BAFTA winners dominated by Hades and Sony exclusive titles

After a second well-produced, well-presented and well-conceived digital awards show, we now have our BAFTA winners for 2021.

The big single winner was undoubtedly Supergiant’s Hades. A big critical favourite the title was always likely to do well, but picking up five awards including Best Game is an outstanding haul. The game also won Artistic Achievement, Game Design and Narrative, plus Logan Cunnigham picked up Performer in a Supporting Role for his work across multiple characters.

More generally speaking it will be Sony who will be pleased with its haul. Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II picked up Game of the Year, Animation Achievement, plus Laura bailey won Best Performer as Abby. Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima won Audio, Sumo Digital’s Sackboy: A big Adventure picked up British Game and Family Game. And Insomniac won Music for Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Plus Dreams, Media Molecule, wom Technical Achievement.

That’s eight awards in total compared to two for Nintendo, Animal Crossing for Multiplayer and Game Beyond Entertainment. While Xbox first-party picked up one for Sea of Thieves. It certainly looks as though the jury is keen on Sony’s efforts, a possible talking point in a year where Nintendo has felt so dominant.

So who was possibly hard done by? Well without detracting from the very worthy winners, and looking only at those who went away empty-handed, we do feel a handful of people have a strong case to feel a little put out.

We’d have thought that Fall Guys was in with a big shout for British, Multiplayer or Family Game possibly. Microsoft Flight Simulator felt a great fit for Technical Achievement. And Fortnite is still a sound choice in a category such as Evolving Game. Almost everyone in Debut Game could have reasonably won it, but Factorio is a monster hit and deserves greater recognition, but it’s complexity and depth are just not the kind of things that win over juries possibly.

If you’re looking for more criticism of the selections than that, then you’re in the wrong place, but we do have some thoughts on why there should be more of that sort of thing.