On August 27th, Gamescom exclusive sneak peeks, and hand out the illustrious Gamescom awards. Every convention has been a little different in 2020, but this time around Gamescom's awards were slightly different than any other year.
Most players aren't unfamiliar to games they haven't played winning awards at award shows. Nobody can play every game that comes out and every once in a while awards are given to games the flew under the radar for most players, but this year was different, with the majority of the awards given out on Opening Night Live going to games that players haven't been able to play at all.
In the opening live show, Gamescom gave out seven awards. Of the awards given, only one has had an official release: Tell Me Why, which won the best Xbox game category. Tell Me Why was released on August 27th, 2020, the same day as the Gamescom show that gave it an award. Not only that, but there are 2 more "episodes" that have yet to be released for the episodic narrative game, meaning that players won't be able to experience the full story of Tell Me Why until September 10th, 2020. Of the other games that took home awards, one is in early access, one has a demo, and the rest have yet to release to players in any meaningful capacity. How are unreleased games are winning awards before players have even gotten a chance to play them?
So What's Going On at Gamescom?
One point of comparison is the Oscars, which is largely a marketing tool for movies, with production companies hosting large "for your consideration" campaigns for movies to get them nominated and possibly a win. That said, even the Oscars require movies to be released theatrically for at least a week in order to be eligible for winning an award. The following games, however, don't meet that criteria.
- Best Action Adventure Game – Watch Dogs: Legion
- Best Action Game – Star Wars: Squadrons
- Best Indie Game – Curious Expedition 2
- Best Microsoft Xbox Game – Tell Me Why
- Best Nintendo Switch Game – Little Nightmares 2
- Best Sony PlayStation Game – Cyberpunk 2077
- Best Multiplayer Game – Operation: Tango
Perhaps Gamescom was simply looking at games releasing in 2020, and thought that the majority of the big titles were releasing after the convention and that they should be eligible for the Gamescom 2020 awards. If that was the case, then how did Little Nightmares II win a 2020 game award with a release date in February 2021?
The final possible reason is that the voting may have gotten advanced copies of all the nominated games, and found that the best games of 2020 are coming this holiday season. Players are incredibly excited for games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Star Wars: Squadrons that are releasing in the coming months, and these Gamescom awards may be a sign that those games are going to live up to expectations. On Twitter, most of the conversation has been focused around congratulating the developers that work incredibly hard to bring players epic experiences. Those developers deserve to have their work recognized, even if that work may not be accessible to the public yet.
