I'm a little sad they didn't find a way to rope Drew back in as a guest for this. That said, I'm very much looking forward to MG2: Solid Snake, as that game holds up far batter.
"Devil Kings" was one of the early Sengoku Basara games. They sadly haven't brought any more of them over to the US.
If they did, I have a sneaking suspicion that Dan would *love* them - they're essentially the cracked-out cousins of the Dynasty Warriors games. They're much sillier, and take themselves much less seriously.
For example - Masamune Date wields six swords at once, and rides a horse with motorcycle handlebars and working exhaust pipes. Tadakatsu Honda is a mecha.
Stunned, absolutely stunned that Horizon isn't getting at least some recognition in one of these categories.
Best World? Nope, shot down with reason being it belongs in Best Story (which is bunk, but that's not even the worst injustice - that comes later...)
Best Debut? Nope, shot down. Criminally, considering in the past a release of a former mod as its own game has disqualified a game from this category (DOTA 2), yet somehow PUBG isn't held to the same standard?
Best Story? Nope, not even in contention. After what was said to DQ it from Best World. WTF?
I feel like this should have been "Best Worldbuilding" in order to clarify the category.
49 minutes in, and I'm with Jeff - the story being told within the world, and the gameplay mechanics you use to interact with that world shouldn't matter in this context. This should be a recognition of the world built to play the game in.
It's possible to have an incredible game, with a boring world, and conversely to have an incredible world, with a boring game. It's possible to tell a good story, in a poorly-designed world, or to tell a poor story in an incredible world. This is what I came into this thinking would be highlighted here.
"Best Story" should be about the story being told.
"Best Style" should be about the cohesiveness of the visual/audio presentation.
"Best World" should be about the lore and backstory that defines the world the game takes place in.
I feel like this became more of a "Best open-world exploration" rather than "Best world", which cuts out a broad swath of games that don't fit that particular mold. There's room for a separate category for best open-world exploration games to be sure, but that's a much, much narrower category.
Examples of what I figure ought to matter for this category:
Yakuza 0's depiction of 80's Japan.
Horizon: Zero Dawn's lore and backstory - how the world got to be destroyed, how the machines came to be, why they're designed after creatures, why humanity has fallen back to low-tech tribalism, etc...
NIER: Automata's setup (alien invasion via machines, the deal with the moon, YORHA, ties to the original and Drakengard, etc...)
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus' depiction of Nazi-occupied America, the ridiculous expansion to Venus, etc...
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