Monster Hunter Wilds was "the big winner" at this year's Gamescom 2024 Awards, with Supermassive's Little Nightmares 3 following close behind

Monster Hunter Wilds and Little Nightmares 3 took home the most prizes at the Gamescom 2024 Awards.

In a press release from the Gamescom Awards desk, it's revealed that Monster Hunter Wilds was the overall winner of the show, bagging the top prizes for Most Epic and Most Entertaining, as well as the Best PlayStation Game and Best Trailer. 

Little Nightmares 3, the first entry in the horror series to be developed by Until Dawn studio Supermassive, notched wins for Best Visuals, Best Audio, and Best Xbox Game. Other winners include Frostpunk 2 for Best Gameplay, Tavern Talk for Most Wholesome, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 for Best PC Game, and Genshin Impact for Best Mobile Game.

The folks at Gamescom say submissions are judged by "an independent and internationally composed jury, who nominate the favorites." From there, Gamescom attendees can vote for their favorite nominees on-site or remotely to determine the winners. 

That's all well and good, but I have to admit some of the categories and respective winners made me raise my eyebrow just a hint. I found the official Gamescom criteria for adjudicating these matters and nowhere did I find considerations for what makes a game "epic" or "entertaining". 

Moreover, the winners of the platform-specific awards, i.e. Best PlayStation Game, aren't platform exclusive! Monster Hunter Wilds won Best PlayStation Game, but it's coming to Xbox and PC seemingly at the same time as PlayStation. Little Nightmares 3, winner of the Best Xbox Game award, is coming to pretty much every modern platform under the sun. Finally, even Best PC Game winner Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is planned for release on PS5 and Xbox.

Monster Hunter Wilds is a direct follow-up to the 2018 action-RPG Monster Hunter Worlds after the relatively niche and compact, but still successful Monster Hunter Rise. It only took 30 minutes with the game to convince Catherine to give the series a try, and in her Monster Hunter Wilds hands-on preview, she said: 

"When the demo ends, all I wanted to do is go back for more. I'd have loved to spend hours testing out the different weapons and their moves, as well as get the chance to explore the world, which I wasn't able to do in such a short amount of time. Certainly from a fresh perspective, Monster Hunter Wilds is looking promising – here's hoping that the final product will be able to deliver for series veterans, too."

Little Nightmares 3 is the next entry in Bandai Namco's puzzle-platform horror series. The first two games were developed by Tarsier, which has its own very Little Nightmares-esque game in the works, but the series was handed over to Supermassive when Bandai sold Tarsier to Embracer. And yes, that does mean we're basically getting two new Little Nightmares games, and yes, that makes me very happy.

For our complete Gamescom 2024 coverage, you know where to click.