Celebrating Award Winning ID@Xbox Games From 2016

This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Xbox Wire.

This past year we have experienced an embarrassment of riches with the quantity of incredibly high-quality games that have shipped through ID@Xbox — everything from deep, immersive narrative experiences to amazingly addictive party games. This week we wanted to highlight just a few of the award winning and nominated ID@Xbox titles that came out in 2016; they’re all on sale right now so there’s no better time to check out any of these fantastic games that you may have missed.

Heart Machine’s Hyper Light Drifter, an action adventure role-playing game with a unique modern/retro visual style picked up the awards for Excellence in Visual Art and the Audience Award at this week’s 19th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards. It was also nominated for Excellence in Visual Arts, and Excellence in Audio. Heart Machine also picked up a Game Developer’s Choice Award nomination for Best Debut. At The Game Awards it was nominated for Best Independent Game and Best Action/Adventure Game.

Inside Screenshot

Playdead’s masterpiece Inside picked up the 17th Annual Game Developer’s Choice Awards for Best Audio, and Best Visual Art, along with nominations for Best Design, Best Narrative, Innovation, and Game of the Year. It also earned The Game Awards’ Best Art Direction award and Best Independent Game and nominations for Game of the Year, Best Art Direction, Best Music/Sound Design, and Best Narrative. It was also nominated for the IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize award, along with Excellence in Visual Arts, and Excellence in Audio.

The rootsy, southern gothic survival game Flame in the Flood from The Molasses Flood was nominated for Excellence in Visual Arts, Excellence in Audio at the Independent Games Festival Awards.

Overcooked, developed by Ghost Town Games and published by Team 17, could have certainly won the award for most addictive party game of the year. It was nominated for Excellence in Design at the IGF awards and Best Multiplayer game at the Game Awards.

Firewatch Screenshot

The deep, engrossing narrative adventure game Firewatch earned developer Campos Santos the “Best Debut” award at the Game Developers Choice Awards and also picked up the Best Narrative award, in addition to nominations for the Innovation Award, Best Visual Arts and Game of the Year. At The Game Awards it was nominated for Best Narrative, Best Independent Game and Best Art Direction. Rich Sommer and Cissy Jones, who provided the unforgettable voices for the main characters, were both nominated for Best Performance.

Oxenfree, an inventive, dark narrative mystery from Night School Studio, was nominated for the Game Developers Choice award for Best Debut and Best Narrative. At The Game Awards it was nominated for Best Narrative.

The Witness, the mind-blowingly deep puzzle game from Jonathan Blow’s Thekla, picked up GDCA nominations for Best Design and Best Innovation. At the Game Awards it was nominated for Best Independent Game.

The Witness Screenshot

These are just a sample of the amazing, award winning and nominated games that were released through ID@Xbox over the past year! And we can’t wait to share with you more details about other exciting games coming out this year. For all of the latest news on upcoming ID@Xbox games, stay tuned to Xbox Wire.


See the rest of the story on Xbox Wire

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