Bafta Games: The Last Of Us Clears Up At Awards

Zombie thriller The Last of Us was the big winner at the video game Baftas, taking home the top prize of best game.It was one of five awards won by the game, including a best performance prize for voice-actor Ashley Johnson.

UK-made PlayStation Vita title, Tearaway, also enjoyed a successful night, taking home three awards, including best mobile game.

Rockstar, the maker of Grand Theft Auto 5, was honoured with the Bafta Fellowship Award.

The Scottish company, which won its first Bafta in 1995, drew a standing ovation upon receiving the accolade.

In his acceptance speech co-founder, Dan Houser, said: “This is a tremendous honour to us as a mostly British-run company.

“This is the first time, as far as I know, that Bafta has given an award to 900 people.

“Rockstar is a team and a family and it has always been our policy to focus on collaboration. Games are made by hundreds of amazingly talented people, sometimes happily, sometimes with screaming arguments, but always with a passion for the project.”

‘Super exciting’

The broadest smiles of the night belonged to the team from California-based Naughty Dog.

Their game, The Last of Us, released on PlayStation 3 last summer, was the biggest winner of the night.

“The team worked insanely hard for three-and-a-half years, and put a lot of faith in us, so coming out the other side and bringing all these awards home to them is super exciting,” the developers said, speaking to the BBC’s Dan Emery at the London event.

Games journalist Rob Crossley, from CVG, told the BBC that while many may have expected Grand Theft Auto 5 to have picked up more awards, it was The Last of Us was a more than worthy winner.

“Grand Theft Auto is an achievement in everything that video games have been over the last 20 years,” he said. “It’s expansive, emergent gameplay of astounding scale.”

“But The Last of Us probably represents where we’re going to go with games in the next 10 years.”

‘New art-form’

Far smaller in scale than its older brother, the Bafta film awards, the video game Baftas are without the same level of pomp.

But the event is growing in popularity, and some see gaming’s emergence as a major entertainment form to rival music, film and television.

“It’s extraordinarily rare to be around when a new art-form is being born,” said Stephen Moffatt, writer of Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes, as he presented The Last of Us with the award for best story.

“[Video games] are going to own the future. I am here chiefly to crawl to my new bosses.”