This year, we’ve included Most Anticipated awards for each genre instead of just the overall category. Without further ado, here are the winners of the Wccftech Games Awards 2021-2022! Check out Wccftech’s Best Games of 2021 lists: Fighters, Platformers, Strategy & Simulation, Shooters, Sports & Racing, RPGs, Action, Horror, Indie, Adventure, Multiplayer, and Overall. Don’t forget to take a look at Wccftech’s Most Anticipated Games of 2022 lists: Fighting, Platformer, Shooter, Action, Horror, Adventure, Indie, RPGs, Strategy/Simulation, Sports/Racing, Multiplayer, and Overall. Guilty Gear Strive handily won both Wccftech Games Awards polls, leaving Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown in the dust to prove that Arc System Works is the best fighting game studio in the industry right now. Insomniac Games did it again, delivering yet another hit game with the PlayStation 5 exclusive Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart a mere year after Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The runner-ups were It Takes Two in our staff poll and Psychonauts 2 in the community poll, respectively. Sixteen years after the previous installment, Age of Empires IV re-established the franchise on the strategy throne, garnering the favor of Wccftech staff and community alike. Yet another award category where Wccftech writers and readers agreed. Forza Horizon 5 utterly dominated the sports/racing Wccftech Games Awards polls. Wccftech staff voted for Returnal as the best shooter game of 2021. The PS5 exclusive made by Housemarque narrowly beat Deathloop and Halo Infinite. The community far preferred Halo Infinite, though. The game made by 343 Industries got over twice the number of votes than Returnal. Our staff voted for Bandai Namco’s Tales of Arise, which successfully revitalized the franchise, as the best RPG of 2021. Readers picked BioWare’s remastered trilogy Mass Effect Legendary Edition instead. Here, Tales of Arise came only third, also surpassed by Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. In a few instances, our staff polls ended up in a tie. That’s the case for the action category, where IO Interactive’s Hitman III and CAPCOM’s Resident Evil Village will have to split up the award. Wccftech readers didn’t have any doubts, though. Here, Resident Evil Village came out on top, far ahead of Hitman III. Staff and community once again concurred for the horror award, handily won by Resident Evil Village in both polls. Another tie for our Best Indie staff award between The Forgotten City and Death’s Door. Readers picked the survival game sensation, Valheim. Death’s Door was the runner-up, albeit with half the votes. The time-traveling mystery game The Forgotten City had no problems beating its rivals to get the Best Adventure game of 2021 award from our staff. The latest installment in the popular Life is Strange franchise, True Colors, beat runner-up The Forgotten City in our community poll. The new expansion of Final Fantasy XIV had no trouble dispatching the competition to get our Best Multiplayer game award. Halo Infinite’s free-to-play multiplayer mode enticed Wccftech readers even more than Final Fantasy XIV, though. The Game of the Year staff poll was incredibly close, with Deathloop barely coming up on top of Resident Evil Village. Wccftech gamers had other ideas, though, and picked Forza Horizon 5. Resident Evil Village was the runner-up again. Staff members showed a slight preference for The King of Fighters XV over MultiVersus. The free-to-play crossover fighting game in development at Player First Games paid The King of Fighters XV back in the community poll. SEGA’s first open world Sonic game stole the hearts of both staff and community, winning the Most Anticipated Platform game of 2022 at the Wccftech Games Awards. GSC Game World’s STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl is still at the forefront of everyone’s mind, even after the recent delay (and the NFT debacle). The Most Anticipated Action game category had some incredible contenders, so it’s unsurprising to find that Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and Sony Santa Monica’s God of War Ragnarok ended up in a tie. Fans picked God of War Ragnarok, though, with another Sony game (Guerrilla’s Horizon Forbidden West) emerging as the runner-up. Yet another tough fight in the Most Anticipated RPG polls, but Elden Ring narrowly won against Starfield in both cases. A Plague Tale: Requiem’s unique brand of psychological horror enticed our staff to pick it as Wccftech’s Most Anticipated in this category. STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl may not be a traditional horror game, but Wccftech readers are certainly looking forward to experience all the new mutated monstrosities that the developers have cooked up for this sequel. The Most Anticipated Adventure game category saw another tie between Stray and Oxenfree II: Lost Signals. Wccftech readers are probably cat lovers. The community poll for the Most Anticipated Adventure game had Stray getting over three times as many votes as its nearest contender (Somerville). The isometric immersive sim game made by former Dishonored and Prey developers could be the next indie darling when it lands in late March, according to both staff and users. Given the incredible critical and commercial success of the first two entries, it’s no wonder that Creative Assembly’s Total War: Warhammer III dominated the Most Anticipated Strategy/Sim award for both staff and community. Sony’s Polyphony Digital beat Microsoft’s Turn 10 twice in the Most Anticipated Sports/Racing Game award, with Gran Turismo 7 topping Forza Motorsport in both instances. Redfall, Arkane’s first true foray into multiplayer gaming, captivated the excitement of our staff way more than any other nominated game. Wccftech readers are even more excited about the free-to-play MMOARPG Lost Ark, though. Once again, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 appears in a tie, this time alongside Bethesda’s Starfield for the Most Anticipated Game of 2022 award. The so-called Skyrim in Space wiped the floor with rivals in the community poll, however, garnering almost twice as many votes as God of War Ragnarok.
