Today the Japanese Association of Media in Digital announced the recipients of its annual Excellence Awards for the 2022 edition of the prestigious AMD Awards.
The awards, sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, are designed to honor excellent work in the realm of digital media released in the past year. The aim is to promote the development of the Japanese digital content industry across the board, including video games, anime, broadcasts, and more.
This year, FromSoftware's Elden Ring won one of the ten excellence awards. Among the recipients, we also find the new character Uta from One Piece Film Red and the SPY×FAMILY anime.
The reason provided for Elden Ring's award is that FromSoftware managed to captivate fans with the game's quality that exceeded all expectations. Based on the world created by George R.R. Martin and director Hidetaka Miyazaki, this vast game is full of secrets to discover, and exploration is always accompanied by a sense of tension, prompting players to stay engaged via trial and error. In addition, also thanks to Bandai Namco Entertainment's international distribution network, it was widely played by enthusiastic fans not only in Japan but around the world. The motivation concludes with congratulations to the development team for an unforgettable adventure and a great sense of accomplishment.
This means that the game is now nominated for the Grand Prize, also known as the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award. The result will be announced in exactly a month on March 14.
The Grand Prize has been won by gaming-related products only twice, in 2014 by the Yo-Kai Watch franchise (albeit this also includes anime and the rest of the franchise's multimedia works) and in 2107 by the Nintendo Switch.
We'll see whether Elden Ring will manage to prevail in a month. In the meanwhile, you can read our review of the game.
