As many expected, The Last of Us Part II came out victorious at The Game Awards 2020, taking home 7 trophies including Game of the Year.

For the Game of the Year award, the post-apocalyptic masterpiece from American developer Naughty Dog bested Hades, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Doom Eternal, and co-PlayStation exclusives Ghost of Tsushima and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

“Everyone at Naughty Dog, I can’t wait to hug and high five and get drunk with each one of you. That’s gonna have to wait til next year. I wanna just thank every person who worked on this game within Naughty Dog and outside,” said Neil Druckmann, the game’s director, in his virtual acceptance speech.

“We’d like to thank our friends and family that stood by us and supported us throughout us making this game. You inspire us not only to make better, more meaningful games, but to improve how we make games. On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog, thank you.”

The Game Awards 2020 Game of the Year victory follows the title’s recent success at the Golden Joystick Awards as well, where it won the Ultimate Game of the Year, and PlayStation Game of the Year trophies in November, among other awards.

The Last of Us Part II won a total of 7 awards at The Game Awards 2020:

• Game of the Year
• Best Action/Adventure
• Best Audio Design
• Best Narrative
• Innovation in Accessibility
• Best Performance (Laura Bailey as Abby)
• Best Game Direction

For the past 3 years, the winner of the Best Action/Adventure award (2017 – Breath of the Wild, 2018 – God of War, 2019 – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) also went on to win the Game of the Year trophy. The Last of Us Part II continues that trend.

Laura Bailey, who played Abby in the game, was very emotional in accepting her award. Her character and herself became targets of hate, including death threats, because of how her character upended traditional ideas of a female video game character, and that she killed the main male character. Some gamers were upset that the strong female lead had killed the beloved traditional male protagonist.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Huge congrats to everyone nominated at <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheGameAwards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#TheGameAwards</a> tonight! So so happy and honored to have won. ❤️🙏 thank you <a href=”https://twitter.com/Naughty_Dog?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@Naughty_Dog</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/Neil_Druckmann?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@Neil_Druckmann</a> and the entire team for allowing me to be a part of the world.</p>&mdash; Laura Bailey (@LauraBaileyVO) <a href=”https://twitter.com/LauraBaileyVO/status/1337239609655246854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 11, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Bailey, in her acceptance speech, called the reactions as “passionate responses”:

“I was such a fan of the original The Last of Us. I fell in love with Joel and Ellie. So it is no surprise to me that Abby’s role within this story has been met with such passionate responses. But to have been able to play a fantastically challenging character who through her story enables to find forgiveness and empathy is something that I’ll be eternally grateful for.

“I told the team on the day that I finished filming… [that what I wanted] was to give a performance that honored the impact that the original game had on me, so this award means so much,” Bailey said, also thanking Ashley Johnson who played her foil Ellie, and was also nominated.

Click here to see all the winners at The Game Awards 2020. – Rappler.com