LONDON – A video game from an independent developer, 'Hades', dominated Britain's Bafta Games Awards on Thursday, triumphing over Sony's hotly tipped 'The Last of US Part II'.
The prestigious BAFTA awards for cinema and television introduced prizes for the best video games in 2004, a decade before the launch of the main US awards ceremony, the Game Awards.
Hades, a role-playing game for PC and Nintendo Switch developed by the small independent Californian studio Supergiant Games, won five of its nine nominations at a ceremony held entirely online for the second year running due to the pandemic.
The game set in the world of Greek mythology and featuring 3D isometric graphics also carried off the awards for artistic achievement, game design and narrative and performer in a supporting role.
"THANK YOU ACADEMY for this incredible honor, and thank the gods themselves for the inspiration and doubtless the helping hand in this accomplishment!!" Supergiant Games tweeted.
We will always be grateful for this.
— Supergiant Games (@SupergiantGames) March 25, 2021
Congratulations to our fellow nominees, whose work has long inspired us. It's an honor to be in the same category.
Huge congratulations to everyone, past and present, at @SupergiantGames.
Thanks so much to our partners, friends, and family. https://t.co/zipTwNCTOK
The game's protagonist is Zagreus, prince of the underworld and son of Hades, who is seeking to escape from the realm of the dead with the help of numerous gods. Players must make their way through a series of dungeons.
The critically acclaimed game won the best indie and best action prizes at last year's Game Awards in the US, where 'The Last of Us Part II' won the most prizes, including Game of the Year.
'Last of Us' had been expected to triumph at the BAFTAs, too, racking up 14 nominations in 11 categories, an absolute record for the award, after 'Control' and 'Death Stranding' each gained 11 nominations the previous year.
But the game created by Sony subsidiary Naughty Dog – the continuation of a saga about a young lesbian woman fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, released in June 2020 on PlayStation – ended up winning only three awards.
It won prizes for animation and the best performer in a leading role and also the EE Game of the year, voted for by the public. The other winners are selected like the other BAFTA prizes, by a jury of industry professionals.
Another big loser was 'Ghost of Tsushima' from Sucker Punch Productions, nominated in 11 categories. The game set in Japan's feudal Kamakura era won in only one: the audio achievement category.
Another highly anticipated but critically mauled game, 'Cyberpunk 2077', failed to win a single award after receiving four nominations. – AFP, March 26, 2021
