The Game Awards 2019 was a weird night. Honestly, if you look back at the nominees, it felt like the industry was at a massive crossroads. You had Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding basically inventing a "walking simulator" genre that cost millions of dollars, Resident Evil 2 proving remakes could be masterpieces, and Control bringing weird fiction to the mainstream. But when the dust settled, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice took home the big one. It was the 2019 Game of the Year, and looking back from the perspective of 2026, it might be the most influential win of the last decade.
It changed how we think about "difficulty."
Before Sekiro, FromSoftware was the "Dark Souls studio." You dodged. You rolled. You hid behind a shield. But Sekiro was different. It forced you to stand your ground. It wasn't about depleting a health bar; it was about breaking someone's spirit—or their "posture," in game terms. Winning Game of the Year 2019 wasn't just a trophy for Hidetaka Miyazaki; it was a validation that players actually wanted games that refused to compromise.
The Night Sekiro Claimed the Throne
The Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles was packed. Everyone thought Death Stranding had it in the bag because, well, it’s Kojima. The guy is a rockstar. But Sekiro had this raw, mechanical perfection that couldn’t be ignored. When it was announced as the Game of the Year 2019, it felt like a shift. We weren't just rewarding "content" or "storytelling" anymore. We were rewarding pure, unadulterated gameplay.
The competition was brutal. Seriously.
- Smash Bros. Ultimate was the biggest crossover event in history.
- The Outer Worlds gave us the RPG depth we’d been craving since Fallout: New Vegas.
- Resident Evil 2 was terrifyingly polished.
But Sekiro won because it did something very few games dare to do: it took away the player's safety net. You couldn't summon a friend to help you beat a boss. You couldn't over-level your character to make the fight easy. You either learned to parry the blade, or you died. Simple as that. It was a bold choice for a major publisher like Activision to back, and it paid off.
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Why the 2019 Game of the Year Choice Still Sparks Arguments
People still argue about this. They really do. There’s a segment of the gaming community that thinks Disco Elysium should have swept every category, even the big one. And honestly? They have a point. Disco Elysium won the most awards that night—four in total, including Best Narrative and Best RPG. It was a low-budget, isometric detective game from Estonia that had more soul than most AAA blockbusters.
So why didn't it win the top spot?
Scale matters. Distribution matters. But more importantly, Sekiro represented the peak of "action" gaming. It’s the difference between a brilliant novel and a perfectly choreographed martial arts film. Both have value, but Sekiro was a technical marvel that pushed the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to their absolute limits.
The "Difficulty" Debate
Every time Game of the Year 2019 comes up, we have to talk about accessibility. This was the year the "Easy Mode" debate went nuclear on Twitter. Some journalists argued that by not having difficulty settings, FromSoftware was excluding players. Others argued that the difficulty was the point.
If you make Sekiro easy, it isn't Sekiro anymore.
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The game is a rhythm game disguised as a samurai duel. Click. Clack. Ping. The sound of steel hitting steel is the beat you have to follow. If you don't have to hit those parries perfectly, the tension evaporates. The 2019 win was a signal from the industry that "artistic intent" should sometimes trump "broad appeal." It’s a nuance that many people still get wrong when they talk about the game. They think it’s just "hard for the sake of being hard." It isn't. It's hard because it wants you to feel the desperation of a shinobi.
Beyond the Big Trophy: Other 2019 Winners That Matter
While Sekiro grabbed the headlines, 2019 was secretly the year of the "indie breakout."
Untitled Goose Game became a literal cultural phenomenon. You were a goose. You stole bells. You honked at children. It won "Game of the Year" at the D.I.C.E. Awards later that year, which is a huge deal. It showed that humor and simplicity could compete with the $100 million budgets of companies like Ubisoft.
And we can't forget Outer Wilds. Not The Outer Worlds—the other one. The space exploration one. Many critics actually rank Outer Wilds as their personal Game of the Year 2019 over Sekiro. It’s a game about a 22-minute time loop and the end of the universe. It’s lonely, beautiful, and terrifying. If Sekiro is the best "action" game of that year, Outer Wilds is undoubtedly the best "experience."
How to Experience the 2019 Winners Today
If you’re looking to dive back into the class of 2019, you’re in luck because most of these games have aged incredibly well. Sekiro runs like a dream on modern consoles at 60 frames per second, which is basically mandatory for a game that relies on millisecond-perfect timing.
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Tips for Playing Sekiro in 2026
- Forget Dark Souls. If you play this like a Souls game, you will lose. Stop dodging. Start deflecting.
- Listen to the sound. The "ting" of a perfect parry is higher pitched than a normal block. Use your ears as much as your eyes.
- Use your tools. The prosthetic arm isn't a gimmick. Firecrackers stun almost everything. Use them.
- Stay aggressive. In Sekiro, hesitating is literally a death sentence. The game tells you this constantly: "Hesitation is defeat." Believe it.
Finding the Hidden Gems
Don't just stick to the winners. If you want the full picture of why 2019 was such a powerhouse year, you need to play A Plague Tale: Innocence. It didn't win the big trophy, but its story about two siblings in 14th-century France is haunting. It’s a "AA" game—meaning it has a mid-range budget—but it looks better than most "AAA" titles.
The Legacy of the 2019 Game of the Year
We see the DNA of Sekiro everywhere now. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (and its sequel) ripped the parry system straight from it. Sifu took the "posture" mechanic and turned it into a kung-fu masterpiece. Even Elden Ring took the verticality and jumping mechanics that Sekiro pioneered and brought them into an open world.
The Game of the Year 2019 wasn't just a win for one studio. It was a win for a specific type of philosophy: that games should be allowed to be uncompromising. They should be allowed to be weird, like Death Stranding. They should be allowed to be wordy, like Disco Elysium. And they should be allowed to be punishingly difficult, like Sekiro.
If you haven't played through the 2019 roster lately, do yourself a favor and go back. It was a year where the industry felt like it was finally growing up. It wasn't just about better graphics or bigger maps anymore. It was about how a game makes you feel when you finally, after three hours of trying, parry that final blow and see the "Shinobi Execution" text flash across the screen.
There’s no feeling quite like it.
Next Steps for Players:
- Check Performance Patches: If you're on PS5 or Xbox Series X, ensure you've downloaded the latest updates for Sekiro and Resident Evil 2 to unlock the higher framerates.
- Explore the "Indie 2019" Bundle: Often, platforms like Steam or itch.io run sales specifically for 2019 nominees; keep an eye out for Baba Is You and Sayonara Wild Hearts.
- Contrast the Styles: Play 30 minutes of Death Stranding followed by 30 minutes of Sekiro. It is the best way to understand the massive creative spectrum that defined the 2019 awards season.