The votes are in, and the results are final for the PlayStation Game of The Year awards. Collected by Sony from PS5 players around the world, many worthwhile titles were given their blessing from fans. However, only one game can stand tall, and it appears that Insomniac Games is emerging as the true victor. That’s because Spider-Man 2 is sweeping the awards, but that isn’t a good thing for some.
Spider-Man 2 is undoubtedly one of the biggest new PS5 games of the year, and after 5 years of waiting, it opened up to rave reviews. However, despite all the critical success it garnered, Spider-Man 2 did lose out recently at The Game Awards massively. Now, retribution arrives in a sense for some PS5 fans, as it sweeps up 8 awards for the game itself – and a separate win for Insomniac Games.
Crowned the PS5 Game of The Year in the recent award showcase, the PlayStation blog reads “as polls closed, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was voted as players’ favorite title of the past 12 months, adding yet another notch to Insomniac’s incredible run of PS5 releases.” It beat out stiff competition from Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, the latter continuing to be hailed as one of the best RPG games of the decade.
Despite picking up accolades for Best Use of DualSense, Best Accessibility Features, and Best Audio Design, fans like ‘Azuren’ on social media believe that “it’s genuinely cringe that Spider-Man 2 was voted for nearly everything.”
The distaste for Spider-Man 2’s heavily inclusion continues, as many players are pivoting to a U-turn on the game in recent months. “[It was] clearly voted for by people that haven’t played anything but Spider-Man,” says ‘LewisJ815’. Furthermore, other players are taking aim at Spider-Man 2’s features, with ‘Rollupmywrist’ adding that “Spider-Man 2 does NOT have better graphics than Alan Wake 2.”
The criticisms are coming in droves for Spider-Man 2, and might seem strange for you, considering just how acclaimed the long-awaited sequel is. With Spider-Man 2 serving as one of Sony’s major PlayStation properties, it certainly isn’t surprising to see them apply plenty of love to one of its major system seller games.
However, in a year filled with some of the best PS5 games we’ve seen hit the platform, we reckon there is an argument for multiple times to be worthy of these accolades. Alan Wake 2 could easily nab the Game of The Year crown from Spider-Man 2, as the Remedy Entertainment sequel innovates the medium to new levels.
To call it one of the best horror games of the year is somewhat reductive, as Alan Wake 2 tackles for more than just scares. You can apply a similar perspective to aforementioned titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, which elevates the RPG genre to fresh heights, all while providing unpredictable stories along the way.