* kind of way?
I feel like there’s no such thing as bad publicity if the product itself is actually really good. Maybe a movie is exceptionally good, but it’s getting review bombed because a character had a blue hair instead of red like in the book. If it’s a really good movie, the bad reviews complaining about hair colour just make people go, oh, if that’s the only bad thing of the movie, I don’t care about that. I’ll go watch it. If that makes sense.
Elden ring DLC is being high rated as well
An expansion isn’t eligible for GOTY, or else it would probably win it in a landslide.
surprised that none is mentioning Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as a competitor, the first was very good but limited by budget, devs already said the 2 is the initial vision with no restraints, by their trailers and talk i'm sure it will be nominated
Too hardcore for most gaming jouros. It took most of them like 4 or 5 games to even consider a Souls game as a GOTY candidate. Now they all act like they've been fans since day 1 lol. Anything for clicks.
If its a great game it will win, quality speaks for itself.
Placing the cart before the horse there. A few cautiously optimistic journalists aren't enough to base this games quality on, particularily when the gaming community as a whole still remains divided on what we've seen of the game. Besides, I strongly doubt it stands a chance against a game like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
I've been saying that this game is at the very least going to be a contender for GOTY before we even got the reveal and now I'm more certain than ever. Winning it is very difficult because a lot of games are going to be released still, but I think being nominated is more than enough to heal Bioware's reputation.
I remember getting very excited with Anthem, preordered and got disappointed by the technical issues. I definitely won't preorder for Veilguard, most likely by waiting 1-2 months after release before purchasing. Don't get me wrong, I like what I saw so far but I don't want to fall into the same hole twice.
I don't think you'll have to wait 1 or 2 month to decide whether or not it's worth purchasing. After one or two weeks, you'll know if the game is good or not.
1-2 months would assure that most of the post-release bugs are patched out plus the game might go on sale by then.
The game won't go on sale this year. You might get a sale "buy DA:TV and for $10-$15 more you'll get the previous DA game" but I really doubt we'll see something other than that in 2024.
Id like to mention that anthem had a much shorter alpha testing stage than DAVe, ofc we dont have DAVe yet so I defo wont tell you to get it but it does sound like it \*could\* be promising at least.
Veilguard also has had one of the most troubled development cycles *ever*.
Based on the competition, I think it could win if : * The quality of its technical implementation is very high. No buggy cut scenes, no immersion break bugs, smooth in-game animation, fast and responsive. * The writing is back on track. The story, the quests, the characters, all of it. The game needs to be very immersive and you were involved emotionally in the story and the characters. * Regardless of the art style, the environments need to be beautiful. * It needs to be fun. I know it should have been the first point, but if the game isn't fun to play it won't win. Regarding the competition, I think the biggest competition will be Elden Ring's DLC. Outside of that, DA:TV has its chances of winning over Avowed, AC Shadow and ~~Wulong~~ Wukong Black Myth. I think the quality of the writing can definitely give it an edge over AC Shadow and ~~Wulong~~ Wukong, and even Avowed if Obsidian is releasing another game like Outer Worlds. I think gameplay wise, it will be a challenge. It has the possibility it worsen a lot of the experience which could ruin their chances at the award. AC has a gameplay that well refined by now, this won't be a problem for them, and Obsidian is not new at making RPGs with a first person camera angle. I like DA:TV chances regarding how beautiful the environment can be. Frosbite's big strength is rendering beautiful environment, so I believe what we'll be seeing can outshine AC and Avowed. Edit: I also think Helldiver II has strong chances at the title.
Can a DLC win GOTY? I know Shadow of the Erdtree is likely to be big, but I'm not sure it's qualified to be Game Of The Year contender because it's not a separate game.
Considering how everybody has been gushing about the extension, how long and how deep it is, if there is going to be a year where a DLC can win it, it's going to be this year. Edit: apparently there is a DLC category now. Forget what I said. But even if Shadow of the Erdtree can't be in the competition for GOTY it's going to be the one against every game will be judged
Assuming it really is as great as reviewers hype it up to be. I don't know why, but I have this fear that people have been overselling it and many are going to be dissapointed. Hopefully I'm wrong. Not long until we know!
It's complicated. Reviewers opinion shouldn't really be taken at face value because they are kinda biased, if they heavily criticize the game before it releases they might not get to do a preview again. But at the same time, if reviewers are hyping all games regardless of their quality, nobody will care about their opinion. In DA's case, most of the people who either played the game or saw it agreed to say it was fun. So let's hope it's true.
It's almost a shame FFXIV's Dawntrail is out this year, that's the one DLC I'd expect to be able to compete well in a DLC category usually... but I feel like Shadow of the Erdtree is going to absolutely smash it!
Wu Long was last year, you mean Wukong (conveniently the one with the ape). There is a chance it will implode depending on the actual performance, especially on console (game can’t run on series s at all) DLCs can only win in the best ongoing game category (at least that is what it was labelled in 23 TGA) If Rebirth can’t win GotY, there is no chance Ubisoft games will; maybe Star Wars outlaws if it doesn’t’t follow Ubi formula Rebirth so far is the strongest game
Oh yeah. My bad, I'll edit my comment. Indeed, I forgot Star Wars Outlaw will be out soon, and that FFR was released at the beginning of the year.
Environments shown so far have been top tier. Honestly amazing. Gameplay is said to be the most fun gameplay in a dragon age by Mark Darrah. A lot of the leads are very happy with combat in this game and have said they’ve put a lot of effort into it. Technical issues will hopefully be ironed out mostly. Hopefully but we’ll see. Story snippets we’ve seen have this game potentially being really cool in terms of story. There’s a lot of good they’ve shown. I’m keen to see more. I think the only real concern imo is technical/bugs. I’m hoping they’ve been able to QA well to mitigate a lot of them so we aren’t Andromeda levels on release.
Just settle for it being a good game. Be realistic. It's been in development hell for a decade.
As others have mentioned 2014 was a dry year for games. Moreover we're not in 2014 any more, and you don't need to be an open world action rpg not from an AAA studio to be a contestant. Upcoming Hades 2 from Supergiant with GotY nomination for Hades, SNT:V and P3:R from Altus, second part of FFVII remake and the list goes on and on. Repeating Inquisition's 'perfectly above average, nothing game changing' probably won't cut it out this year.
Hades 2 is supposed to be in development through at least to the end of this year, so it wouldn’t be eligible.
dude why are you setting the bar at this astronomical height? do you know what kind of miracle it would take for DAV to be GOTY quality? DAI got lucky in 2014, and expectations got infinitely higher since with games like bg3 and tw3, and so far DAV isnt even convincing the fans that its going to be better than DAI. lower that expectation to 'hopefully its a decent game and not just kinda mediocre', which seems more reasonable and should be enough. stg all it takes is one gameplay video and some sponsored media hype and boom you think goty, its wild.
I only just watched the trailer yesterday since I was on vacation...and I honestly have NO IDEA why everyone was so negative towards it. I thought it looked great, and got me curious about all the new faces and locations. As far as the Dragon Age-team goes, I have never been concerned. Every game has been better than the last for me.
Having played and 100% completed all the previous games, I'm too invested in the story and the world to not buy this unless it's literally broken.
Highly unlikely.
I'm sorry, but why should anyone care about this? Genuine question.
Human nature I suppose. Why do I care about a hockey team 4000 miles away from my home winning a championship that's played in a league based in another continent?
The game's not even out though, shouldn't we wait for the game to release first?
Wait for what? As far as predicting an award winner, I'd say the best time to speculate is before the release of the game/movie/whatever. Just harmless fun.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to speculate but the game's not even out yet and what they have shown us isn't really groundbreaking.
Speculating on an upcoming game's possible critical success based on its immediate predecessor's critical success seems like a fine discussion to me. Especially since we spent so many days with nothing but doom and gloom posts
I don't really see anything negative about dragon age on Reddit as much compared to YouTube and Twitter.
Bro were you here when the initial trailer dropped? Check any of the dragon age coverage on any subreddit and it's nothing but bashing it
I saw the trailer it wasn't as bad, it was just the art style for me.
I'm not saying you reacted negatively. I'm saying that after that trailer dropped I saw infinitely more negativity and dooming on this subreddit than I've seen at any other time in the 7 years I've been active in this sub. And now someone has an optimistic speculative post and a lot of people are like whoa we can't talk about this because it could be trash and looks mediocre lol
I mean I did hear this game did go through development problems which is probably why some people were turned off but I think people are kind of exaggerating a bit.
I don't think we're having the same conversation lol
Slow down there, talking about GOTY already? From what we’ve seen so far i’ve seen nothing groundbreaking that would award such a thing. I’m all for DA getting goty but lets be honest, inquisition got the reward because nothing else released that year not because of its quality, i mean look 1 year later we got Witcher 3.
I'm trying to keep my expectations fairly grounded, but I got a similar feeling from the Game Informer article like you did, that this game is a significant step up from Bioware's previous work. The members of the Bioware's community council (who got to play the game) seem to be pretty positive as well. Maybe the growing popularity of rpg genre has convinced EA to give Bioware the time and resources they need to make a good game. I certainly hope so. It's a bit early to be speculating about GOTY though. So far, the trailer was a miss, but everything else after has been mostly well received. It's a good start, but it's not enough to convince me that the game could be GOTY material. I the two biggest competitors DAV has for the moment are Dragon's Dogma 2 and Avowed. I personally don't think DD2 is going to win GOTY because the story and the rpg mechanics in that game are not very good, even if the gameplay is (I still had fun with DD2 though!). Avowed on the other hand could be a surprise winner as Obsidian doesn't often miss with their games. I'm hoping that Avowed is a success as well and that the community doesn’t start a war over which game is better (like what happened with Witcher 3). Having more great rpgs is always better!
> that this game is a significant step up from Bioware's previous work. I'm not sure the article author is the best judge of that. They said they spent 50 hours in DAI in 2014 and "dabbled" in DAO and DA2. They also said they're an action game fan (no mention of being an RPG fan), and I don't know if this is just the writing style, but imo they repeatedly seemed excited or amazed by basic RPG and Bioware features.
>I'm not sure the article author is the best judge of that. They said they spent 50 hours in DAI in 2014 and "dabbled" in DAO and DA2. That is a fair point. The writer is definitely no Dragon Age expert or maybe even rpg expert, but I don't think it means that his impressions don't have merit. He has tried the previous games, but didn't like them that much. This one seemed to grab his attention enough that he went from being somewhat indifferent towards the game, to saying that it's now his most anticipated rpg for the year. I'm sure many of the more casual fans are in the same train as he is and it's those people Bioware needs to convince if they want DAV to be a success. BG3 convinced even looter shooter fans to give a turn based rpg a chance and I do think it's a merit for Larian that they succeeded in doing that. If Bioware can do the same, I will be happy. Here's what the writer had to say at the end of the article: https://preview.redd.it/yd9f8zzzdq7d1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=02cefec0d78880829ae20192b121029c71436c61
I think DA:TV has the opportunity to gather fans who like action gameplay and fans who like narrative based games. Fans of tactical gameplay will be left hanging in my opinion. The game isn't addressing itself directly at them, if they play it it'll be because they want to try the story.
There’s also weird contradictions or jumps in the article. They talk about being a Qunari Warrior for the Minrathous level but then for the Arlathan level they talk about being a Qunari Mage. In a single paragraph they talk about how Rook is only the protagonist because of their competency and not a magical mcguffin and like 2 sentences later they say Rook is intricately linked to the fade because of what happened in the ritual. Edit: Missed the line where they said they switched save files
They switched saves from Qunari warrior to human mage at the start of the "Redefining combat once more" section.
> They talk about being a Qunari Warrior for the Minrathous level but then for the Arlathan level they talk about being a Qunari Mage. Whoever was playing for them (Busche, I think?) switched between saves to show them a different Rook. It wasn't clear to me whether they also skipped to a different part of the game. Here's the quote, from page 35, emphasis mine: "Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the prologue's events, something is up here. Three rings of massive rocks fly through the air, protecting what appears to be a central fortress. Demon Sentinels plague the surrounding lands, and **after loading up a new save, we're in control of a human mage.**"
Even DD2's combat goes to shit once you out level everything. If that game is seriously in contention something is wrong. I hear Balatro is getting a lot of praise.
What I saw in the gameplay reveal was an average game with an uninspired combat/talent/skill system and an all-around safe approach to making an RPG, nothing new or revolutionary. Just same old, same old. If the story is good then it will be worth playing for that alone, but I wouldn't necessarily give GOTY award to an average game with better than average story.
I believe it could be a potential GOTY nominee.
While I love that there is reason for optimism, I do think it's worth pumping the breaks a bit on any GOTY talk. BioWare's last two brand new games haven't just fallen short of that bar... They were outright bad to one degree or another. While I would certainly take a GOTY-quality game, even just a *solid* game would be a win. I also think it's worth keeping in mind that pre-release coverage can only provide so many reassurances. I remember following the Andromeda coverage before that game released, and a lot of what was coming from Game Informer sounded pretty decent. Then the game released and... Well, that was curtains lol. With that said, I am happy that there seems to be a lot of behind-the-scenes positivity around this game, and I remain cautiously hopeful!
Look I am excited to see how the game does once released but BioWare used to be a pre-order for me, today BioWare is a wait and see until after release.
>fun combat. The combat seems like the worst part of the game, which is worrying for a game I mean ymmv bc it's a matter of taste, some people like hack and slash games a lot, but the fact that the reporter for the game magazine didn't even get to play it but instead just watched the dev play it screams "red flag" to me like it's not responsive, or the combat doesn't flow, or something. It does not instill confidence on a reader
No big RPG of this kind lets you get hands on with the game months in advance. Source: I am in the press. It's always presentations and hands-off stuff because you simply can't properly demo games of this complexity in an hour or so.
>but the fact that the reporter for the game magazine didn't even get to play it but instead just watched the dev play it screams "red flag" to me I don't necessarily agree. The reporter isn't here to test the game and takes the time to discover learn and use every nuance of the combat during his time there. There is a schedule planned ahead, I doubt it includes a timeslot to learn how to play the game in order to review it properly.
I don't think DAV can win with a subpar game like Inquisition did, mainly because there are good games this year. Apparently Rebirth is a good game and the frontrunner, and there's also DD2. So for DAV to win it needs to be a good game, and for that we'll have to wait and see. We also don't know how the launch will be. There is always the chance of Bioware releasing a buggy mess of a game.
Except that Inquisition was a good game. It was easily as good (related to 2014, at least) as DD2, and Rebirth isn't exactly a big success, either. Plus, games released early in the year must really be stunning to make a lasting impression that carries them all the way to GOTY. I doubt that's the case for either of those two games - they are no Elden Ring or The Witcher 3.
Commercial success isn't a requirement to win the award. It is related to how good the game is, so obviously each winner have strong sales, but it is not taken into account when deciding who the winner should be.
I do not think Inquisition would've won if it had better competition that year, so I disagree on that aspect. But I do agree that the competition isn't as impressive this year either. I just think it's better than it was in 2014, so DAV would need to be better than what Inquisition was.
I do not disagree that Inquisition wouldn't have won in another year. That doesn't mean it was a 'subpar' game. It was simply not genre-defining. In 2014, it still deserved the win.
It didn't even deserve the win in 2014. As divisive as Dark Souls 2 was it was the better game out of the nominees and out of the games released that year Alien: Isolation probably deserved it the most.
Also, buggy seems like the least of the worries, to be honest. The game is more compact, handcrafted, not open world, and has been in Alpha for over twice the amount of time of any BioWare game before.
It is also the first Bioware Frostbite-era game that has a solid technological foundation and didn't have all the tools built from scratch.
Idk about GOTY but it could win some other awards for sure. GOTY for me right now is Helldivers 2
I don’t feel confident. I’ll play it eventually but right now I’m more disappointed about stuff like no blood magic and some of the big decisions meaning nothing.
Nope. Even if Shadow of the Erdtree isn't in contention, it would still get beat by FF: Rebirth, Animal Well, and several others. It's not the best year in gaming, but it's at least better than 2014.
If it lives up to the previews then I think it has a very good chance of being nominated. However, going up against Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Helldivers II, and now likely Astro Bot (also judging by previews) and winning is a tall order. I'd love nothing more than for it to be so good it sweeps the awards though.
I think that there is alot of bioware hate right now so people are going to be looking for any reason to complain and be negative about the game. Even if the game is good it will still receive alot of hate just because that's the popular position.
True enough. However, The Last of Us Part II also got a lot of 'hate' online and it didn't stop the game from getting GOTY.
I think RR7 Rebirth will take it unless DAVE really is something else
Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I think the GotY awards are more about popularity than objective quality. Given how a) DA:V is a Bioware game, and for many years now it's been in fashion to bash Bioware, and b) even among the fandom itself there's a no small amount of people ready to hate on the game, I don't expect it to win Best Game of the Year. Of course, that's not even considering how the competition is pretty high this yer, and will get even higher with the releases slated for later months. All in all, I'll be happy if DA:V wins Best Narrative and Best RPG (provided, of course, it turns out to be as good as we hope it to be).
From what they have showed no.
Andromeda became good after its most egregious issues were ironed out, though it was still Andromeda. Nothing mind-blowing, just a fun shooter. DAI was a miracle that it launched and was received as well as it was. And then, we had Anthem. Never pre-order. Wait for release and judge it on its live state, especially given the release issues of AAA titles in general nowadays. It is exceptionally early to even think about game awards for this game.
Andromeda became technically passable after its most horrific bugs were fixed. There was no salvaging its character writing, restricted power options, or story.
From what I saw on social, it was a lot of people's Game Fest's game of show; especially to those that saw extended gameplay.
How much did they see? All I've heard about (other than the Game Informer article) is people seeing the character creator and about the first hour of the game, which apparently includes the 20 minute gameplay reveal video and content that video cut around. Did anyone report seeing more than that? Any content that isn't super early game?
GameInfromer spent better half of the day at BioWare watching Busche and other leads play for several hours, and saw some higher level fights (or at least fights where you had the full ability set)
I don't know if I would trust gaming press people on anything
Well, that's what they said.🤷
Given the currently announced games, if FFVII: Rebirth won’t receive GOTY The Game Awards will be officially dead. There is not a single universe where The Veilguard will be able to top the Rebirth. It’s just not possible given what we know. It still can be a good game, but not GOTY good.
I honestly don’t know about that, some great games have come out and plenty yet to come. I’m fully onboard for more Dragon Age but mainly just the story, combat doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done before (it devolves imo). If it comes out with solid performance and is polished etc. I can see Black Myth: Wukong having a fair shot at GOTY.
i hope so. It look likes a stinky pile of filth right now
Are you saying Dragon age Inquisition didn’t deserve goty?
Let's be honest, it won game of the year in a pretty weak year for games and might not even have been nominated let alone won the award if it had been up against the competition from almost any other year (except perhaps 2021). When you look down the list of game award game of the year winners it seems pretty out of place.
I think there’s no shot it evens sniffs game of the year.
I don’t know, I think aside from the badly animated trailer everything else I’ve seen has impressed me. I think there’s a pretty good chance.
what quality
The only reason DA:I won goty in 2014 was because there wasn't really any worthy contender that year, this year we have DD2, Rebirth, (hopefully) Avowed and Wukong. And lucky for all of these Shadow of the Erdtree can't compete for goty lol. Sidetracking a little bit, next year is insane, Monster Hunter, GTA, DOOM, Civ 7, Fable and DS2
None of those games are particularly threatening. DD2 has an average score of 86; you don't win GOTY with that. The only one to contend with is Rebirth, but despite high reviews, the game is already largely forgotten following a commercial flop (it sold even worse than FFXVI). It doesn't have momentum.
Meta critic score doesnt mean shit
In what world? all GOTY winners have scored 89 or more
So far, it looks like a joke next to BG3 - which is where the bar is now. Would be very surprised to see it take home GOTY.
What do you mean? The gameplay reveal trailer turned off even more people. The combat looks mid if you like that style fo combat and the climactic moment of the trailer was: break scaffolding to stop the evil ritual. Very dumb. Anyone who wanted tactical combat saw that trailer and died inside.
The Veilguard failed to convince me, in fact—it disappoints me with every new information released—and I'm otherwise a huge fan of Thedas' world-building. I doubt it will convince the wide public.
The rough part is the bar is just so high these days. It could be the best BioWare game hands down but if it’s not the next boulders gate, elden ring or Witcher 3, rage baiters will call it a woke flop. The issue is dragon age has never really been the must buy title of the year.
If it comes out actually like the 2nd coming of Mass Effect 2 as GI has been saying (and my sense is that it will be outstanding) I can see it winning best Narrative if not GOTY...but if it's anything less than stellar then it'll be a fight. These last few months have a lot of good coming out. ...that's all if Shadow of the Erdtree isn't allowed to run again (I think I should be...it's long enough) Best RPG is going to be a tough go this year with FFVIIR, Avowed, and especially Metaphor coming out. Infinite wealth as well.
I am confident that if it really is going to be that good, it will win some awards if not GOTY. Assuming Shadow of the Erdtree isn’t eligible, which I doubt it will be. Avowed could be a big contender as well. I think Rebirth might be hurt by it not being playable on Xbox (I am just salty)
As much as I'm put off by the art direction and tone, and as little as I could care about the style of combat gameplay--I know I'll feel at home with the characters and story. Luckily that's what I care about most, and Bioware hasn't let me down too much in that area yet. Anything... literally anything after having gone through BG3's character writing will make me happy (Astarion and Laezel were good, but everyone else... Jesus H. Christ).
I’m just hoping it is a good game before I start worrying about GOTY.
Thing is this year will be good for video games. Dragon's Dogma 2 Helldivers 2 Black Myth Wukong Star Wars: Outlaws So there is competition this time around. Though I must say that Dragon's Dogma 2 has no chance of winning because it was over hyped and just not that good. Even now it still has issues with performance and + that microtransaction debacle. Game has so much questionable systems. World is dull, combat is not that good, enemy variety is same as in Mass Effect Adromeda, pawns are so artificial it hurts. So it will not be walk through the park.
Theres no juggernaut game this year like a Baldurs gate 3 so if the game is good it could get a couple awards. So far I think there’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows/Star Wars Outlaws from Ubisoft. I’m not sure about Dragon Dogma 2 because I didn’t play it, and then Avowed is coming out later this year. Call of Duty will probably be the most successful but those types of games usually don’t win a lot of awards. Final fantasy rebirth also is a big game that came out. The difference between Veilguard and Inquisition is people say there was no competition in 2014, they can’t really say that about this year theres some tough competition. So if BioWare managed to win GOTY somehow that would be a great achievement for them after everything they went through the past couple of years.
Something worth remembering, BG3 wasn't anticipated to be such a Juggernaut before its release. A good game and great RPG ? Yes. Such a big success ? No. I am not saying DA:TV, will do the same, but maybe another game (Star Wars Outlaw, AC Shadow, Avowed, Wukong, or something else) will.
Thats fair but the playing field does feel a little leveled this year (last year also had Spider man 2, Alan Wake 2 and Tears of the Kingdom) we’ll just have to see its still too early to tell
2014 also had some pretty good games on the level of 2024. They just weren't GOTY-stealing behemoths like The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, or Baldur's Gate 3, and the same is true this year.
I know im just saying thats what people say, I never agreed with that statement. It’s similar this year just with bigger named games.
I dunno. Shadow of the erdtree will win in every outlet that will put dlc up for goty. The game awards doesn’t so it has a chance, so far the front runner is still ff7 rebirth which I’m proud of and also disappointed lol. The year inquisition won was also one of the worst years in gaming, not to be negative, but I think the only competition was shadow of Mordor?
Nearly no major outlet will put DLC up for GOTY. Almost everyone has separate categories nowadays FF7 Rebirth as you said is not a smash hit by any means. Yes, 2014 wasn't the most competitive year and 2024 is much the same. That's the point.