| D.I.C.E. Award for Adventure Game of the Year | |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences |
| First award | 1998 |
| Currently held by | Indiana Jones and the Great Circle |
| Website | www |
The D.I.C.E. Award for Adventure Game of the Year is an award presented annually by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences during the D.I.C.E. Awards. This award recognizes titles in which "players are challenged with real-time action activities where timing, skill, and accuracy are necessary to succeed. Puzzle-solving, resource management and exploration often drive the quest oriented narrative rather than primarily combat mechanics". [1] All active creative/technical, business, and affiliate members of the Academy are qualified to vote for this category. [2] The award initially had separate awards for console games and computer games at the 1st Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 1998, with the first winners being Final Fantasy VII for console and Blade Runner for computer. There have been numerous mergers and additions of adventure-related games throughout the history of the awards ceremony. The current version was officially introduced at the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 2008, which was awarded to Super Mario Galaxy . [1]
The award's most recent winner is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle , developed by MachineGames and published by Bethesda Softworks.
Initially the Interactive Achievement Awards had separate awards for Console Adventure Game of the Year and Computer Adventure Game of the Year. [3] The adventure category was merged with the Role-Playing category at the 2000 awards. [4] [5] This was probably because the previous console adventure game winners also won the award for console role-playing, which were Final Fantasy VII in 1998 [6] [7] and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in 1999. [8] In 2001, the awards for action games and adventure games were consolidated to Action/Adventure awards, recognizing titles in which players are challenged with real-time action activities and combat where possibly skill, accuracy and puzzle-solving are required. [9] [10] A category for Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year was also introduced in 2003. [11] Starting in 2006, genre specific awards would no longer have separate categories for console and computer games, resulting in only Action/Adventure Game of the Year award, which also included platform games going forward. [12] This would ultimately be separated into Action Game of the Year and Adventure Game of the Year in 2008. [13] [1]
| Indicates the winner |
Out of all the publishers, Sony has published the most nominees and the most winners for adventure-related awards. Ubisoft Montreal has developed the most nominees while Nintendo, internally, has developed the most award winners. Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft are the only developer and publisher, respectively, to win more than one adventure game award for the same game in the same year with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time . Rockstar North and Rockstar Games also won multiple adventure game awards in the same year, but for different games. Ubisoft Montreal is also the only developer to have back-to-back wins for the same category, being Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2004 and 2005. Ubisoft as a publisher also had back-to-back wins for Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2004 and 2005, but with different developers.
| Developer | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Nintendo EAD/EPD | 15 | 5 |
| Ubisoft Montreal | 17 | 3 |
| Naughty Dog | 10 | 3 |
| DMA Design/Rockstar North | 6 | 3 |
| Santa Monica Studio | 4 | 3 |
| SquareSoft | 3 | 2 |
| Insomniac Games | 7 | 1 |
| LucasArts | 3 | 1 |
| Monolith Productions | 3 | 1 |
| Rocksteady Studios | 3 | 1 |
| Sucker Punch Productions | 3 | 1 |
| Ubisoft Milan | 3 | 1 |
| Ubisoft Shanghai | 3 | 1 |
| Kojima Productions | 2 | 1 |
| Playdead | 2 | 1 |
| Respawn Entertainment | 2 | 1 |
| Telltale Games | 2 | 1 |
| Remedy Entertainment | 4 | 0 |
| Capcom | 3 | 0 |
| Crystal Dynamics | 3 | 0 |
| Cyan Worlds | 3 | 0 |
| Japan Studio | 3 | 0 |
| Konami | 3 | 0 |
| Rare | 3 | 0 |
| Ubisoft Pictures/Montpellier | 3 | 0 |
| Grezzo | 2 | 0 |
| Guerrilla Games | 2 | 0 |
| Moon Studios | 2 | 0 |
| Oddworld Inhabitants | 2 | 0 |
| Pandemic Studios | 2 | 0 |
| Presto Studios | 2 | 0 |
| Quantic Dream | 2 | 0 |
| Radical Entertainment | 2 | 0 |
| Raven Software | 2 | 0 |
| Ready at Dawn | 2 | 0 |
| Sierra On-Line | 2 | 0 |
| Publisher | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Sony Computer/Interactive Entertainment | 33 | 8 |
| Nintendo | 19 | 5 |
| Ubisoft | 23 | 4 |
| Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios | 11 | 4 |
| Rockstar Games | 9 | 3 |
| Electronic Arts | 9 | 3 |
| Eidos Interactive/Square Enix Europe | 7 | 2 |
| SquareSoft/Square Enix | 6 | 2 |
| Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment | 4 | 2 |
| Konami | 4 | 1 |
| LucasArts | 4 | 1 |
| Activision | 3 | 1 |
| Bethesda Softworks | 2 | 1 |
| Telltale Games | 2 | 1 |
| Capcom | 4 | 0 |
| THQ | 4 | 0 |
| Annapurna Interactive | 3 | 0 |
| Sierra On-Line | 3 | 0 |
| Vivendi Universal Games | 3 | 0 |
| Fox Interactive | 2 | 0 |
| GT Interactive | 2 | 0 |
| Interplay Productions/Entertainment | 2 | 0 |
| Midway Games | 2 | 0 |
| Red Orb Entertainment | 2 | 0 |
| Sega | 2 | 0 |
The Legend of Zelda franchise has received the most nominations and won the most awards. The Assassin's Creed franchise is second in nominations but has not won a single award. In the early years of the Interactive Achievement Awards when there were multiple awards for adventure related genres, some games received multiple nominations in the same year:
Grand Theft Auto is the only franchise to win computer and console adventure game awards within the same year, but with different games: in 2003 for Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City , and Computer Action/Adventure Game of the Year with Grand Theft Auto III . In addition, these two games are the only games to receive more than one nomination spread across more than one year:
The only franchise to have back-to-back wins for the same adventure-related award is Prince of Persia for Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 2004 with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time , and 2005 with Prince of Persia: Warrior Within . The original Resident Evil 2 has been nominated for Console Adventure Game of the Year in 1998, and the 2019 remake has been nominated in 2020.
| Franchise | Nominations | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| The Legend of Zelda | 10 | 4 |
| Prince of Persia | 6 | 3 |
| God of War | 5 | 3 |
| Grand Theft Auto | 5 | 3 |
| Uncharted | 5 | 2 |
| Final Fantasy | 2 | 2 |
| Mario [b] | 6 | 1 |
| Ratchet & Clank | 5 | 1 |
| Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell | 4 | 1 |
| Batman: Arkham | 3 | 1 |
| Star Wars | 3 | 1 |
| Crimson Skies | 2 | 1 |
| Marvel | 2 | 1 |
| Metal Gear | 2 | 1 |
| The Last of Us | 2 | 1 |
| Assassin's Creed | 7 | 0 |
| Myst | 5 | 0 |
| Jak & Daxter | 4 | 0 |
| Resident Evil | 3 | 0 |
| Alan Wake | 2 | 0 |
| Banjo-Kazooie | 2 | 0 |
| Castlevania | 2 | 0 |
| Full Spectrum Warrior | 2 | 0 |
| Horizon | 2 | 0 |
| King's Quest | 2 | 0 |
| Max Payne | 2 | 0 |
| Monkey Island | 2 | 0 |
| Ori | 2 | 0 |
| Oddworld | 2 | 0 |
| Tomb Raider | 2 | 0 |