UPDATE: Final Fantasy 14 won Best Ongoing Game at The Game Awards 2021!
As the year comes to an end, The Game Awards prepares to celebrate the best 2021 had to offer. Just like the shows before it, this year's Game Awards features many categories with different nominees for each one. While each one deserves their spot and being nominated is an honor as it is, only one can end up the winner. Many fans might enjoy trying to figure out just which game wins before the show, and the Best Ongoing Game category has some stiff competition.
The Best Ongoing Game award focuses on games that constantly bring new updates and changes to their titles to keep players enjoying their growing experiences. Notably, almost all of these games offer themselves as a service, being either multiplayer online games or games that ask fans to pay for new characters to play in some way or another. These games are Apex Legends, Final Fantasy XIV Online, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, and Call of Duty: Warzone.
Apex Legends
Among the three battle-royale shooter games chosen for the Best Ongoing Game award this year, Apex Legends has made a name for itself by being nominated not once, but twice at the Game Awards since its release in 2019. That very same year, Apex Legends won players' hearts and took home the Best Multiplayer Game award. Now the free-to-play game has a chance to take home yet another award for its efforts.
Considering Apex Legends' loyal player base, it makes sense that it has a shot at Best Ongoing Game this year. Taking the award may be a big boost to Titanfall fans' morale after the original game has been announced to be delisted soon. Respawn Entertainment's title is also in the middle of its 11th season, which has improved many different features and brought back some old Titanfall parks as well. Apex Legends is also facing off against Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone for the award, which may help to settle the debate on which is the better battle royale experience.
Genshin Impact
MiHoYo's free-to-play RPG stands out among the crowd for how it offers all of the exploration, world-building, and character exploration the genre is known for but makes it accessible for almost anyone to pick up and play with no monetary involvement required. The game uses a gacha system with microtransactions as a way for fans to obtain new characters to play as with certain buffs but still makes sure even those who are unlucky can still make it through Genshin Impact's challenges.
Through the game relying on the gacha mechanic, this allows for frequent character and weapon updates, which also give it ample opportunity to include all sorts of new events. MiHoYo's RPG has had well over 50 different events this year, which also saw the return of events starring launch characters such as Venti. Unfortunately, through many players voicing their dissatisfaction with Genshin Impact, the title and its parent company have been the subject of many controversies as of late.
Call of Duty: Warzone
The second battle-royale free-to-play shooter on this list is none other than Call of Duty: Warzone. Throughout all of the games in the same genre on this list, Warzone has been praised by critics for being one of if not the number 1 battle royale on the market at the moment, though beyond the game's loyal player base, reception seems to be mixed. With everything CoD: Warzone offers, though, it has incredible promise with updates that have made sure to earn it a spot on this list alongside its competitors.
Warzone is looking to have an update just before The Game Awards streams, which FPS fans should look forward to this week. One of the maps is being revamped into a new Pacific map with plenty of tweaks and adjustments. However, how well those tweaks play out once added to the game might remain to be seen, as Activision has reportedly laid off some of its QA testers after promising pay raises. With these developments being recent, they may not change Warzone's place at The Game Awards too much.
Final Fantasy 14
Surprisingly the only MMO on this list has managed to be the critically acclaimed Final Fantasy 14. The game is known by many to have a free trial that includes Heavensward and has seen impressive growth in the wake of real-life events such as the Coronavirus pandemic and World of Warcraft's parent company being hit with sexual harassment lawsuits. It also continues to add new expansions, such as the now in Early Access Endwalker, which adds the Sage class to FF14.
Final Fantasy 14 has been nominated for plenty of awards during its tenure, taking a fair deal of them home. The Golden Joystick Awards has awarded it the Still Playing and Best Game Community titles. This isn't FF14's only Game Awards nomination as well, as the game was nominated for Best Ongoing Game in 2019. It lost to Fortnite, and this may be a chance for Square Enix's hit MMO to take the achievement home at last.
Fortnite
It could most likely be said that many gamers would agree that leaving Fortnite out of these nominees would be remiss. The third battle royale nominated this year has made itself iconic in the minds of gamers, whether they play or not. The game has seen events like incredible crossovers with series like Naruto and Arcane: League of Legends, as well as virtual concerts that other games like Pokemon GO have been trying to emulate, yet none have done it on the same level and scale that Fortnite provides.
Certainly, the reach of the game can be seen no matter what fans' relationship with the game is, which makes it a great nominee. Fortnite has even taken the award already in 2019, and its frequent and out-there updates have made sure to give it a strong contending chance for round two. The game's future already looks to be as bright as it always has been with Season 3 and a rumored new animal coming to change gameplay coming soon, there's still plenty of content for fans to enjoy even now.
Best Ongoing Game Prediction: Final Fantasy 14
For loyalists to Square Enix's smash hit MMO, this may feel rather overdue. Final Fantasy 14 has kept itself on players' minds for years and shows no signs of stopping with Endwalker now in Early Access. The game has also done all it can to welcome new players in with open arms, including giving bonuses for higher-level players to come through and help newer members with the starting quests.
While Square Enix keeps giving to the players of FF14, the players make sure to give back by creating a wonderful community that gets together to either celebrate with players or make the experience more enjoyable with things such as infographics to understand FF14's Limit Break system. This creates a wonderful cycle of the developers and the players giving back to one another, which helps build a game that definitely deserves the Ongoing Game award.
As Endwalker gives plenty of new content for players to enjoy, Final Fantasy 14 sets itself up to be a great game in the next few years, and there's sure to be upcoming patches and events that will only heighten the experience. However, that could be said for all of the games on this list. Regardless of who wins at The Game Awards, plenty of players will have tons of content from these games to enjoy for quite a while to come.