After having a pretty god-awful time in both Resident Evil 7 Biohazard and Resident Evil: Village, there’s no denying Ethan Winters desperately deserves a win. Luckily for Ethan (and on a more serious note, all the developers at Capcom), the faceless man finally has one thanks to the Golden Joystick Awards — though he might need a hand accepting the trophy.
Earlier today, the Golden Joystick Awards held its 39th annual ceremony, during which it crowned Resident Evil Village as 2021’s official Game of the Year (via GamesRadar). In addition to winning Game of the Year, the survival horror title also won Best PlayStation game, Best Audio, and Best Performer (Maggie Robertson as Lady Dimitrescu), making it a pretty big day for Capcom.
As far as how the Golden Joystick Award decides its winners, the award ceremony utilizes a public vote, meaning the titles that won were decided upon by fans and players rather than critics. However, the award show does have a separate category for their Critics Choice Award, which was ultimately given to Arkane Studio’s Deathloop.
In addition to a whole lot of game awards, two additional categories were added to the Golden Joystick Awards to commemorate 50 years of gaming: Best Gaming Hardware of All Time and Ultimate Game of All Time. While the races were reportedly pretty tight, the PC inevitably triumphed as the Best Gaming Hardware of All Time whereas Dark Souls took home Ultimate Game. The complete list of Golden Joystick Awards winners is as follows:
- Best Storytelling — Life is Strange: True Colors
- Best Multiplayer Game — It Takes Two
- Best Audio — Resident Evil: Village
- Best Visual Design — Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
- Best Game Expansion — Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island Expansion
- Mobile Game of the Year — League of Legends: Wild Rift
- Best Gaming Hardware — PS5
- Best Indie Game — Death’s Door
- Studio of the Year — Capcom
- Best Performer — Maggie Robertson (Lady Dimitrescu)
- Breakthrough Award — Housemarque
- Best Game Community — Final Fantasy 14
- Still Playing Award — Final Fantasy 14
- PC Game of the Year — Hitman 3
- Nintendo Game of the Year — Metroid Dread
- Xbox Game of the Year — Psychonauts 2
- PlayStation Game of the Year — Resident Evil Village
- Most Wanted Game — Elden Ring
- Critics Choice Award — Deathloop
- Ultimate Game of the Year — Resident Evil Village
- Ultimate Hardware of All Time — PC
- Ultimate Game of All Time — Dark Souls