Despite the best efforts of Kratos and God of War: Ragnarök, the Elden Ring won the awards ceremony.

Ten months after its release, and the same week it finally received DLC, Elden Ring was officially named Game of the Year at The Game Awards. A fact that many of the more than 12 million players who have played it for much of the past 12 months have taken as a foregone conclusion. FromSoftware’s latest Souls game beat out nominees such as Stray and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, not to mention Kratos and his new God of War adventure. Frankly, the outcome was never really in doubt.

Well, that’s not technically true. Horizon Forbidden West and Plague Tell Requiem never stood a chance of stopping Elden Ring from winning big. Yet the only real rival to the winner emerged almost at the last minute.

God of War: Ragnarök, released in November, was the only real threat to the Elden Ring’s crown. It came just in time to be considered; Kratos had a serious chance to spoil the party.

It didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean the battle of Ragnarök and the Elden Ring is over. Kratos has more surprises up his sleeve. While the game that The Game Awards calls Game of the Year is the one that is generally most recognized by the industry and gamers, there are many more official awards handed out. In fact, Elden Ring is ahead of the game in this respect too. It now has 19 Game of the Year awards, compared to Ragnarök’s four.

As mentioned above, Elden Ring players have more to look forward to this week. Months after data collectors discovered the coliseum hidden in The Lands Between, Elden Ring has received DLC. This very building is at the heart of it. It could easily have been a Game Awards reveal. But FromSoftware decided to drop it a few days early, barely noticeable.

Although Ragnarök is great and probably would have won Game of the Year in almost any other 12-month period, it’s hard to argue that Elden Ring didn’t deserve it.

Between the expansive map, the incredible boss battles, and the amazing things the community has done with the game since its release, Elden Ring will be worthy of Game of the Year for a very long time to come.

Source: Gamespot