Forget the games of the major American or Japanese studios, those that even the uninitiated have necessarily heard of, such as "Call of Duty", "Mario Kart" or even "Fifa".
The Pégages ceremony, which is to video games what the Césars are to the cinema, rewarded Thursday evening the originality and audacity of independent creators from home.
If 85 titles of all genres competed, through 19 different categories, two distinguished themselves throughout an evening organized in the Parisian performance hall La Cigale in front of nearly 800 spectators.
"Deathloop", from the Lyon studio Arkane, which had already distinguished itself with the "Dishonored" series, the second part of which was awarded the Etoile du Parisien for best game of the year in 2016, is crowned with the title of best game of the year 2021. Released last September, it won four other awards including those for the public, visual excellence and best game design.
Read also“Deathloop”, a shooting game that runs on a loop
First-person shooter, which puts the player in the shoes of a fighter whose screen represents the field of vision, this "Deathloop" surprised its world with its concept of time loop which forces the player to relive a same day until succeeding in getting rid of eight characters over the course of the adventure.
Daring but also quite difficult to access for players unaccustomed to scenarios that are too polished, the game was even described as "weird" on the stage of the ceremony by Dinga Bakaba, the creative director of the Arkane studio, crowned him as "personality of the year.
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Other French people on the list
The other video game star of the Pégases is called "Road 96", awarded in the categories "best independent video game", "best sound universe", "best accessibility" and "narrative excellence".
In a completely different genre, but just as surprising and refreshing, the creation of the Digixart studio founded in 2015 in Montpellier invites the player to take a seat as a passenger in various vehicles throughout a road trip with images evoking both the universe of Quentin Tarentino's comics and cinema.
The goal is to reach a border and escape an imaginary authoritarian country called Pétria, with the principle that each decision made by the player over the course of the encounters modifies the nature of the adventure to be lived just as much as the roads taken or the crossed characters.
Among the other winners of the Pégases, launched three years ago by the national video game union (SNJV), are other French independent nuggets.
“Solasta: Crown of the Magister” from Tactical Adventures studio wins the title of best first video game, that of best mobile game goes to “NorthGard” from studio Shiro Games, that of best foreign title goes to “The Forgotten City from Australian studio Modern Storyteller.