2023 will be remembered as one of the best ever for video game releases. Whether you play on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, or Nintendo Switch, there was something to look forward to. This year saw terrific horror games like Alan Wake 2 and Resident Evil 4, beloved superhero adventures like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and even critically-acclaimed dungeon crawlers like Baldur’s Gate 3. Years from now, gamers are going to look back fondly on 2023, and many of the truly great experiences that were offered.
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And the winner for the 2023 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Game of the Year is…
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom!
Delivering a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild was an enormous task for the developers at Nintendo EPD. Anticipation for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was impossibly high in the years since the sequel was announced, but Nintendo not only managed to meet those expectations; they actually exceeded them.
What’s incredible about Tears of the Kingdom is the way it manages to build on an already massive game. The world of Hyrule felt impossibly large in Breath of the Wild, but Tears of the Kingdom actually expanded on it, giving players vast new areas to explore above and below the original map. To help Link in his journey, the game’s developers added a number of new abilities for the hero to use, which further set the game apart from its predecessor. Using the new Ultra Hand, Link could now grab just about anything in his environment and move it to solve puzzles, and even fuse multiple items together.
Players quickly discovered that Link’s new abilities offered an even bigger amount of freedom than we saw in Breath of the Wild. Some players used their newfound construction abilities to come up with simplistic solutions, like building bridges out of logs, while others used Ultra Hand to build complex designs, like giant mechs. Players could also fuse items together to come up with bizarre weapons, like Bomb Barrel Shields, or Keese Eye Arrows.
The freedom of Tears of the Kingdom became one of the game’s biggest draws, but the narrative also proved an exciting one for fans of the series. With the fall of Calamity Ganon in the previous game, the developers went back to one of Link’s greatest foes: Ganondorf. The villain’s appearance in Tears of the Kingdom felt authentic to the version in Ocarina of Time, but with even more depth. Voice actor Matt Mercer provided a take on the villain that felt like a cunning threat, both to Link and Zelda, and the people of Hyrule.
Nintendo has offered no hints about what will come next for the Zelda franchise following Tears of the Kingdom, but the developers will once again have a difficult task topping what came before. Tears of the Kingdom‘s massive open world, freedom to explore, and intriguing story have all added up to one of the greatest Zelda games ever made. For all of these reasons, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is ComicBook.com’s Game of the Year.
The nominees for the 2023 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Game of the Year are:
- Alan Wake 2
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — WINNER
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Resident Evil 4
