Last night, at the 21st Annual DICE Awards held by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in Las Vegas, Nintendo cashed in numerous awards for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Snipperclips, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Fire Emblem Heroes for a total of 10 out of 24 awards. As a special bonus, Nintendo veteran and legend, Genyo Takeda, received the lifetime achievement award for his massively influential contributions to the medium.
On top of all this, and most important to us here, Metroid: Samus Returns won the Handheld Game of the Year award! It was nominated alongside Dragon Quest VIII (3DS, Square Enix/Nintendo), Etrian Odyssey V (3DS, ATLUS), Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS, Nintendo), and Monster Hunter Stories (3DS, Capcom).
Unfortunately, the Handheld Game of the Year award was part of the award montage covering Family Game, Racing Game, Sports Game, and Mobile Game of the Year, which were all rattled off without an acceptance speech. This means we sadly did not get to see Nintendo of America’s Nate Bihldorff (from now on to be known as #NintendoGuy) run on-stage yet again to accept yet another award on behalf of the developers.
Congratulations from Shinesparkers to the developers at MercurySteam and Nintendo EPD!
We are very happy and proud to announce Metroid: Samus Returns has won "Handheld Game of the Year" at the #DICEAwards hold by @Official_AIAS. Thanks to your support, we are the first spanish studio to win this award! #MetroidSamusReturns #DICE18 pic.twitter.com/cuHSKf3bz6
— MercurySteam (@mercurysteam) February 23, 2018
You can watch the full show on IGN’s YouTube channel. The handheld category happens at 1h05m10s mark.
Full list of winners: AIAS