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Why Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Won Game of the Year

Every year, the Game Awards offer us the chance to peek inside the gaming industry, letting us know which games came out, which were highly revered, and more importantly, the new games that are coming out in the next year, such as Ghosts of Tsushima (still waiting for news on Elden Ring!).

This go-round, the Game Awards shocked many people when Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a soulslike game by From Software, took home the Game of the Year award. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great game, but it was also competing with games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Borderlands 3, and GRIS. No one thought Sekiro would have a chance at winning, especially since conversation around it died a month after its release.

What reasons did the Game Awards have to pick Sekiro as their GOTY? Well, I may not be able to tell you the objective reasons behind the decision (as I’m not, you know, an employee of the Game Awards), but I can give you a few reasons as to why it might’ve won.

Conversation Around Sekiro Never Died

When discussing the strange nomination, many people point to the fact that Sekiro experienced a short life in the media. They wouldn’t be wrong; Sekiro dominated gaming sites for, like, a month before it disappeared completely.

But the players still talked about it.

While major gaming outlets decided to shift their focus onto other games and technology, many of the core fans discussed it right up until the nomination. In fact, the main subreddit for Sekiro made sure to announce to people that they could vote for Sekiro for GOTY, and I’m sure that post helped the game receive the award it now holds.

Speaking of the subreddit, that brings me to my next point: the core player base.

The Player Base Kept The Game Alive

“The player base kept the game alive” may seem like an obvious conclusion, I think many people underestimate the player base of the soulsborne games, and that includes Sekiro.

To this day, everyone talks about the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne, but I doubt millions of people are playing the games on the daily, but the core player base is, years later (including me).

While it’s true that Sekiro may have fallen out of favor for many people who didn’t know what to expect, many soulsborne players have kept the game in rotation, and that definitely helped the game win a nomination.

An Early-Year Controversy Kept the Conversation Going

Finally, what I think really helped the game extend its welcome this year, is the difficulty controversy that Sekiro ran into early in 2019.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me run you through a quick history lesson. See, Sekiro, the man you play as in the game, is a tough guy. He doesn’t use armor, cheats, or a Japan VPN when using the Internet (I assume).

So, in the tradition of soulsborne games, Sekiro is a tough game with a tough protagonist and even tougher enemies. While this is fine for many soulsborne veterans, plenty of people complained about the lack of an easy difficulty setting, a setting no Dark Souls game has.

This controversy surrounded the game for a while, and I believe this controversy helped the game gain more exposure than when it was first released, since many gaming outlets reported on the controversy throughout the next month-or-so.

Conclusion

I started this article by talking about how great the Game Awards are and how it offers us a glimpse into the gaming industry. However, the Game Awards does more than that; it gives us a glimpse into the patterns of the gamers participating in the awards.

Sometimes, these people surprise us by winning an award for a game we couldn’t predict being nominated. Hey, it happens, but there are plenty of worse games that could’ve won, so I’m happy for Sekiro. Not that any of the above helped it win many accolades in our own Game of the Year listings.