Horizon Forbidden West is the winner of the Best Storytelling award at this year's Golden Joystick Awards.
The win in this category means that the team behind Aloy's second adventure has replicated the success of her first - Horizon Zero Dawn claimed this exact same award back in 2017. That year, however, Zero Dawn also took home PlayStation Game of the Year, and Aloy voice actor Ashly Burch claimed two of her own awards: Best Gaming Performance and the Breakthrough Award.
The list of nominees is as follows:
- Immortality
- Return to Monkey Island
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Norco
- I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
- Wayward Strand
Having claimed the first award of the night, developer Guerilla Games will no doubt be hoping that success carries on - Horizon Forbidden West is also nominated for three other awards: PlayStation Game of the Year, Best Visual Design, and Ultimate Game of the Year. In all three of those categories, however, it's also up against this year's juggernaut, Elden Ring.
In our Horizon Forbidden West review, we celebrated the continuation of Aloy's story, saying it was "so compelling [...] that you may well feel compelled to avoid the main story for fear of it all ending too quickly." A brilliant expansion on an excellent debut, Horizon Forbidden West's world is filled with fascinating characters and deep relationships.
It's a worthy winner, especially since it's topped out a very impressive shortlist. To claim tonight's win, Horizon Forbidden West had to overcome other big narrative names like Immortality and Return to Monkey Island, as well as some truly brilliant indies in Norco, Wayward Strand, and I Was A Teenage Exocolonist. With more of the world of Horizon on the… horizon, Guerilla is in an excellent place to build on the narrative of its fascinating world.
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