Pre-order bonuses are not my cup of tea - in addition to punishing players for not buying from a particular store, they're often so overpowered that they spoil the game. Having said that, Dishonored's various rewards don't seem too imbalanced - and you've probably completed the game by now, anyway. Over six months after the stealthy immersive sim's release, its pre-order gubbins has been collected into one ultro-bundle entitled Void Walker's Arsenal DLC (I always thought Corvo was more of a Wolverhampton Wanderers man). The DLC comprises four packs: the Acrobatic Killer Pack, the Arcane Assassin Pack, the Backstreet Butcher Pack, and the Shadow Rat Pack, each one containing a handful of minor upgrades, a book and a bunch of a coins. You can grab it from Steam on May 14th for the princely sum of $3.99.

As revealed on the Bethblog, the rewards can be unlocked in-game from the Hound Pits Pub once purchased (though I'd still recommend not bothering, unless you're really struggling to finish the game on hard). Here's what's lurking inside each pack:

Acrobatic Killer Pack

Bone Charm Bonuses:
Raven – Health Bonus for Drop-Down Assassination;
Quick Dodge – Bolt/Arrow-Dodging Bonus;
River Affinity – Increased Swimming Speed
Hagfish In-Game Statue that unlocks one additional slot for Bone Charm Bonuses
Unhidden Book entitled Rumors and Sightings: Daud
500 bonus coins

Arcane Assassin Pack

Bone Charm Bonuses:
Void Channel – Powers Duration/Damage Bonus;
White Rat Friend – White Rats Not Hostile;
Gutter Feast – White Rat Consumption for Mana
Whale In-Game Statue that unlocks one additional slot for Bone Charm Bonuses
Unhidden Book entitled Field Notes: The Journal of Granny Rags
500 bonus coins

Backstreet Butcher Pack

Bone Charm Bonuses:
Fencer – Sword vs. Sword Advantage Bonus;
Blast Resistant – Reduced Explosion Damage Taken;
Fire Water – Increased Whiskey Bottle Explosions
Wolfhound In-Game Statue that unlocks one additional slot for Bone Charm Bonuses
Unhidden Book entitled Early Life and Times: Slackjaw
500 bonus coins

Shadow Rat Pack

Bone Charm Bonuses:
Delicate Touch – Breaking Glass Noise Reduction;
Voyeur – Keyhole Peeping Magnification;
Deep Breather – Underwater Breathing Capacity Bonus
Golden Rat In-Game Statue that unlocks one additional slot for Bone Charm Bonuses
Unhidden Book entitled Field Notes: The Royal Spy
500 bonus coins

On the strength of this trailer, we can be fairly certain that The Knife of Dunwall, the second piece of Dishonored DLC, is going to live up to its name. In fact, for a man trying to forget what he's done to the Empress, Daud seems to be going about it a in a funny way: doing what he did to her to everyone else. A guard? Stab him! A man with a top hat? Stab him! Another guard? Summon an assassin to stab him! The Outsider? Stand around while he tediously waffles about nothing.

Oh well, you can't always stab what you want.

Daud's road to atonement might be questionable, but this mini-campaign looks like an enjoyable return to Dunwall. There are new districts to explore, a tweaked ability set to play with, and new enemy types to tackle. You can read more about what to expect in Tom Senior's hands-on preview.

The Knife of Dunwall is due out April 16th, and will cost £7.99.

Dishonored's first major story DLC, Knife of Dunwall, is just under a week away. Steam has updated our install directories with about 700 megs of Daud, and with it has come the names and descriptions of all of the add-on's new achievements. Note that these do contain spoilers, so read with caution.

Just Business
Get the information you need from the Rothwild Slaughterhouse

Missing Pieces
Meet with Thalia Timsh, the Barrister's Niece

Well Connected
Purchase all of the Favors in The Knife of Dunwall

No Regrets
Complete The Knife of Dunwall in High Chaos

Redemptive Path
Complete The Knife of Dunwall in Low Chaos

Whisper Ways
Complete The Knife of Dunwall without alerting anyone

Cleaner Hands
Complete The Knife of Dunwall without killing anyone

Rats and Ashes
Attach an arc mine to a rat, resulting in a kill

Message from the Empress
Perform a drop assassination from atop the Empress statue in The Knife of Dunwall

Stone Cold Heart
Speak with the statue of Delilah Copperspoon in Timsh's estate

This confirms that Knife of Dunwall will include the original campaign's chaos system, and therefore, presumably, multiple endings. It looks like those of you who thought you were safe on your Ghost/Clean Hands high horses have some more work cut out for you. If the wait is just too much, remember to check out our meaty preview of Knife of Dunwall from last month.

At night, Dishonored's sprawling city of Dunwall looks particularly magnificent. Lit windows dot a canopy of angular roofs and spires, and stacks continuously belch out whale-oil smoke—a signature of the city's bustling industry. It's easy to forget about Corvo Attano's errand of revenge and simply drink in Dunwall's details, but Arkane's journey building Dunwall was a far more elaborate process. At a GDC talk (via Polygon), Art Director Sebastien Mitton describes how experiencing "the life of a city" visited by the team eventually shaped Dunwall's culture and identity.
Arkane trekked to well-known cities such as London and Edinburgh because of their mixture of preserved historical buildings and new construction. Instead of confining themselves to tourist routes, the team set a destination point and bee-lined for it using backstreets and alleyways. Mitton says such a method was instrumental in picking up on the essence of a city over simply gathering volumes of reference photographs.
"Making trips is not just going into a location and taking photographs of textures and more textures and more textures," he explains. "It's to feel the city, feel the life of the city. To be on location, to talk to people."
Mitton goes on to say Dishonored's artists were careful to pick up on subtle nuances during visits such as street light behavior to help furnish Dunwall with small touches of personality. Capturing a city's "mysticism" was the ultimate goal, Mitton states.
A more striking change for Dunwall's design was a shift from its original setting in feudal Japan. Arkane ultimately felt that its unfamiliarity with Japanese culture wouldn't align well with its intentions, so it settled on a "gap" between a 17th century appearance and a 20th century technology level. Mitton also brings up period artists such as Jean-Eugène Buland and John Atkinson Grimshaw as important sources of material.
We'll soon blink about its rooftops in the Knife of Dunwall DLC, but I hope for more subsequent adventures in the city and beyond—there's a whole Empire of Isles to explore.

Beyond Dunwall's detailed architecture and snippets of lore spread through its cobbled streets, Dishonored racked up acclaim for its steep non-linearity and free-form areas for players to fashion their own means of completing objectives using as much subtlety as desired. During a panel at GDC yesterday (via Polygon), Arkane co-Creative Directors Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith embraced this concept of player agency in games, saying, "It's all about guiding and attracting, as opposed to dictating the player's path."

"If you're making games that involve just doing the one thing that is the only thing that you can do to move forward, and then doing the next thing that is the only thing you can do to move forward, it really doesn't feel as creative or as rich or as interesting to us," Smith said. "So, giving the player the ability to look around and make choices in many different ways on many different axes at any given time is a big deal."

Dishonored's various components such as traps and enemies "listened" to the player's interactions with the world and reacted accordingly. Snatches of overheard conversation or tattered journal pages make up part of a "pull-based" narrative system to keep the player exploring and encountering new discoveries by themselves.

One example Arkane used was Corvo's ability to summon a swarm of rats—instead of popping a bunch of rodents out of thin air, the ability hinged on the existing presence of rats during a mission. The amount of rats plaguing the city, in turn, is determined by how many corpses Corvo leaves in his wake on a lethal playthrough.

"The benefit of this is that this is not the designer saying, 'Hey, turn the page and read my little story and follow my path. This is us abdicating that and giving it to the player, saying, 'Player, you tell us where you went, you tell your own version of the experience.'"

Though I loved Dishonored's limited approach to player direction, I think it's important to keep in mind that, as linearity generally continues to be a bad word, a full-on open-world design doesn't suit every game. Arkane's own efforts struck a balance between a hands-off style and dropping direct reminders of the multiple choices available to you, and that's probably the best compromise for ensuring players will find their own experiences in their in-game journeys.

This year's GDC has been the source of many interesting industry tidbits. But forget them for now, because it also hosted two award shows last night. Shiny, slightly crass and easily digestible in a handy list format - we've got all the winners from the Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developers Choice Awards right here. Did Hotline Miami's masked protagonist beat the living snot out of the FTL crew for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize? Did Incredipede's creepy-crawly monstrosities scare away the other Visual Art nominees? Did any game not called Journey win a GDC Award? Read on to find out.

We'll start with the IGF Awards, primarily because its the one that wasn't dominated by a PS3-exclusive game about plodding through a desert.

Independent Games Festival Awards

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)


Excellence in Visual Art

Incredipede (Northway Games and Thomas Shahan)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Guacalamelee! (Drinkbox Studios)
Loves in a Dangerous Spacetime (Asteroid Base)
Year Walk (Simogo)


Excellence in Narrative

Thirty Flights of Loving (Blendo Games)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
Gone Home (The Fullbright Company)


Technical Excellence

StarForge (CodeHatch)
Perspective (DigiPen Widdershins)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
Intrusion 2 (Aleksey Abramenko)
LiquidSketch (Tobias Neukom)


Excellence In Design

Samurai Gunn (Beau Blyth)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
Starseed Pilgrim (Droqen & Ryan Roth)
Super Hexagon (Terry Cavanagh)
Super Space (David Scamehorn and Alexander Baard/DigiPen)


Excellence In Audio

Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Bad Hotel (Lucky Frame)
140 (Jeppe Carlsen)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
Pixeljunk 4AM (Q-Games)


Best Student Game

ATUM (NHTV IGAD)
Back to Bed (Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment)
Blackwell's Asylum (Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment)
Farsh (NHTV IGAD)
Knights of Pen & Paper (IESB - Instituto de Ensino Superior de Brasilia & UnB - Universidade de Brasilia)
the mindfulxp volume (Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center)
Pulse (Vancouver Film School)
Zineth (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)


Nuovo Award

Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Spaceteam (Henry Smith)
Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
Bientot l'ete (Tale of Tales)
7 Grand Steps (Mousechief)
MirrorMoon (SantaRagione + BloodyMonkey)
VESPER.5 (Michael Brough)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)


Audience Award
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)

Thoughts? Firstly, congratulations to Zineth, deserved winner of Best Student Game. It's great, and you should play it. More obviously, well done to Richard Hofmeier for the runaway success of Cart Life. I'm sure many will be surprised by just how well it's done, especially among such a strong list of contenders for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. If you're currently thinking "Cart What now?" let Christopher Livingston's Sim-plicity column on the game fill you in.

Elsewhere in the list, I'm surprised to see Little Inferno getting a Technical Excellence award (it had nice fire, I guess), unsurprised to see FTL nab the Audience Award, and marginally disappointed to see Hotline Miami go back to its DeLorean with nothing. Although, hey, it's still got a chance at a Games Developer Choice Award! Haha, no, just kidding. Journey won everything.

Game Developers Choice Awards

Game of the Year

Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)


Innovation Award

Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment)
ZombiU (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)


Best Audio

Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games/Devolver Digital)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Assassin's Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)


Best Debut

Humble Hearts (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
Polytron Corporation (Fez)
Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan)
Subset Games (FTL: Faster Than Light)
Fireproof Games (The Room )


Best Downloadable Game

The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Trials: Evolution (RedLynx/Microsoft Studios)
Mark Of The Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)


Best Game Design

Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Mark Of The Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)


Best Handheld/Mobile Game

Gravity Rush (SCE Japan Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hero Academy (Robot Entertainment)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
The Room (Fireproof Games)
Kid Icarus: Uprising (Sora/Nintendo)


Best Narrative

Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Entertainment/2K Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Virtue's Last Reward (Chunsoft/Aksys Games)


Best Technology

Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
PlanetSide 2 (Sony Online Entertainment)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Treyarch/Activision)
Assassin's Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)


Best Visual Arts

Borderlands 2 (Gearbox Software/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)


Ambassador Award
Chris Melissinos, curator of The Smithsonian's The Art of Video Games exhibit

Pioneer Award
Spacewar creator Steve Russell

Audience Award
Dishonored

Lifetime Achievement Award
BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk

Conclusion: award show judges really love Journey.

The day after the launch of Bioshock Infinite, it doesn't seem too controversial to suggest single-player games are alive and well. But - as the free-to-play funding model grows in popularity - there are numerous examples of developers doubling down on some form of online multiplayer content. Speaking to Game Industry, Dishonored co-director Harvey Smith says that he thinks that the overall audience for games is growing, leaving plenty of room for both types of experience.

"What people say each cycle is, 'Fill-in-the-blank is the new thing.' And if you're old enough, you remember when it was live-action video games," Smith said. "At another point it was MMOs. At another it was social games. At another it was multiplayer shooters.

"None of those things are bad; they're all great. But what the reality seems to be is we keep adding types of games and finding new player groups for those. The market seems to be expanding."

Smith points out that while the industry tends to focus on a specific area - right now the thriving free-to-play MOBA market - that doesn't stop players from appreciating more traditional genres too. "It seems like our attention focuses on the new thing, but in reality, there are still plenty of people that like a particular kind of game. Every time someone announces the death of the single-player game, something like The Sims or BioShock Infinite comes along and does different things well.

"So far we haven't capped out. It's not like DOTA fans are buying DOTA and not playing Skyrim, or buying Dishonored and therefore not buying Madden. I think there's a bunch of different audience types and we haven't even hit the limit yet."

The trick, Smith argues, is for developers - and publishers - to become comfortable focusing on the type of game they want to achieve, rather than needlessly bulking up a feature list. "I hope people are specializing and going deeper on given mechanics. And I actually hope it gets to the point where there are so many people competing - indie developers or commercial developers - and they're so good at this one thing they do that in order to win. You have to differentiate.

"You have to do something well that the other guy's not doing. That'd be nice, right? Instead of a handful of games that all try to do the same thing, I hope there's some specialization happening and people are going to have to do one thing well or three things well instead of trying to do the same 12 things everyone else is doing."

That's not to say Smith didn't receive messages from fans requesting multiplayer for Dishonored, but says people more frequently thanked him for keeping it a solo experience.

Podcasting thrusters to max this week, as we discuss leadership changes at EA, BarCrafts, Lord British, Elder Scrolls Online, and the horror of extraterrestrial arachnids. They exist! For real!

Witness the beginning of the downfall of vertebrate life on PC Gamer Podcast 349 - Spiders in Space

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Dishonored's Knife of Dunwall DLC lets you play as the Empress' assassin, Daud, in a new story that runs parallel to Corvo's campaign. I've played an hour of the first of the DLC's three missions, set in a whale oil factory in Dunwall's docklands. It's a large, fleshed out infiltration mission featuring the traits you'd expect from a proper Dishonored level - complex environments with lots of vertical exploration, secret areas, hidden bone charms, audio diaries and notes full of extra lore.

In terms of moment to moment movement, stealth and murder, Daud feels identical to Corvo, but his powers and gadgets present new opportunities for improvisation. Some changes are purely cosmetic (he fires bolts from a wrist mounted launcher rather than a mini-crossbow), but others feel fresh and instantly entertaining. As the leader of a team of assassins, Daud can summon help whenever he needs a distant target killed, ordering assassins to de-cloak and silently slay guards with a quick point.

"Daud can summon help whenever he needs a distant target killed"

The DLC opens with the Empress' death. Daud co-ordinates the attack and does the deed first-hand in the opening cutscene. It's a tough moment to witness when you've experienced the fallout of the murder from Corvo's perspective, and it sends Daud into a spiral of doubt. He's used to killing members of Dunwall's corrupt and sordid elite, not kind-hearted royals. In the midst of his guilt trip he's visited by Dunwall's resident mystical entity and leather jacket owner, The Outsider, who mutters something vague about redemption and "Delilah" and then leaves Daud swinging in the wind.



Fortunately, Daud's assassins double as intelligence agents when the plot demands. His sources point him to a local whaling ship called the Delilah. Daud perches on a gantry overlooking the harbour, and there I take control.

I blink from walkway to walkway, vault a tesla coil in the alleyway below and blink up to a gap above the wall of light. I find myself on some rickety rooftops overlooking the dock. Distant boats are silhouetted against a brilliant orange sunset. I move towards the cliff and peer over the edge and see a huge dead whale bobbing in the water.

"He’s surprisingly calm for a man who just saw an assassin drop twenty feet onto a floating whale corpse"

In Corvo's quest, found notes and overheard conversations built up an aura of mystery around the strange creatures that produce Dunwall's whale oil. Even if you don't care much for Daud's dilemma, this DLC offers a chance to see aspects of Dishonored's world that have been teased, but never shown.

The level layout feels a little narrower than most of Dishonored's main missions, but the environment is as enticing as ever. Within seconds I've blinked down a series of outcrops and jumped onto the dead whale, landing right in front of a worker relaxing in a row boat. He's surprisingly calm for a man who just saw an assassin drop twenty feet onto a floating whale corpse. I blink into his vessel, knife at the ready, but stop myself from killing him when he starts to speak. He's fearful of Daud's reputation and offers up some advice on how to enter the factory.



I won't spoil how I got in. Suffice to say there are several ways, and you have even more options if you buy "favours." These mission- bonus objectives can be unlocked with in-game cash at the start of each mission. Daud's version of Corvo's "Dark Vision" can't penetrate walls, but it will highlight these extra objectives and bone charm locations. It offers more precise direction than Corvo's creepy bionic heart thing.

"Wide atria house the remains of half-processed whale carcasses"

I make my way into the factory and start the search for the foreman. As in Dishonored, targets can be killed or disposed of in more creative ways non-lethally. A rusty interrogation chair early in the level offers a hint as to how that could be achieved here.

The factory is full of dead whale. A warren of grim, red corridors feed wide atria that house the remains of half-processed carcasses. It's a slaughterhouse. Strongmen shave chunks off captured whales with saw blades powered by whale oil back packs - an obvious weak point, or so I assume. I shoot the first one I meet right in one of the two conjoined mini-tanks. It pops spectacularly, but the spare canister has enough juice to power his weapon. Annoyed, the whaler turns and saws me to death.

I elect to keep my distance from the next whaler I run into. I drop an Arc mine into his path and blink behind a pipe. These proximity bombs zap nearby enemies into ash as they pass - a spectacular variant on Corvo's spring razor mine.



I press on in search of the foreman. A trio of pipes offers an elevated walkway that's perfect for drop-assassinating whalers. I hop up to a high gantry and close in on an office. There are voices beyond the door. I peer in through the keyhole and see a butcher and a chainsaw-wielding whaler chatting next to a long, low table. I open the door and hold down the blink button. If he aims while standing still, Daud's blink freezes time. That gives me lots of time to plan my attack. I teleport beyond the table, crawl underneath and equip my wrist bolt, expecting a cry of surprise that never comes. The guards chat away, unaware that there's an assassin closing in on their knees.

"My assassin flicks his blade to his chest in silent salute and vanishes into thin air."

I enjoy a brief moment of indecision. I could slow time and slap a couple of sleeping darts into their thighs. I could fly out of my cubbyhole, chopping at every ankle I can find with my knife. What would Daud do?

I roll an incapacitating choke dust bomb between them. As it explodes I summon an assassin right behind the chainsaw whaler. Then I move to blink behind his friend. Time pauses as I pick my destination and I briefly see the shadow of my summoned assassin lunging toward his target. Suddenly, I'm behind mine slipping a blade into his throat.

My victim crumples silently as the smoke clears. The chainsaw whaler is already dead. My assassin flicks his blade up to his chest in silent salute, and vanishes into thin air.



I move on. The whaling factory is a greasy, rust-coloured warren of passages. Looking down through floor vents, I see gutters strewn with whale viscera. I'm glad I can't smell it. I find a hatch into the bloody sewer and discover a bone charm in a pile of unidentifiable organs. I use it to upgrade my agility, and try not to think about the logistics of improving my jump height with a blood-soaked ornament.

"I discover a bone charm in a pile of unidentifiable organs"

It's a gory place, but an enjoyable one to poke around. I busy myself taking out as many whalers as I can find, spurred on by the gruesome sight of huge whales hanging from meat hooks.

I miss some of Corvo's powers. Daud can't possess enemies or summon rat swarms, but his new abilities can be upgraded. If you pump bone charms into assassin summoning, your minions gain extra powers. I start to wonder if it's possible to do an entire playthrough of the DLC using summoned assassins to do the dirty work, reducing Daud's role to "man who hides in corners pointing occasionally."

Time runs out before I can put my new plan into action. I estimate that I made it about two thirds of the way through mission one in an hour and there's plenty of scope for a replay. The abstract skill tests of Dunwall City Trials delivered disposable fun, but The Knife of Dunwall offers more rich, thoughtfully constructed locations to explore, which is exactly what I want from Dishonored DLC. I'll definitely be pouring hours into this when it's released next month.

The Knife of Dunwall is out on April 16. It'll cost $9.99 / £7.99. Only Xbox code was available for the preview, awkward stick-aiming and all, but the levels/skills etc are the same across both versions.

Alternative headlines include "Dick and Dom SNUBBED in Online - Browser category", "Black Ops II not deemed most innovative game of the year - internet pitchforks rest easy", or just, "Journey wins pretty much all the other bloody awards, to the chagrin of PC-centric news writers". Still, there were some wins for games that PC owners could play. As well as Dishonored's top award, shiny trophies also went to The Walking Dead, XCOM and Far Cry 3.

Full list below. Winners in bold.

Best Game

Dishonored
Journey
Mass Effect 3
The Walking Dead
FIFA 13
Far Cry 3

Action

Far Cry 3
Hitman: Absolution
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Halo 4
Mass Effect 3
Borderlands 2

Game Innovation

The Unfinished Swan
Fez
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Wonderbook: Books of Spells
Journey
Kinect Sesame Street TV

Artistic Achievement
Journey
Halo 4
Borderlands 2
Far Cry 3
The Room
Dear Esther

Audio Achievement

Journey
Far Cry 3
Beat Sneak Bandit
Halo 4
Assassin's Creed III
Dear Esther

Mobiles & Handheld

The Walking Dead
LittleBigPlanet (Vita)
New Star Soccer
Incoboto
Super Monsters Ate My Condo
The Room

Online - Browser
SongPop
The Settlers Online
Merlin: The Game
Runescape
Amateur Surgeon Hospital
Dick and Dom’s HOOPLA!

Online - Multiplayer

Journey
Assassin’s Creed III
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Halo 4
Borderlands 2

Original Music

Journey
Diablo III
Assassin’s Creed III
Thomas Was Alone
The Unfinished Swan
The Walking Dead

British Game

The Room
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Forza Horizon
Dear Esther
Super Hexagon
LEGO: The Lord of the Rings

Performer

Danny Wallace (The Narrator) - Thomas Was Alone
Nolan North (Nathan Drake) - Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Melissa Hutchinson (Clementine) - The Walking Dead
Dave Fennoy (Lee Everett) - The Walking Dead
Adrian Hough (Haytham) - Assassin’s Creed III
Nigel Carrington (The Narrator) - Dear Esther

Debut Game

The Unfinished Swan
Deadlight
Forza Horizon
Dear Esther
Proteus
The Room

Sports/Fitness

New Star Soccer
Forza Horizon
F1 2012
Nike+ Kinect Training
Trials Evolution
FIFA 13

Family

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Minecraft: XBOX 360 Edition
Just Dance 4
Skylanders Giants
Clay Jam
LEGO The Lord of the Rings

Story

The Walking Dead
Journey
Far Cry 3
Thomas was Alone
Mass Effect 3
Dishonored

Strategy

XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Dark Souls: Prepare To Die
Diablo III
Great Big War Game
Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai
Football Manager 2013

Game Design

Journey
Dishonored
Far Cry 3
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Borderlands 2
The Walking Dead

Fellowship
Gabe Newell

And if you'd like to see the various people involved in the above games accept their golden face masks, you can do so via this video of the event.