Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor wins Game of the Year at GDC

By Will Fulton Published March 6, 2015

Developer Monolith Productions’ Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor took home the top honor of Game of the Year at the 15th annual Game Developers Choice Awards. The mobile puzzler Monument Valley from ustwo Games, in addition to being a favorite of House of Cards‘ Frank Underwood, also loomed large over the evening, taking home the most awards of any game, including Best Visual Art, Innovation and Best Handheld/Mobile Game. The ceremony was held on Wednesday, March 4 during 2015’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, California.

An assortment of development talents were represented among the winners, with Destiny (Bungie) taking Best Technology, Hearthstone (Blizzard) taking Best Design, and Alien: Isolation (The Creative Assembly) taking Best Audio. Also praised were Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero: Act III, for Best Narrative, and Stoic Studio’s The Banner Saga for Best Debut.

Recommended Videos

The ceremony also honored Elite creator David Braben with both an Audience Award for Elite: Dangerous and the Pioneer award for the original Elite‘s contribution as a groundbreaking open world space trading game. Designer and academic Brenda Romero, noted for her work on the Wizardry series of role-playing games as well as her activism, was honored with the Ambassador Award. Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The 17th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards were also handed out, with the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Design both going to The Outer Wilds, an indie exploration game set in a condensed solar system. Inkle Studios’ 80 Days took home Best Narrative for its adventure game spin on Jules Verne. The grim war zone management sim This War of Mine received the Audience Award.

Check out the full list of GDC Awards winners here and the full list of IGF Awards winners here.

Former Staff Writer, Gaming

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

Topics

Gaming

Modern Warfare 4 brings Call of Duty back to its glory days. I hope the streak lives.

Infinity Ward’s latest campaign goes back to Call of Duty’s roots and recaptures what made me a fan more than a decade ago.

Call of Duty MW4 menu screen

The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.

After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.

Gaming

Epic is throwing $50,000 for vibe-code games. What could possibly go wrong?

Epic is rewarding vibe-coded games with real money

Epic MegaJam 2026

Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.

Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”

Gaming

Monster Hunter Outlanders arrives on Android and iOS next week with four-player co-op

The free-to-play spin-off launches October 29 with open-world exploration, mobile-focused combat, and a building system.

Monster Hunter Outlanders poster

It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.

Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.