What Remains of Edith Finch wins BAFTA
Best Game BAFTA goes to Giant Sparrow’s What Remains of Edith Finch.
What Remains of Edith Finch, the mystery game which won Best Narrative in Game Developers Choice Awards and has been nominated for a whole host of others since its release a year ago, has now been given the BAFTA for Best Video Game. The game beat away stiff competition from the likes of Assassin’s Creed Origins and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to clinch the prestigious British award.
What Remains of Edith Finch follows the story of a girl exploring her family home, an old and rather creepy house in a remote part of Washington state, USA. All of the Finch family except Edith have met various types of mysterious and untimely demise, and the gameplay takes Edith on a series of diverse journeys to discover her family history, and uncover the truth behind the ominous goings-on.
BAFTAs, for all you non-British readers, are the UK’s equivalent of US media awards such as the Oscars, Grammies and Emmies. The dedicated video gaming BAFTA ceremony was added to the film and TV ones way back in 2003. Other winners at this year’s ceremony included – yes, you guessed it – Cuphead (Best Music) as well as Night in the Woods (Best Narrative) and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (several awards including Best British Game).
The team behind What Remains of Edith Finch is American indie studio Giant Sparrow. This is not their first BAFTA, as their previous game The Unfinished Swan won the prizes for Innovation and Best Debut Game in 2013. Creative Director Ian Dallas said:
“This is incredible. I wrote a speech for all the other awards, but this one I figured there would be something in Japanese.”
The latter being a reference to Nintendo, who received eight separate award nominations although only took home three awards. It was a good night all round for indie games: What Remains of Edith Finch is arguably the first true indie game to win the Best Game award in the 14 year history of the BAFTA gaming ceremony, which has previously been mostly won by AAA games such as Half Life 2 and Call of Duty.