The winners of the British Academy Games Awards, celebrating the very best in games of the past year were announced on Thursday 7th, April 2016 at the ceremony hosted by Dara O’Briain at Tobacco Dock, London.
Fallout 4, the action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios won “Best Game“. This is the first win for the series which has been British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nominated six times.
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, the story-based game that takes place in a small English village whose inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared, took home three BAFTAs: Audio Achievement, Performer for Merle Dandridge as Kate Collins, and Musicfor the haunting score composed by Jessica Curry.
Sam Barlow collected three awards for Her Story, a novel piece of interactive fiction. The game is Barlow’s first project as an independent developer and won in the Debut Game, Game Innovation and Mobile & Handheld categories.
Futuristic sports-action game Rocket League fought off strong competition across three categories to win BAFTAs for Family Game, Multiplayer and Sport.
Anime-inspired Ori and the Blind Forest won the BAFTA for Artistic Achievement. Batman: Arkham Knight, the fourth installment in the multi-BAFTA-winning Batman: Arkham series, collected the award for British Game, while the Gothic-inspired action role-playing game, Bloodborne, won the Game Design category.
Interactive survival horror title Until Dawn picked up the BAFTA for Original Property, while Prison Architect, a construction and management sim where the player takes control of their own prison, won the Persistent Game award. The BAFTA for Story was won by Life is Strange, an episodic adventure that set out to revolutionise story-based choice and consequence games.
The AMD eSports Audience Award was won by SMITE, seeing off competition from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and League of Legends.
Showcasing the best in young games development and design talent, the BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to be Digital was won by SUNDOWN, a multiplayer stealth game created by a team of student developers from the US.
The Fellowship the highest accolade the Academy can bestow was presented to John Carmack, a leading figure within computer and game engineering and one of the pioneers of 3D graphics, for his outstanding and exceptional creative contribution to the industry.
Below is the summary of the winners:
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Best game | Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios) |
| British game | Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios) |
| Debut game | Her Story (Sam Barlow) |
| Story | Life Is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment) |
| Performer | Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (Merle Dandridge) |
| Artistic achievement | Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios) |
| Audio achievement | Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room) |
| Family game | Rocket League (Psyonix) |
| Game design | Bloodborne (FromSoftware) |
| Game innovation | Her Story (Sam Barlow) |
| Mobile and handheld game | Her Story (Sam Barlow) |
| Multiplayer game | Rocket League (Psyonix) |
| Music | Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room) |
| Original property | Until Dawn (Supermassive Games) |
| Persistent game | Prison Architect (Introversion Software) |
| Sport game | Rocket League (Psyonix) |
| Ones to watch | Sundown (Mild Beast Games) |
| eSports audience award | Smite (Hi-Rez Studios) |
| Bafta fellowship | John Carmack |
