Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor cleans up at DICE awards

Open world orc-assassinating-fest Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor cleaned up at last night’s DICE awards picking up eight of the nine awards it was nominated for.

Shadow of Mordor was awarded Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, Adventure Game of the Year, Outstanding Innovation in Gaming, Outstanding Achievement in Animation, Outstanding Achievement in Story, Outstanding Technical Achievement and maybe slightly surprisingly Outstanding Achievement in Character for the game’s main character, Talion.

Overall Game of the Year was awarded to Dragon Age: Inquisition, which also picked up the Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year award too. Other winners included Destiny, which picked up the Action Game of the Year and awards for its online gameplay and sound design, Hearthstone which picked up mobile and strategy game awards and Monument Valley which won recognition for its art direction.

As well as the recognition handed out to various titles, a Technical Impact award was granted to Apple for its disruption of the mobile gaming space. Additionally, one of the inventors of video games as a medium, Ralph Baer, along with Pong creator Al Alcorn, were granted pioneer awards in recognition of their work.

Monolith-developed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor garnered a huge amount of critical praise after its launch towards the end of 2014 and made a lot of end-of-year lists at various outlets. Many commentators were surprised by its compelling gameplay and how well its emergent mechanics hang together.