Astro Bota game in the form of a tribute to the flagship heroes of Sony's consoles, won the title of video game of the year, Thursday, December 12, during the Game Awards 2024, a central annual ceremony in the video game industry. On stage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Frenchman Nicolas Doucet, director of the Japanese studio Team Asobi, thanked his team for its “generosity”. “They are not in the calculation, they are just thinking about the children, because we have the immense privilege of potentially being the first game in their hands,” he declared.
The platform game, which features the space adventures of a small robot, also won the titles of “best family game”, “best production” et “best action/adventure game” – major victories for the studio of 65 people.
Behind Astro Bot, Nicolas Doucet. The 46-year-old Frenchman spent more than three years, with his team, working on this Astro Botreleased in August, which features new adventures of his little robot. “The love of Japan has always been an important vector in my life”, he confided last August, in a large open space at the Tokyo headquarters of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Originally from Aignan, “a small village” du Gers, in the heart of the Armagnac vineyards (south-west), he says he was immersed very early in Japanese pop culture, like many others from “this generation of French people who grew up with the Club Dorothée”. There was in the village “a gamer who imported his consoles and who infected us all. We were 14 years old, we played games all in Japanese, we didn't understand anything, but we had them one or two years in advance. It crystallized into we this love of Japan”, he said.
“Making a platform game in Japan really makes sense, because it’s a country where historically the quality and precision of the controls has always been at the top, in arcade or fighting games for example”
Nicolas Doucet, director of the Team Asobi studioAt l'AFP
Initially wanting to become an English teacher, Nicolas Doucet went into exile in London where he fell by chance into the world of video games, working at Eidos, Electronic Arts and Lego, then at Sony to work with the EyeToy, a camera allowing to play thanks to movement recognition.
Sold more than 1.5 million copies according to Sony (owner of Team Asobi), Astro Bot scored the highest score of the year on the review aggregator site Metacritic, with 94 out of 100, tied with Metaphor: ReFantasia et Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree, two nominees for the supreme title
Latest from the director of the saga Persona, Katsura Hashino, Metaphor: ReFantasia did not leave empty-handed. This medieval-fantasy adventure from the Japanese studio Atlus, published by Sega, received the awards for best role-playing game and best narration. As for Balatro, another favorite – a poker game powered by popular streamers – he pocketed “best indie game” et “best mobile game”.
For their eleventh edition, the Game Awards invited several celebrities to participate, including actor Harrison Ford and rapper Snoop Dogg, who performed a song from his new album Missionary. The ceremony also gave pride of place to announcements of new games, including Intergalaticby the Naughty Dog studio, director of The Last of Us .
Josef Fares, the founder of Hazelight Studios, presented with great enthusiasm and swearing Split Fiction, a game between science fiction and fantasy. Its previous title, It Takes Twohad sold more than 20 million copies and won the highest award in 2021.
Geoff Keighley, the host of the Game Awards, also returned to the wave of layoffs which hit the sector this year, a “sad reality”. He presented a new prize, called Game Changer, to Amir Satvat for his support of many unemployed developers.
“Over the last three years, we have lost more than 34,000 jobs,” lamented the influencer on the verge of tears. “That has consequences. You can't make great games without great people.”
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