The Game Awards took place last week and quickly became a hot point of discussion online after it bizarrely placed little emphasis on the actual winners of the show, cutting their acceptance speeches short by only 30 seconds before playing them off-stage with music. As a result, many winners didn’t get enough time to give their full speeches including The Legend of Zelda director Eiji Aonuma and Swen Vincke from Larian Studios, who was cut short on his Game of the Year speech for Baldur’s Gate 3. The winners have now shared their full speeches online.
IGN recently reached out to several winners from The Game Awards to give them a chance to send through their full acceptance speeches, which were published in the outlet’s recent article. Chief among these was Thierry Boulanger, the creative director at Sabotage Studios who won Best Indie Game for Sea of Stars; Takayuki Nakayama, the director of Street Fighter 6 which won Best Fighting Game; and the Resident Evil development team that won Best VR/AR Game for Resident Evil Village VR Mode, among others.
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We won’t post every acceptance speech that was supposed to be heard at The Game Awards but here are a few, namely from Capcom which didn’t even get an opportunity to go on stage to accept the awards:
Nakayama’s acceptance speech for Street Fighter 6 reads:
“In a field of strong titles appearing in recent years, we’re very thankful to be selected Best Fighting Game. All the other nominated fighting games are amazing and shine brilliantly. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the players and to the members of the development team who worked so hard to bring the next chapter of the Street Fighter series to life. We will not be complacent and will continue to develop the game and provide the best experience possible to our fans. Thank you very much for your continued support.”
The Resident Evil development team’s speech for Resident Evil Village VR Mode reads:
“It’s such a privilege to be selected as Best VR/AR game. From the solitude of the snowy mountains to the ornate beauty of the castle, and the intimidating immensity of Lady Dimitrescu, stepping into the shoes of Ethan Winters and seeing the game’s world from his perspective in the PSVR2 version of Resident Evil Village is a unique and unforgettable experience. We greatly appreciate and thank you for all the support!”
While Larian’s Swen Vincke didn’t offer his Game of the Year speech to IGN, he ended up posting the full speech on Twitter/X in a 16-post thread.
What I wanted to say at the #gameawards (1/16)
— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) December 14, 2023
The last post in the thread revealed that Vincke was meant to shadow-drop the Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3 on the same day but because his speech was cut short, he didn’t get an opportunity to get to that part. The news was shared immediately online after the show, though.
Source: IGN
