Pokemon Legends: Arceus is your Nintendo Game of the Year at The Golden Joystick Awards 2022

Pokemon Legends: Arceus has been crowned your Nintendo Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards 2022.

One of two Pokemon games to release in 2022, Pokemon Legends: Arceus was an influential step in the pocket monster series. Legends Arceus had some stiff competition this year as it was up against other fantastic Nintendo titles such as Splatoon 3, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and Nintendo Switch Sports. It seems that Pokemon fans have outweighed fans of the pink puffball to make Legends Arceus this year's winner.

A full list of the nominees in this category is below:

  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3
  • Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Winner)
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land
  • Live A Live
  • Splatoon 3
  • Nintendo Switch Sports

Slightly different from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, which was released just a few weeks ago, Pokemon Legends Arceus was a standalone game that didn't follow the mainline series' formula. Marketed as the first open-world Pokemon game, and set in the ancient Hisui region, Arceus gave fans new ways to play and introduced a number of new Pokemon including the Hisuian form 'mons such as Hisuian Growlithe and Hisuian Voltorb. 

In our Pokemon Legends Arceus review, we said the game was a "revolutionized" step in the series so far. 

"Pokemon Legends: Arceus has the potential to be the Pokemon game of my childhood dreams, and it comes so close to being just that. By shifting the Pokemon formula to focus on enhanced open-world exploration, and the quest to catch 'em all, Pokemon Legends: Arceus has truly revolutionized the series for a more modern audience."

Discover the best games of 2022 at the best prices by checking out the Golden Joystick Awards Steam sale page

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.