Bethesda’s masterful Fallout 4 won the title of best game at the 2016 British Academy Games Awards, representing the first time that the US-based developer has scooped the top prize. The post-apocalyptic offering, where players have the opportunity to explore hundreds of hours of storylines as they roam across the wastelands of a future Boston, Fallout 4 has been an instant hit with fans, but the landmark BAFTA win still came as something of a surprise.
This was the sixth nomination for the Fallout series, but it had never won in any other category before taking the most prestigious prize. Whilst the other categories are voted for by a panel of judges, the best game award takes into account the opinions of the wider BAFTA membership – which may explain why the expansive Fallout game bucked the recent trend for smaller games to grab the accolades.
The biggest winners of the nights were English first-person adventure game Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and the experimental crime game Her Story, which took home three prizes each. The Best British game award went to Batman: Arkham Knight, showing that the Caped Crusader is as popular in the gaming world as he is on the silver screen.
The newest category, the AMD eSports Audience Award, was won by third-person arena combat title Smite, and was the only category voted on by the public. In recent years, eSports has become a popular spectator sport, and on Wednesday it was announced that a brand new eSports international gaming tournament will take place in Rio alongside this year’s Summer Olympics.
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