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.
Based on history, a GM Game Of The Year has a strong likelihood of also winning Best Story. As of last year, three games have done the double.
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: Armored Core VI Fires Of Rubicon (2023), Citizen Sleeper (2022), Psychonauts 2 (2021), Yakuza: Like A Dragon (2020), The Outer Worlds (2019), Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
Best Story Nominees
- 1000xResist
- Indiana Jones And The Great Circle
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Tekken 8
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
How The Winner Is Decided (Deliberations Summary)
There’s a lot of good stories, and storytelling, being exhibited in this year’s crop of games. And the selection for this year sure casted a wide net in showing the breadth of options on offer.
The most fun of the stories from the nominees has to be Tekken 8. Rather than the brooding, intrigue-fueled plot of Tekken 7, Tekken 8 goes full ham, and full-on anime with its story mode. The Mishima family feud continues with Jin versus Kazuya this time now that, at the time, we all thought Heihachi is dead for real. But the battle between angel and demon, Jin versus his inner demons (that happens to manifest into a devil version of himself), and a full-out war, Jin’s struggles against self-affirm QTEs and the support by his friends/sparring partners was a really fun ride, and more importantly, memorable. The game came out in January and at least one person on the team vividly remember what happened.
Meanwhile, 1000xResist dished up a fantastic existential horror that is Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. When you’re a copy of a copy of a copy, at what point you stopped becoming a bad copy and are you your own person?
Indiana Jones And The Great Circle could’ve been a great movie on its own. But that fact that it’s a game that faithfully recreates the vibes of Spielberg’s cinematography, with a performance that does a good job at stepping into Harrison Ford’s shoe, is all high praise. It’s the rare video game tie-in that could’ve been its own movie.
Whereas for Space Marine 2, “the gateway drug to plastic crack” has done a tremendous job in telling a story via less storytelling. Instead of lore dumps, the game just give enough contextual clues to what’s going on to the simple-to-follow story. The motion capture performances are absolute peak here, conveying emotions via subtle movements and facial expressions that is enough to tell you how that person feel without them saying more than a word. And the plot brilliantly accommodates the fans of the original game who knew what’s going on, and those new to Space Marine and just trying to catch up on what’s going on. Masterful work in storytelling on display here.
But there is one game that stood out the most this year when it comes to storytelling. Metaphor: ReFantazio’s title alone is its message. It’s a fantasy story, but it’s also a re-examination of what is fantasy, and what fantasy should be. From the onset of the game, the game asks you to look at this fantasy world, supposedly far different from our reality, and observe it closely. Metaphor’s main theme and message, that racism is bad, isn’t new or bold in itself. But the timeliness of the message, and the importance of it being told in this medium, as well as how careful it is in conveying its message, makes it not only a great story, but an important one.
But the game is more than just criticising discrimination, there’s more thought-provoking point ideas and messages filled in this fantasy RPG. One no-context vaguely-spoiler example: how the same book of ideals can inspire one to be a peace-loving liberal while another to be a warmongering fascist.
Best Story Winner
Congratulations to Metaphor: ReFantazio for winning Best Story! The book of an ideal utopia may not be real, but who’s to say we cannot make fantasy a reality? May the game inspire more people to have more empathy towards each other, especially right now where global conflicts are happening.
Check out the Gamer Malaya and Gamer Matters Game Of The Year Awards 2024 hub for full list of awards.