Tears of the Kingdom has pulled off another great feat and won IGN’s Game of the Year Award, a much-needed win as it had lost the Game of the Year title at this year’s Game Awards to Baldur’s Gate 3. This proved to be a tough year in general because of the many amazing titles that came out so close together. One thing is for certain, 2023 will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest years for gaming, by far. So many good games have surfaced this year such the amazing Baldur’s Gate 3, the spectacular (no pun intended) Spider-Man 2, the critically acclaimed Alan Wake 2, and the “wonder”-ful Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
While it was kind of unfortunate that Tears of the Kingdom did not win Game of the Year at the Game Awards, it was understandable. This was definitely going to be hard to choose from as nearly every game that was nominated had seen phenomenal success. IGN was asked why they made this decision and here is what they had to say:
“This is the game many of us had marked on our calendars, and for good reason. We couldn’t wait to see what a sequel to one of the best games of all time could achieve. But it turns out that wasn’t the right question.
Tears of the Kingdom didn’t just deliver more of what we wanted – that would be too on the nose. Instead, the team at Nintendo put the challenge to us, asking players what could we achieve if given the right tools? Nintendo clearly watched hundreds of videos of what Breath of the Wild players were able to create — making flying machines from barrels and carts using abilities that were clearly designed for other things. Nintendo went ahead and gave us proper tools to create mechs, flying bombers, rocket ships, land rovers, kaijus… you name it. We’re still building, and will likely keep building.”
And when comparing the Game Awards’ Game of the Year winner, Baldur’s Gate 3, here is what they said:
“In a broad sense, Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur’s Gate 3 aren’t too dissimilar. Both offer players expansive amounts of freedom, to a point where we feel like we can meaningfully impose our wills in both games. But there’s a moment very early on in Tears of the Kingdom that serves as a kind of switch in the imagination. Obtaining the Ultrahand is the key to Tears of the Kingdom’s whole philosophy. Suddenly puzzle answers aren’t just figuring out the right color-combination or finding the right switch. The solutions to all Tears of the Kingdom’s challenges lie all around Hyrule itself, in the forests and caves and sky and depths. It’d be a disservice to say that Tears of the Kingdom is just more Breath of the Wild. If anything, it makes Breath of the Wild seem like an extravagant test run for what Tears of the Kingdom manages to achieve. When Shigeru Miyamoto created the Zelda series, he said he was inspired by the explorations he took as a young boy into the forests and caves of his hometown in Sonobe, Japan. 37 years later and this dream of exploration seems fully realized.“
It’s very true that what was imagined for the very first Legend of Zelda is realized in Tears of the Kingdom. That feat cannot be stressed enough. To say that Tears of the Kingdom is Breath of the Wild 2.0 is kind of a belittling thing to say. It may be set in the same world as Breath of the Wild and utilize a lot of the same mechanics but the core of the game is so much more. As a Zelda fan since the very first one came out, I would say this game embodies what we’ve wanted as fans of the series for years in a myriad of different ways. That’s why it’s such a great success. It may not be like other “classic” Zelda games but it is very much the Zelda that we’ve wanted since we were kids. And that itself deserves much praise. While it’s understandable that Tears of the Kingdom may not seem to be Game of the Year in everyone’s eyes, it certainly is for IGN, and for that we are definitely grateful.
