GDC 2015: Shadow of Mordor wins Game of the Year

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor came away from last night's 15th annual Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony having nabbed the top honor of Game of the Year. Monolith Production's open-world action RPG won out over Bayonetta 2, Destiny, Hearthstone, and Alien: Isolation.

A few of those games still took away awards, however. Blizzard Entertainment's digital card game Hearthstone received the Best Design Award, and stealth horror game Alien: Isolation, from developer The Creative Assembly, came away with the Best Audio Award. Best Narrative was given to indie adventure game Kentucky Route Zero, Act 3. The Audience Award went to space simulation Elite: Dangerous from Frontier Developments.

Game designer Brenda Romero received The Ambassador Award for her continued work, now three decades worth, in the games industry. The Pioneer Award was given to David Braben for his work on the Elite series, and Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series, was given a Lifetime Achievement Award.

You can see a full list of the award-winners here.

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Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.