Developer of the Year 2015

A great game will highlight a game studio’s work ethic, practices and overall skill more than any hype or marketing campaign possibly could. As is usually the case, the many classics seen this year were a result of developers working overtime, tirelessly, to get us everything we could ever hope for and more. Whether it was a solid release at launch that lived up to expectations, free post-launch DLC that didn’t insult our intelligence, a massive game world that delivered dozens – if not hundreds – of hours of content and support that exists till this day, here are our nominees for the best developer of 2015.

Nominees:

• Techland
• Kojima Productions
• CD Projekt RED
• Nintendo
• Dontnod Entertainment
• Bethesda Game Studios

Winner: CD Projekt RED

Forget for a moment that CD Projekt RED had developed one of the best games of all time with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Forget about the free DLC it had delivered after launch. Also forget about its first expansion Hearts of Stone which delivered excellent value while still being one of the best expansions ever. CD Projekt RED, since its inception, has always put gamers first and foremost. While some of its decisions like downgrading the visuals of The Witcher 3 or refusing to release a full set of modding tools are worth lamenting, the amount of good the company has done far outweighs those negatives. And let’s not forget that CD Projekt RED worked for months on end to properly fix frame performance on the PS4, even when each subsequent patch didn’t quite do the trick, or how it further expanded on romance options for Triss at the behest of fans.

Now you can remember all those amazing hours spent playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its expansion and it’s not hard to see why CD Projekt RED is our developer of the year.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.