The narrative that captures our hearts and minds delivered in video game form
Another classic GM GOTY Award category, it’s the one where we spoil a game’s story and weigh down which one leaves the most impact on us post-game.
There will be no spoilers in this article, but there are beat-for-beat spoilers in the podcast episode during this part of the deliberation.
Past Winners: Citizen Sleeper, Psychonauts 2, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, The Outer Worlds, Red Dead Redemption 2
Best Story Nominees
- A Space For The Unbound
- Alan Wake 2
- Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon
- Hi-Fi Rush
- Starfield
How The Winner Is Decided (Deliberations Summary)
This year’s deliberation for Best Story is a straightforward one. There were a good amount of blockbuster games delivering strong cinematography with excellent writing. But they feel too… movie-like. For 2023, we steer away from the obviously good stories that you expect to be decent (though is hard to really describe back what makes them good).
Alan Wake 2’s trippy dual-protagonist story was wonderfully weird, in typical Remedy form. Starfield actually has a strong main questline that delivered, and its brilliant way of justifying New Game+ as part of its story really left a strong impression (which was not explained in full, because the crew already had a 1-hour spoiler talk on just that on a previous podcast episode).
A Space For The Unbound marries the supernatural aspects of the story with its mundane, slice-of-life setting in a beautifully poignant way, while Hi-Fi Rush’s writing shines in how most of the comedy landed. From a meta-commentary about this game’s particular development as a big plot reveal, to jokes that started out from an innocuous lore text that later on became pivotal to the plot (and a strong punch line at the end at that).
Armored Core VI meanwhile handles its story in typical FromSoftware fashion. Cryptic, ambiguous, but just enough for players and fans to fill in the blanks, speculate and discuss. The style of storytelling, including the multiple endings were a thing in past Armored Core games as well. But the writing here is a bit more sharper, and since its a sci-fi world, a bit more real. Without saying too much, ACVI did a Mass Effect 3, but the choice you make has more dire consequences that there is debate which one should be the “good”, “bad” or “true” ending. We argue that all the endings would be classified as “bad”, “worse”, and “even worse” but that’s a discussion for another time.
At the end of the deliberation, the fact that there are more people talking about the endings for Armored Core VI, including us here, has to take the win.
Best Story Winner
Congratulations to Armored Core VI Fires Of Rubicon for winning Best Story!
Check out the GM GOTY Awards 2023 hub for the rest of the categories and winners. The page will be updated as we announce the winners everyday until December 29