Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming

The Game Awards 2021: Here’s the complete list of winners

By

The Game Awards 2021 were unlike any other games show we’ve seen yet. Some of this year’s biggest and most well-received games fought it out for Game of the Year, while others walked away with awards in specialized categories like Best Ongoing, Best Narrative, and Best Art Direction. At the end of the day, only one game could take home Game of the Year, and that game was It Takes Two, one of the year’s biggest indie darlings.

This year, Deathloop and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart led the field of nominees, but that only scratched the surface. Metroid Dread, It Takes Two, and Psychonauts 2 were just a few of the heavy hitters that battled for this year’s top awards. Halo Infinite kicked off the gold derby by taking home a player’s choice trophy (even though the game launched yesterday and wasn’t eligible for any other categories).

Recommended Videos

The show premiered on almost every social media platform, including Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and more. No one game swept the awards, which speaks to the diversity of gaming experiences that were available to players in 2021. Here is the full list of winners.

Related

Game of the Year

  • Deathloop
  • WINNER: It Takes Two
  • Metroid Dread
  • Psychonauts 2
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  • Resident Evil Village

Player’s Choice

  • WINNER: Halo Infinite
  • Metroid Dread
  • It Takes Two
  • Forza Horizon 5
  • Resident Evil Village

Best Game Direction

  • WINNER: Deathloop
  • It Takes Two
  • Returnal
  • Psychonauts 2
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Best Ongoing

  • Apex Legends
  • Call of Duty: Warzone
  • WINNER: Final Fantasy XIV Online
  • Fortnite
  • Genshin Impact

Best Indie

  • 12 Minutes
  • Death’s Door
  • WINNER: Kena: Bridge of Spirits
  • Inscryption
  • Loop Hero

Best Debut Indie

  • WINNER: Kena: Bridge of Spirits
  • Sable
  • The Artful Escape
  • The Forgotten City
  • Valheim

Best Narrative

  • Deathloop
  • It Takes Two
  • Life is Strange: True Colors
  • WINNER: Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Psychonauts 2

Best Art Direction

  • WINNER: Deathloop
  • Kena: Bridge of Spirits
  • Psychonauts 2
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  • The Artful Escape

Best Score and Music

  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Deathloop
  • WINNER: NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139
  • Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
  • The Artful Escape

Best Audio Design

  • Deathloop
  • WINNER: Forza Horizon 5
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  • Resident Evil Village
  • Returnal

Best Performance

  • Erika Mori as Alex Chen, Life is Strange: True Colors
  • Giancarlo Esposito as Anton Castillo, Far Cry 6
  • Jason E. Kelley as Colt Vahn, Deathloop
  • WINNER: Maggie Robertson as Lady Dimitrescu, Resident Evil Village
  • Ozioma Akagha as Julianna Blake, Deathloop

Games for Impact

  • Before Your Eyes
  • Boyfriend Dungeon
  • Chicory
  • WINNER: Life is Strange: True Colors
  • No Longer Home

Best Community Support

  • Apex Legends
  • Destiny 2
  • WINNER: Final Fantasy XIV Online
  • Fortnite
  • No Man’s Sky

Best Mobile Game

  • Fantasian
  • WINNER: Genshin Impact
  • League of Legends: Wild Rift
  • MARVEL Future Revolution
  • Pokémon Unite

Best VR/AR

  • Hitman 3
  • I Expect You To Die 2
  • Lone Echo II
  • WINNER: Resident Evil 4
  • Sniper Elite VR

Best Action

  • Back 4 Blood
  • Chivalry II
  • Deathloop
  • Far Cry 6
  • WINNER: Returnal

Best Action/Adventure

  • Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
  • WINNER: Metroid Dread
  • Psychonauts 2
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  • Resident Evil Village

Best Role Playing

  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Monster Hunter Rise
  • Scarlet Nexus
  • Shin Megami Tensei V
  • WINNER: Tales of Arise

Best Fighting

  • Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles
  • WINNER: Guilty Gear -Strive-
  • Melty Blood: Type Lumina
  • Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
  • Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown

Best Family

  • WINNER: It Takes Two
  • Mario Party Superstars
  • New Pokémon Snap
  • Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
  • WarioWare: Get It Together!

Best Sports/Racing

  • F1 2021
  • FIFA 22
  • WINNER: Forza Horizon 5
  • Hot Wheels Unleashed
  • Riders Republic

Best Sim/Strategy

  • WINNER: Age of Empires IV
  • Evil Genius 2: World Domination
  • Humankind
  • Inscryption
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator

Best Multiplayer

  • Back 4 Blood
  • WINNER: It Takes Two
  • Knockout City
  • Monster Hunter Rise
  • New World
  • Valheim

Most Anticipated

  • WINNER: Elden Ring
  • God of War Ragnarök
  • Horizon Forbidden West
  • Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  • Starfield

Innovation in Accessibility

  • Far Cry 6
  • WINNER: Forza Horizon 5
  • Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
  • The Vale: Shadow of the Crown

Content Creator of the Year

  • WINNER: Dream
  • Fuslie
  • Gaules
  • Ibai
  • TheGrefg

Best Esports Game

  • Call of Duty
  • CS:GO
  • DOTA 2
  • WINNER: League of Legends
  • Valorant

Best Esports Athlete

  • Chris “Simp” Lehr
  • Heo “ShowMaker” Su
  • Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov
  • WINNER: Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev
  • Tyson “TenZ” Ngo

Best Esports Team

  • Atlanta FaZe (COD)
  • DWG KIA (LOL)
  • WINNER: Natus Vincere (CS:GO)
  • Sentinels (Valorant)
  • Team Spirit (DOTA 2)

Best Esports Coach

  • Airat “Silent” Gaziev
  • Andrey “ENGH” Sholokhov
  • Andrii “B1ad3” Horodenskyi
  • James “Crowder” Crowder
  • WINNER: Kim “kkOma” Jeong-gyun

Best Esports Event

  • WINNER: 2021 League of Legends World Championship
  • PGL Major Stockholm 2021
  • PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2020
  • The International 2021
  • Valorant Champions Tour: Stage 2 Masters

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Emily Morrow
Emily Morrow
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Emily Morrow is a games journalist and narrative designer who has written for a variety of online publications. If she’s…
All Rockstar video games: full list of developed and published games
Michael from Grand Theft Auto V.

It might seem like a boastful name, but Rockstar Games really are rockstars in the gaming world. The developer is responsible for arguably the most important and lucrative gaming franchise of all time with the Grand Theft Auto series. While the open-world crime series is what the studio is best known for, it has dipped its toes into a wide range of genres and styles as a publisher since its first game in 1997. While the studio's output has certainly slowed, with an over eight-year gap between Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA 6, there's a backlog of over 40 games in its portfolio. That's a lot of history to digest, but it's important to understand the entire scope before we decide which games are the best.
All Rockstar games released

Originally called DMA Design, Rockstar has been developing and publishing games since 1997 and shows no sign of stopping any time soon. Not counting any remasters or rereleases, here is every game Rockstar has developed and published. We split this list based on whether a studio with Rockstar in the name developed or co-developed the game in question.
All Rockstar-developed games

Read more
We played tons of games at GDC 2024. Put these ones on your wish list
A cutscene from Sopa.

Every year at GDC, we play dozens of games that are unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It’s usually where we find titles that go on to become some of our favorites of the year, like last year’s show-stealing Viewfinder. And while we love finding those surefire hits, our favorite part of the show is discovering the totally unique projects that we can’t stop thinking about.

There was no shortage of those games at and around this year’s show. Over the course of a week, we’d play a host of creative games with totally innovative ideas. There was everything from a Tomagotchi tribute to a creepy horror game about a streamer on the occult dark web. If you’re the kind of person who worries that the gaming industry is out of ideas, this year’s show should alleviate those fears. To celebrate that, we’ve rounded up our favorite games from this year’s show. You’ll find that no two games here look remotely alike – and that’s what makes them so special.
Dungeons of Hinterberg

Read more
Xbox Game Pass gets one of 2021’s best games today
Iron Mask and Shionne attack in Tales of Arise.

The next batch of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass this month was just revealed. Leading the pack of games being added to the subscription service today is Tales of Arise, a critically acclaimed RPG from Bandai Namco Entertainment that Xbox previously leaked was coming to the service.

Tales of Arise was released in 2021. The latest entry in a long-running RPG series, it follows a slave and girl inflicted with a curse as they rise up against the kingdom of Rena. It sports real-time RPG combat, and is one of few games to score a five-star rating from Digital Trends.

Read more