I think going by overall mainstream appeal and zeitgeist it's correct. Everybody was talking about BG3 that year, even people who are usually not fans of the genre. So in that sense I agree that 2023 was the year of BG3.
On the games' merit alone as standalone pieces of art abstracted from context I think Alan Wake 2 puts up a good fight.
I was referring to The Game Awards and their claim on crowning the "Game of the Year".
BG3 got GotY, though there are debates to be had I suppose over the legitimacy of an "official" game of the year.
Good shout, I did fumble my word order.
I really really hope they don't get discouraged. They would have done so much better had it only been on Steam, please Remedy don't change your ways.
Also it should have been GotY last year, fight me.
It's also surprisingly atmospheric (and just a little bit tense) for a game with rudimentary LCD-style visuals, virtually zero animation, and minimal sound.
Have they... not played a Lucas Pope game before? How is it surprising at all? Obra Dinn already showed what he can do with 1-bit graphics and almost zero animation.
One thing I forgot to ask last post was the music, in particular the between-chapter songs. They were all written specifically for the game by various artists based on poems about the story Sam Lake gave them. I've seen lots of streamers just immediately skip and go to the next chapter, but I really recommend listening through each song. They're all amazing, and it kind of makes me sad it didn't get the award for best music.
It's become one of my favourite games of all time, I think it's a masterpiece. I love the Remedy connected universe, and as someone who played and loved Max Payne back in the day I got a huge nostalgia kick from the cameos in AW2. When you first see Casey in the Max Payne 1 outfit I squealed.
I also think Alice's actress is absolutely killing it and am surprised she didn't get more recognition.
I really need a behind the scenes documentary about the development of Bloodlines 2 in the future. They had literally the game fans of the first wanted: Brian Mitsoda writing and Rik Schaffer composing (which itself was a miracle since he's previously said he never would).
What the hell happened? Did Brian piss someone off? Was the gameplay completely unplayable? How bad was the script? Did they choose to throw away everything Mitsoda wrote or did he not let them use it?
I have so many questions.
That's only possible if the game is a rough diamond. Rik Schaffer might publish his unused OST for modders to do something with, but I doubt Brian Mitsoda's script is accessible and looking at the changes here compared to the Hardsuit Labs trailers it doesn't look like they kept much of it in.
The amount of April fucking 1st videos that would now be indistinguishable from normal videos alone makes the idea of upload date removal outright dangerous in my opinion.
I love Lucas Pope and would like to one day play Mars After Midnight, but I'm not paying over 200 bucks for one of these anytime soon.