The 15th annual Nordic Game Awards has announced its winners, and Ultra Ultra’s Echo went home with quite a few prizes. The uncanny sci-fi adventure was up in six different categories, and it took home three, including the 2018 Nordic Game of the Year award.
Echo is a mind-bending thriller where the enemies learn new moves based on what the player does. It’s the first game from Danish indie studio Ultra Ultra, and it picked up awards for Best Game Design, Best Debut, and Game of the Year. Swedish developer Tarsier Studios also won in multiple categories for its atmospheric horror platformer Little Nightmares: It took home the Best Audio and Best Art awards.
Though Echo won Game of the Year, Nordic Game Awards also has a separate category to recognize the best in class for mobile games. Image & Form’s SteamWorld Dig 2 was named the Game of the Year for small screens.
Though MachineGames’ Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus didn’t win in any of the categories it was nominated in, the jury gave it a special mention. They described the game as “a politically charged alternate history tale that tackles heavy themes of racism and bigotry, with well-defined characters and a dark sense of humour throughout. It never ceases to shock and amaze.”
Here are all the finalists, with the winner in bold:
Best Audio
- Little Nightmares (Tarsier Studios)
- Echo (Ultra Ultra)
- Figment (Bedtime Digital Games)
- Nex Machina (Housemarque)
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (MachineGames)
Best Fun for Everyone
- Passpartout: The Starving Artist (Flamebait Games)
- A Hat in Time (Gears for Breakfast)
- Fugl (Muunluun)
- Little Police (Filimundus)
- OCMO (Team OCMO)
Best Debut
- Echo (Ultra Ultra)
- A Hat in Time (Gears for Breakfast)
- Milkmaid of the Milky Way (Machineboy)
- OCMO (Team OCMO)
- Passpartout: The Starving Artist (Flamebait Games)
Best Technology
- Sparc (CCP)
- Echo (Ultra Ultra)
- Fugl (Muunluun)
- Star Wars Battlefront 2 (EA DICE)
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (MachineGames)
Best Game Design
- Echo (Ultra Ultra)
- A Hat in Time (Gears for Breakfast)
- Little Nightmares (Tarsier Studios)
- SteamWorld Dig 2 (Image & Form)
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (MachineGames)
- World to the West (Rain)
Best Art
- Little Nightmares (Tarsier Studios)
- Echo (Ultra Ultra)
- Milkmaid of the Milky Way (Machineboy)
- Nex Machina (Housemarque)
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (MachineGames)
Nordic Game of the Year – Small Screen
- SteamWorld Dig 2 (Image & Form)
- Milkmaid of the Milky Way (Machineboy)
- OCMO (Team OCMO)
- Pako 2 (Tree Men Games)
- Returner 77 (Fantastic, Yes!)
Nordic Game of the Year
- Echo (Ultra Ultra)
- A Hat in Time (Gears for Breakfast)
- Little Nightmares (Tarsier Studios)
- Nex Machina (Housemarque)
- SteamWorld Dig 2 (Image & Form)
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (MachineGames)
Jury’s Special Mention
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (MachineGames)
