BAFTA Game Awards Recap | 2017

Last night BAFTA hosted their 13^th annual Games Awards in a glitzy ceremony at the Tobacco Dock, London.

Despite all of the big name games released during the last year, it was the smaller, indie games companies that stole the show, with the notable exception of Uncharted 4 picking up the Best Game Award at the end of the night.

Dominating proceedings was PlayDead’s indie puzzler game INSIDE (Check out my review here) which took home four awards out of its seven nominations in the categories of Artistic Achievement, Game Design, Narrative, and Original Property. It was wonderful to see INSIDE convert more than half of its nominations into BAFTA’s. The PlayDead team had a hugely successful night and probably have sore heads this morning to prove it.

Other winners included Firewatch which bagged Best Debut and the Performer award for Cissy Jones’s brilliant voice acting as Delilah. With Cissy Jones battling other nominees in the Performer category such as superstars Nolan North and Troy Baker, it was refreshing to see a smaller game take the award over Naughty Dog’s acclaimed Uncharted 4.

One of the most heart-warming moments of the 2017 BAFTA Games was the Game Innovation award going to the game, That Dragon, Cancer. The story is inspired by the tragic life of two of the development team’s son who died from cancer in 2014. It was an emotional speech with mother and writer of That Dragon Cancer, Amy Green saying, “We created a game that was hard to play. But we believe it was beautiful.” BAFTA and gamers alike agree.

The Overcooked team also had a fruitful night, winning awards for Family Game and British Game. Developed by two men who used their savings and quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to creating an entertaining cooking game, to winning two BAFTA’s in one night; Ghost Town Games now have quite a success story to share.

Other awards of the night included the Multiplayer Award going to Overwatch, a shooting game that celebrates the LGBT community. The Music BAFTA was awarded to Virginia, a story about friendship and betrayal told without any dialogue, and Audio Achievement was handed to The Last Guardian, Sony Interactive’s tale of friendship between a boy and a mythical beast named Trico.

It was an uplifting experience to see so many awards going to smaller companies, and it made the ceremony more exciting to see a wide variety of games claiming BAFTA’s. What a night!

To view a the full list of award winners click here