NPR's Top 2023 games and The Game Awards
Plus, that GTA trailer, huh?
NPR published an interactive list of our 97 favorite games of the year, which I had the privilege to discuss with NPR’s Michel Martin this week.
A record year called for a new approach. We’ve never had so many entries, so we expanded our sortable tags to include the niche (Fighting) to the mushy-but-useful (Cozy). I’ve entertained myself for minutes on end toggling between categories and platforms, rereading the blurbs I spent so much of the past two weeks editing and writing.
But I’m done with that now! We have The Game Awards to discuss!
NPR joined the jury this year, so the winners didn’t exactly come as a shock, even though our ballots had a fractional impact on the final tallies (we’re one of over a hundred outlets, and the public vote counts for a full tenth of each decision — meaning that our picks would count for much less than one percent of each total). Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 already dominated the nominations — they dominated the Awards too. BG3 won Game of the Year, Best RPG, Best Community Support, Best Multiplayer and the Players' Voice Award; AW2 won Best Directing, Best Narrative and Best Art Direction — that game in particular has enjoyed surging critical acclaim.
While the parade of dudes in black shirts and black jackets got monotonous, the Awards otherwise kept their characteristically rapid pace. One minute Neil Newbon’s giving an impassioned acceptance speech for the role of Asterion in Baldur’s Gate 3. The next, Matthew McConaughey’s making a wry attempt to switch his “all right, all right, all right” catchphrase to “pew, pew, pew.” It doesn’t stick the landing, but that’s OK — the game he’s showing off looks like Mass Effect by way of Interstellar, and it’s just one of dozens of newly-announced titles to try to keep straight!
I watched the whole three and a half hours for work (you can read the product of that late-night labor here), but the flashy trailers, bewildering gimmicks and genuinely compelling musical numbers kept my wife’s attention far past her bedtime, after she wandered in from a church pizza night. For the record, we both thought Simu Liu was the best celebrity guest — he came off as casual and gracious when he played off a sports injury, complimented prior presenter Anthony Mackie, and even said what everyone was thinking before reading out The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Best Action/Adventure win: “no surprise here.”
For a night with so few surprises, I at least didn’t expect Sea of Stars to win Best Independent Game — not because it didn’t deserve it, but because Dave the Diver has such a loud following (perhaps the controversy over whether it’s truly “indie” dissuaded my fellow jurists). I was also intrigued by many new announcement trailers, but the one that most caught my eye was for Motion Twin’s Windblown, a co-op roguelite in the mold of their hit Dead Cells.
I’m left with one puzzle. Microsoft’s biggest game of the year, Starfield, was only nominated for one category — Best RPG — which it of course lost to BG3. Knowing that they faced certain doom, I can’t decide if Microsoft was being magnanimous or passive-aggressive when they touted Starfield during an ad-break, ending their video with an accolades screen and this white text on a black background: “We congratulate all the amazing studios and nominees and celebrate an industry that brings so much joy to so many players.”
Well, if it follows the model set by Skyrim’s longevity and Cyberpunk 2077’s redemption, perhaps Starfield will come back to win Best Ongoing Game in 2026!
Highlights
Oh, Rockstar finally released that Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer! I helped NPR’s Manuela López Restrepo cover the hype around it.
On a completely different, somber note, I produced an interview with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI), on Hamas’ reported sexual violence. Later, I booked Reuters’ Emily Rose on that story and on how hostage families have called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation.
I also produced a segment on how the US Government’s closure of a border crossing between Arizona and Mexico has devastated nearby communities.
And, finally, I got NPR’s Eric Deggans and Celeste Headlee together to discuss Norman Lear’s death at 101, and the mixed legacy he left in broadening representation for Black people in sitcoms.