Why Shroud's Game Awards GOTY Criticism Doesn't Make Sense

Streamer Shroud recently asked their audience to vote for an extraction shooter ARC Raiders over Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 at The Game Awards 2025, but his reasoning doesn't make much sense. ARC Raiders has quickly become one of the most popular new releases of the year, with millions of players flocking to the extraction game on PC and consoles. Clair Obscurat the same time, is a critically acclaimed turn-based RPG that has received rave reviews for its incredible soundtrack and emotional story.

The Game Awards 2025 nominees have yet to be announced, but many agree Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a frontrunner to win the top prize. ARC Raiders may also have a chance, but being nominated for GOTY is less of a guarantee than Expedition 33. However, the Shroud has stirred some controversy by telling its viewers, “We have to make sure that [ARC Raiders] wins game of the year, by the way. Don't let that expedition game win Game of the Year. Don't let it. Absolutely not. We all have to come together to make this game win.” Shroud would later point out that the last time a multiplayer game won the GOTY was when Monitoring won in 2016.

Game of the year winners list

2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition
2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
2016: Overwatch
2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2018: God of War
2019: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
2020: The Last of Us Part 2
2021: It takes two
2022: The Fire Ring
2023: Baldur's Gate 3
2024: Astro Bot

Six of the 11 Game Awards GOTY winners have been pure single-player experiences. Dragon Age: Inquisition, It takes two, Fire Ringand Baldur's Gate 3 are all co-op, med It takes two explicitly only playable through co-op. Monitoring is the only pure competitive multiplayer game to win the GOTY, while Fire Ring features a mix of cooperative and competitive multiplayer elements.

Shroud was probably referring to purely competitive multiplayer games with his comments, and so that means the only winner that fits is Monitoring. The question then becomes which cutting edge competitive multiplayer games should have won instead of these other games? A case can be made for PUBG: Battlegrounds because it popularized the battle royale genre, but many might say it should have beaten The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in 2017? PUBG was in early access when it was up for GOTY battle and riddled with serious technical issues. Then there is Fortnite. Epic's BR followed in the footsteps of PUBGbut managed to completely surpass it and become one of the most popular games of all time.

Fortnite's BR was released in early access in 2017, the same year PUBG was nominated. It didn't have its proper 1.0 release until 2020, when it was nominated for Best Ongoing Game and Best Community Support. The muddiness of Fortnite's early access status caused confusion and likely sabotaged its chance at a GOTY nomination, but regardless of whether it was nominated in 2017, it would have won against The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Breath of the Wild is one of the highest-rated video games ever made, currently ranked sixth according to review aggregate site Metacritic. Fortnites cultural impact is incredible, but how many people really think it's a better game than Breath of the Wild?

If we say Fortnite would have qualified in 2020, that makes things a bit more interesting. The last of us part 2 is a highly controversial game, but largely for story reasons as opposed to its gameplay, which even its biggest haters will admit is top notch. Some could argue that Fortnite was worth more in 2020 than The last of us part 2but even though 2020 was the year of its 1.0 release, it was already years old at that point and was instead nominated in other categories. Perhaps Call of Duty: Warzone should have been nominated that year due to how popular it was during the pandemic, but the game has also had its fair share of unpopular updates and suffered from a serious cheating problem. It was also confusingly presented as both a standalone thing and a mode for 2019 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game.

There is already an award for best multiplayer game

One of Shroud's suggestions was for there to be a single player GOTY and a multiplayer GOTY. The thing is, there's already an award at The Game Awards that recognizes the best multiplayer game. If the category always follows rules that make sense (Call of Duty: Warzone was nominated in 2020 but lost to 2018 Among us), is one thing, but the price is there.

Winner of Best Multiplayer Game at The Game Awards

2014: N/A
2015: Splatoon
2016: Overwatch
2017: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
2018: Fortnite
2019: Apex Legends
2020: Among us
2021: It takes two
2022: Splatoon 3
2023: Baldur's Gate 3
2024: Helldivers 2

The Best Multiplayer category didn't exist until the 2015 Game Awards, with Splatoon get the price. Monitoring won in 2016, followed by PUBG, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Among us, It takes two, Splatoon 3, Baldur's Gate 3and finally, Helldivers 2. In addition Among us win 2020 despite being a 2018 game, the Best Multiplayer category seems to have largely hit the most popular newly released multiplayer games each year, depending on one's definition of multiplayer. What potential bark the event is a division in the multiplayer category. Perhaps The Game Awards would benefit from a category specifically for co-op games, and another specifically for competitive multiplayer games. The years co-op games won, like It takes two and Baldur's Gate 3there weren't really any big new competitive multiplayer games nominated anyway, but it would still be nice to have that distinction.

Shroud won Content Creator of the Year at The Game Awards 2019 and was nominated for Trending Gamer 2017.

Game Awards 2025 host Geoff Keighley has made no announcements about potentially splitting the Multiplayer category between competitive and co-op. But for now, there's still an all-encompassing GOTY award, as it should be, and a separate Best Multiplayer award so that excellent co-op and PvP experiences are still recognized. The Game Awards 2025 will take place on December 11 and nominees have yet to be announced as of this writing.