While it just feels like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is headed toward a GOTY win, even in a potentially competitive year, based on how good it is and how much everyone is raving about it, I wanted to see if there was actual data that could borderline prove that would be the case.
While there is a persistent media narrative that critics don’t know what they’re talking about, and we see frequent debates about Rotten Tomatoes percentage and Metascore, high gaming review scores usually correlate more to game success, critical, audience and commercial, than any RT fresh or rotten movie/TV score does.
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As such, I went through every GOTY winner from The Game Awards to find where and when the highest metascore of a year has equaled a GOTY win. And what Tears of the Kingdom’s 96 metascore would mean for its prospects.
In this list, I did not include high scoring games that either A) were a remaster or “definitive edition” or new platform release or B) did not have enough critic scores to be significant. So that’s why some may be missing.
The Game Awards
- 2022 – Elden Ring (96) – No other games rated higher (all platforms)
- 2021 – It Takes Two (89) – No other games rated higher on PS4 (on Xbox, Forza, Flight Sim, Psychonauts 2)
- 2020 – The Last of Us Part II (93) – One game rated higher (Persona 5 Royal, 95)
- 2019 – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (91) – One game tied (Resident Evil 2, 91), One higher (Beat Saber, 93)
- 2018 – God of War (94) – One game rated higher (Red Dead Redemption 2, 97)
- 2017 – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (97) – One game tied (Super Mario Odyssey, 97)
- 2016 – Overwatch (91) – Two games rated higher (Uncharted 4, 93, Inside, 93)
- 2015 – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (93) – One game rated higher (The Phantom Pain, 95)
- 2014 – Dragon Age: Inquisition (89) – Okay this one has a whole bunch of games rated higher (Super Smash Bros. Wii U, Dark Souls 2, Bayonetta 2, Fez, Shovel Knight)
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So, what does this show? In two of the last eight years, the overall highest scoring game won or tied. In three years, one other game was rated higher. Only in two years were a bunch of higher scoring games overlooked.
But there’s more data than that. The only time a game rated a 96 or above lost is Red Dead Redemption 2 going up against God of War. The other time, Mario Odyssey lost to a game it tied at 97, Breath of the Wild.
So, looking ahead to the rest of the releases this year, it is genuinely hard to imagine the major contenders still to come, Diablo 4, Final Fantasy XVI, Starfield, Call of Duty or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 can match Tears of the Kingdom’s 96. And as such, I think there’s close to a zero percent chance it’s not going to win, even without actually seeing those other games released yet. Once it’s the end of the year and we have all the data, it will be even more obvious, but the 96 really does put its stamp down half a year ahead of time.
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