Your intrepid techradar team is on the ground at GDC 2016 this week and we've just seen CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt take the big prize at this year's Game Developers Choice Awards, pretty much the gaming equivalent of the Oscars.
The sumptuous open-world fantasy RPG beat out competition from Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V, Bloodborne and Rocket League to nab the top prize. It also grabbed an award for Best Technology in a video game.
We have to say it's a choice we agree with: the game also scooped the best of the year award at the Golden Joystick ceremony run by techradar publisher Future. It must be something to do with those gorgeous graphics, the free-to-roam gameplay and storytelling that was much improved over its immediate predecessor.
Race for the prize
Sam Barlow's interactive detective game Her Story can hold its head up high too: it was awarded the Innovation Award, the Best Handheld/Mobile Game and Best Narrative at GDC 2016. Part interactive movie and part video game, it asks players to solve a mystery by sifting through a database of video clips.
Platform adventure Ori and the Blind Forest nabbed Best Debut for Moon Studios and got Best Visual Art too. The Best Design prize went to Psyonix's Rocket League and Best Audio was given to Crypt of the NecroDancer by Brace Yourself Games.
Finally the Audience Award was won by Dontnod Entertainment's Life is Strange, one of the growing pile of episodic adventure games from Square Enix, and which unfolds with a satisfyingly slow burn - another choice that we wholeheartedly agree with.
- Get the GDC scoop on fighting Stormtroopers in VR
