- 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition (TGA and DICE), Dark Souls II (GJA), Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (GDCA), Destiny (BAFTA)
- 2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (TGA, GJA and GDCA), Fallout 4 (DICE and BAFTA)
- 2016: Overwatch (TGA, DICE and GDCA), Dark Souls III (GJA), Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (BAFTA)
- 2017: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (TGA, GJA, DICE and GDCA), What Remains of Edith Finch (BAFTA)
- 2018: God of War (TGA, DICE, BAFTA and GDCA), Fortnite (GJA)
- 2019: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (TGA), Resident Evil 4 (GJA), Untitled Goose Game (DICE and GDCA), Outer Wilds (BAFTA)
- 2020: The Last of Us Part II (TGA and GJA), Hades (DICE, BAFTA and GDCA)
- 2021: It Takes Two (TGA and DICE), Inscryption (GDCA), Resident Evil Village (GJA), Returnal (BAFTA)
- 2022: Elden Ring (TGA, GJA, DICE and GDCA), Vampire Survivors (BAFTA)
- 2023: Baldur’s Gate 3 (TGA, DICE, BAFTA, GJA and GDCA)
Legend: TGA - The Game Awards, GJA - Golden Joystick Awards, BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Awards, DICE - DICE Awards, GDCA - Game Developers Choice Awards.
This list doesn’t include awards before 2014, because The Game Awards launched that year.
I loved BOTW and in any year without BG3 as competition, I would totally accept it as GOTY. But BG3 is just totally on another level.
I played FarCry 3 forever ago and to this day I remember the plot and Vaas Montenegro. I remeber Siegmeyer of Catarina, from DS which for all intents and purposes has a not so intelligible story. This just to name a few. I spent the same amount of hours on BotW as FC3 much more recently and can’t for the life of me remember any characters. I found them bland and uninteresting. That’s just me and I completely understand people who love it.
Far cry 3 did have memorable characters but IMHO BOTW is a vastly more enjoyable game to play. The difference in gameplay is massive to me. I never finished Far Cry 3 as it was tedius to play, whereas I happily finished BOTW enjoying every minute.