A kid’s game just won Game of the Year

The Game Awards of 2024 have come to a close, with Astro Bot taking home the coveted Game of the Year award.

The PlayStation-exclusive platformer emerged victorious despite a diverse field of nominees for the best Game of the Year title. The lineup featured a rare mobile game, Balatro, as well as the first-ever DLC nomination in the category with Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Astro Bot’s victory is pretty surprising considering the history of TGAs.

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Astro Bot

The follow-up to the PS5 pack-in game Astro’s Playroom, Team Asobi’s Astro Bot is a fully fleshed-out 3D platformer with over 80 stages. Throughout the campaign, Astro will get access to more than 15 abilities.

Systems

OpenCritic

Top Critic Rating:95/100

Developer(s)

Team Asobi

Publisher(s)

Sony Interactive Entertainment

ESRB

E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence

A win for a family game

Astro Bot’s win is rarity for Game of the Year

It’s not common for a game that wins Best Family Game to also take home the award for Game of the Year at the end of the night, but Astro Bot managed to do it. This marks only the second time in the last 20 years of The Game Awards that the winner of Best Family Game went on to win the top prize, joining 2021’s It Takes Two.

Astro Bot director Nicolas Doucet remarked on the challenge of creating the game while accepting the award, highlighting the difficult task of designing a game that serves as an introduction to gaming for children while also paying tribute to PlayStation’s 30-year gaming legacy.

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A huge win for PlayStation

A PS-exclusive filled with PlayStation history

Astro Bot’s win is a feather in PlayStation’s cap as it continues to outpace its main competition, Microsoft and Xbox.

Astro Bot is a platformer game reminiscent of the original Nintendo Mario games. Instead of Mario, however, players take on the role of Astro Bot, guiding him through challenging levels and puzzles that often reference classic games from the PlayStation library, such as God of War, Metal Gear Solid, Yakuza, and many more. Director Nicolas Doucet touched on this in his acceptance speech, saying, “Astro Bot is full of PlayStation history. And a lot of people in this room tonight gave their characters without asking anything in return, just because they cared about celebrating 30 years of history.”

The game is fun for both adults and kids, but like its predecessor, Astro’s Playroom, it serves as both an homage to past games and a way to teach new gamers how to use the controls needed to master video games. This makes it a great option for parents of young kids looking for something to play alongside their children.

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More The Game Awards 2024 winners

A complete breakdown of the winners

Here’s a complete breakdown of all the winners from the biggest night in video games. Astro Bot was one of the biggest winners of the night, taking home three awards — Best Game Direction, Best Family Game, and Best Action Game — in addition to the Game of the Year award.