The Last of Us 2 has collected more Game of the Year awards than any other game in history. Last year, when as many as 576 total awards were doled out, The Last of Us 2 managed to nab 300.
The unprecedented performance of The Last of Us 2 puts it in the company of—or on top of—a group of all-time great titles. The runner-up game in the year 2020, Hades, which took the award at SXSW and a bunch of other high-profile events, only managed to win a total of 64 GotY awards. In third place, Ghosts of Tsushima took only 1 less than Hades, sitting at a grand total of 63. The Last of Us 2 managed more GotY awards than the rest of the entire field combined.
But that's not all. The Last of Us 2's 300 awards puts it as the most acclaimed game of all time. That total places it above the previous champion, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which took home a total of 280 awards back in 2015, and is still enjoyed by many in 2021. It would be an understatement to say that The Last of Us 2 is in good company, as the top 10 for most GotY awards reads essentially as an inarguable list for greatest games of all time. With 300 under its belt, The Last of Us 2 has passed games like Grand Theft Auto 5, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Skyrim, and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Interestingly, The Last of Us 2 performed as well among fans as it did among critics. It topped the awards not only from the media, but also from Reader's Choice polls, like the one from Metacritic, a highly-respected review aggregator. While this is usually the case, it's not a guarantee that fans and the media will agree. Back in 2010, the original Red Dead Redemption won the most awards, but fans preferred the runner-up, Mass Effect 2.
In other years, the difference between first and second place has been as few as one or two fan polls. Again, for 2020, The Last of Us 2 destroyed the competition even in the eyes of fans, winning a total of 108 Reader's Choice polls. The runner-up for Reader's Choice was Cyberpunk 2077, which netted only 24.
It's worth noting, perhaps, that each year a different number of polls and media outlets hand out awards, and 2020 had by far the most total awards at 576. Still, The Last of Us 2 took 52% of the possible awards. For the sake of argument, the title that performed best in its given year was The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which got nearly 59% of the total awards in 2015, closely followed by Resident Evil 4, a game that nearly 16 years later is getting remade into VR, which took 57%.
The Last of Us 2 is available now on PS4.
Source: gameawards.net