God of War Ragnorok made good on its record-breaking haul of BAFTA Games Awards nominations by emerging with the largest number of gongs from the 2023 ceremony.
Held on Thursday night in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank (and livestreamed on Twitch), the event — hosted by Julia Hardy and Inel Tomlinson — saw Sony’s bloody battle into Norse mythology win six awards, including performance honors for Christopher Judge and Laya DeLeon Hayes and Game of the Year, the only award voted for by the public. The game — the sequel to 2019’s God of War (itself a BAFTA Game of the Year winner) — had gone into the night with 14 nominations.
However, in something of a major shock, indie shooter Vampire Survivors — a title largely solely developed by Luca Galante — landed the top best game prize.
Meanwhile Elden Ring and Tunic won two BAFTAs each, as did Vampire Survivors thanks to a second win for game design. Other honorees included Final Fantasy XIV Online, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Endling – Extinction Is Forever, Immortality and Horizon Forbidden West. In another surprise, Annapurna’s Stray — following a stray cat trying to escape from a walled city — failed to land a single one of its eight nominations.
Alongside the main awards, the BAFTA Fellowship was presented to Japanese gaming exec Shuhei Yoshida, a key original member of Sony’s PlayStation brand having been part of the company since 1993.
