It takes a special game to sweep all five major year-end awards and Sony Santa Monica’s God of War was just such a game. It’s brutal combat was praised by critics, but it also managed to do the impossible by transforming Kratos, previously portrayed as an instrument of pure rage, into a gruff (and almost lovable) father figure.
In addition to its five-for-five run at The Game Awards, the DICE Awards the SXSW Gaming Awards, the GDC Awards, and the BAFTA Games Awards, God of War handily won “Game of the Year” honors from dozens of publications and topped a handful of Reader Polls for good measure.
In any other year, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 would have easily galloped away with some of those accolades, but it had to make do with a smaller (though still quite impressive) haul.
Interestingly, the publications that didn’t click with Kratos or the cowboys cast a wide net when making their “Game of the Year” selection. Matt Makes Games’s Celeste, Epic’s Fortnite, Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and many others all earned the admiration of at least one publication.
You can see more of last year’s most-acclaimed titles (and what awards they won) in the 2018 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.
God of War
★ BAFTA Games Awards
★ DICE Awards
★ The Game Awards
★ GDC Awards
★ SXSW Gaming Awards
★ CNET
★ Critical Hit
★ Destructoid
★ DualShockers
★ Easy Allies
★ Empire
★ Entertainment Weekly
★ Game Informer
★ Game Rant
★ GameRevolution
★ Games Radar
★ IGN
★ Kinda Funny
★ Nerdist
★ New York Game Awards
★ NME
★ Polygon
★ Press Start Australia
★ Slant Magazine
★ Time
★ Variety
★ Destructoid
★ DualShockers
★ Eurogamer
★ Game Informer
★ IGN
★ Kotaku Australia
★ Metacritic
★ N4G
★ TheSixthAxis
★ USgamer
Astro Bot Rescue Mission
Celeste
★ Ars Technica
★ GamesBeat
★ Thrillist
★ Unwinnable
Florence
Fortnite
Monster Hunter: World
Red Dead Redemption 2
★ Complex
★ Digital Trends
★ EGM
★ Flickering Myth
★ GameSpew
★ GameSpot
★ Gaming Bolt
★ The Guardian
★ Maxim
★ Metacritic
★ Stuff.tv
★ Twinfinite
★ USgamer
★ Vulture
Return of the Obra Dinn
★ Mashable
★ Rock Paper Shotgun (Best PC Games)
Spider-Man
★ COGconnected
★ ComicBook.com
★ DarkZero
★ Gaming Age
★ Shacknews
★ TheSixthAxis
★ WorthPlaying
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
★ Cubed3
★ Nintendo Life (Best Switch Games)
Tetris Effect
Unranked Lists
★ Den of Geek
★ Esquire
★ Eurogamer
★ Quarter To Three
★ Siliconera
★ The Washington Post
If you go further down these lists, you’ll also find plenty of great games from 2018 that might not have earned a “Game of the Year” award, but are still worth playing…
- ★ Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (#4 at BGR)
- ★ Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (#8 at Complex)
- ★ Dead Cells (#10 at Vulture)
- ★ Dragon Ball FighterZ (#12 at Thrillist)
- ★ F1 2018 (#10 at Ars Technica)
- ★ Far Cry 5 (#11 at Gaming Bolt)
- ★ Forza Horizon 4 (#6 at USgamer)
- ★ Graveyard Keeper (#9 at Games Radar)
- ★ Hitman 2 (#9 at Slant Magazine)
- ★ Into the Breach (#5 at Giant Bomb)
- ★ Just Shapes & Beats (#23 at Paste Magazine)
- ★ Mega Man 11 (#17 at Ars Technica)
- ★ Minit (#15 at Polygon)
- ★ Octopath Traveler (#5 at Twinfinite)
- ★ Shadow of the Colossus (#11 at The Guardian)
- ★ Shadow of the Tomb Raider (#10 at Mashable)
- ★ Subnautica (#4 at Time)
- ★ Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (#9 at GameRevolution)
This obviously isn’t every “Game of the Year” list from 2018 (more links will be added as I find them), but I think it’s a fairly representative sample of the overall critical reaction.