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BBC News
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'More than a barman': Meet the Bafta-nominated pub landlord
The next time you hear someone shouting "last orders" at your local pub, listen many people in Sneinton, Nottingham, John Blyth is the friendly face at The King Billy who has been pouring them pints for more than a it's his voice that got him a Bafta Goodness You're Here!, which features his voice, also won the best British game at a ceremony in London earlier this month. Mr Blyth provided the voice of Big Ron, a loud and loveable pie salesman in the adventure video game. His portrayal saw him nominated for the best performer in the supporting role cartoon-esque title was released in August and created by Will Todd and James Carbutt, founders of developer Coal Supper. Before taking over The King Billy in 2014, Mr Blyth had a background in gaming journalism and podcasting. But running a busy pub meant putting that world to one side until it came calling again in a very unexpected voice on the Regular Features podcast caught the ears of games developers at Coal Supper Studios, who reached out for Mr Blyth's vocals."It was the most pleasant surprise, especially when I saw the games they were making," he recalls."As soon as I saw the demo for Thank Goodness You're Here!, I thought this was the most charming thing in the world and I want to be part of it."In the game, players control a tiny, silent character through the streets of Barnsworth and tackle a series of surreal odd-jobs given to them by local Blyth provides the deep tones of Big Ron - a loud, eccentric pie salesman who runs the fictional shop Big Ron's Big Pies."The conversation was basically them asking me and me snapping their hand off," the 51-year-old said. "I thought I'd left games behind me when I stopped with gaming journalism but to be part of this side of it was an absolute pleasure." Mr Blyth is mainly used to talking about video games from a journalistic and critic standpoint and says it was surreal being part of the creative process for a game. "I sent them a few different reads of the lines they gave me. They chose the way they wanted it to sound and so I ran with that," he added."I'm not a trained voice actor and I kept veering off a lot, so I had a reactivation phrase to get me back on track, which was shouting 'Big Ron's Big Pies'."So I was just shouting that in-between takes." 'More than a barman' Back at The King Billy, Mr Blyth says behind every beer poured and glass collected, there is a member of staff who has a whole spectrum of different talents."In any pub you go into, you scratch the surface of the staff and you'll find a lot of hidden talent with people who can do things you don't expect them to do". While Mr Blyth has no plans to pursue a full-time career in voice acting, he says he is open to other projects while keeping the drinks flowing at the pub."It's always nice to have more than one thing going on in your life," he added."A pub can inflate to fill every aspect of your life, and if you let it, it can become your everything."And to have that little thing on the side to keep the creativity ticking over is nice and makes you feel a bit more rounded as a person rather than just the jovial barman."While he did not bring the title for the best performer home, Mr Blyth says the experience is something he now casually drops in conversations."I'm glad I didn't win because it stops it going to my head," he added."[It was] great to get my hopes up and have them dashed to keep my feet on the ground, although I can't not tell people that I was nominated for a Bafta. That's all I was saying for a week."
Sky News
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
BAFTA Games Awards: Full list of winners
The BAFTA Games Awards celebrate gaming excellence and creative achievement in the best games of the last year. Hosted by comedian Phil Wang for the second year running, the biggest names in gaming gathered at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. With 41 games nominated across 17 categories, here are all the winners - in bold - from the night. Animation Astro Bot Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 LEGO Horizon Adventures Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Thank Goodness You're Here! Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Artistic Achievement Astro Bot Black Myth: Wukong Harold Halibut Neva Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Still Wakes the Deep Audio Achievement ANIMAL WELL Astro Bot Helldivers 2 Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Star Wars Outlaws Still Wakes the Deep Best Game Astro Bot Balatro Black Myth: Wukong Helldivers 2 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Thank Goodness You're Here! British Game A Highland Song LEGO Horizon Adventures Paper Trail Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Still Wakes the Deep Thank Goodness You're Here! Debut Game ANIMAL WELL Balatro Pacific Drive The Plucky Squire Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Thank Goodness You're Here! Evolving Game Diablo IV FINAL FANTASY XIV ONLINE No Man's Sky Sea of Thieves Vampire Survivors World of Warcraft Family Astro Bot Cat Quest III LEGO Horizon Adventures Little Kitty, Big City The Plucky Squire Super Mario Party Jamboree Game Beyond Entertainment Botany Manor Kind Words 2 (lofi city pop) Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Tales of Kenzera: ZAU Tetris Forever Vampire Therapist Game Design ANIMAL WELL Astro Bot Balatro Helldivers 2 The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Tactical Breach Wizards Multiplayer Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Helldivers 2 LEGO Horizon Adventures Super Mario Party Jamboree TEKKEN 8 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Music Astro Bot Black Myth: Wukong FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH Helldivers 2 Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Star Wars Outlaws Narrative Black Myth: Wukong Dragon Age: The Veilguard FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH Metaphor: ReFantazio Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Still Wakes the Deep New Intellectual Property ANIMAL WELL Balatro Black Myth: Wukong Metaphor: ReFantazio Still Wakes the Deep Thank Goodness You're Here! Technical Achievement Astro Bot Black Myth: Wukong Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Tiny Glade Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Performer in a Leading Role Alec Newman as Cameron 'Caz' McLeary in Still Wakes the Deep Humberly González as Kay Vess in Star Wars Outlaws Isabella Inchbald as Indika in INDIKA Luke Roberts as James Sunderland in SILENT HILL 2 Melina Juergens as Senua in Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Y'lan Noel as Troy Marshall in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Performer in a Supporting Role Abbi Greenland & Helen Goalen as The Furies in Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Aldís Amah Hamilton as Ástríðr in Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Jon Blyth as Big Ron in Thank Goodness You're Here! Karen Dunbar as Finlay in Still Wakes the Deep Matt Berry as Herbert the Gardner in Thank Goodness You're Here! Michael Abubakar as Brodie in Still Wakes the Deep
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Astro Bot sweeps Bafta Game Awards with five wins
PlayStation game Astro Bot was the big winner at the 21st Bafta Game Awards, picking up five awards, including best game. The platform game, which was released to mark PlayStation's 30th anniversary, also picked up the awards for animation, audio achievement, family and game design. British game Still Wakes the Deep, a horror game set on a Scottish drilling platform, won three awards – new intellectual property, performer in a leading role for Alec Newman and performer in a supporting role for Karen Dunbar. The winner of the 2025 BAFTA for British Game is…Thank Goodness You're Here! 🎮 #BAFTAGamesAwards — BAFTA Games (@BAFTAGames) April 8, 2025 Elsewhere, independent Yorkshire studio Coal Supper's Thank Goodness You're Here! won the award for British Game and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, which had led the field with 11 nominations, won the technical achievement award. Poker-themed Balatro won the award for debut game. There were also two wins for Helldivers 2, while Metaphor: Refantazio won the prize for narrative and Tales of Kenzera: Zau won the game beyond entertainment award. Meanwhile, the Bafta Fellowship was awarded to composer Yoko Shimomura, in recognition of her contribution to music in video games, which has included her work on the Kingdom Hearts series.
The Guardian
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Neva to A Highland Song, the Baftas are a reminder of how creative games can be
It's easy to feel a bit beset by doom these days. The other week, I watched the heinous AI-generated 'Trump Gaza' video and was so appalled that I impulse-bought a kayaking guide book. It felt like the only sane response was to take to the water and paddle away. Video games are a reliable antidote to existential doom, but layoffs, corporate homogenisation and AI slop are all encroaching on my safe haven, making it more difficult to get a brief reprieve from what's happening in the outside world. Thank God, then, for the Bafta games awards nominations, which reliably remind me that video games are pretty great, actually. The 2025 picks were announced last week (right after my newsletter deadline, as longtime readers will know is now tradition). In my opinion, Bafta's event is the classiest and least commercial of the gaming awards shows, and its judging panels, with a mix of video game industry professionals and specialists from Bafta's membership and beyond, usually come out with the broadest range of picks. I always see a lot of what I personally love about video games in these nominations: their sheer creative variation and vivacity. (Disclosure: over the years I've been involved with these judging panels in various capacities, but not in 2025.) The eligibility period runs from November 2023 to November 2024, so there are no nominations for the superb Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. (I feel so sorry for great games that come out in December.) One of my favourites I played made the cut: A Highland Song, a magical-realist game about running through the Scottish mountains, is up for best British game, alongside another Scottish-set game called Still Wakes the Deep, a cosmic horror thriller set on a North Sea oil rig. Yorkshire-ish comedy Thank Goodness You're Here! is also up for this award, as are Lego Horizon Adventures, Paper Trail and Hellblade II. Hellblade II is actually the most-nominated game overall, appearing in 11 categories. Still Wakes the Deep, meanwhile, appeared in eight, and Thank Goodness You're Here in seven. If I may be allowed some very mild patriotism, Britain's games industry should be very proud of its output last year, which was overall a horrid one for those working in the business of play. Delightfully, Thank Goodness You're Here! made it into the best game category with Astro Bot, Black Myth: Wukong, Balatro, Helldivers 2, and Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, a game that I liked less, apparently, than almost everyone else. There are a bunch of big games here in various categories, but what I like about the Baftas is that indie games aren't relegated to their own specific category: they appear everywhere, resulting in an enjoyably unpredictable slate. The stop-motion submarine puppet adventure game Harold Halibut and the warrior-and-wolf environmentalist action game Neva (a personal fave) are up for the artistic achievement award, next to big titles including Astro Bot and Wukong. The ambiguously named 'games beyond entertainment' category is always my favourite to peruse, partly because of the nebulous definition: these are all games with some kind of message or intended wider meaning. We have Kind Words, in which you send nice messages to strangers or send your worries out into the world. There's Botany Manor, about exploring the home of a Victorian botanist. Tales of Kenzera: Zau was informed by its director's grief after the death of his father. Tetris Forever is a fascinating interactive documentary about the block-arranging game, and an insight into a wild period of video game history. Hellblade is in there, too, presumably because of its portrayal of living with psychosis. And then there's Vampire Therapist, in which you are a cowboy talking the immortal undead through their emotional baggage. I had never heard of this game, and will be downloading it forthwith. Last year's awards were so comprehensively dominated by Baldur's Gate 3 that the show lacked its usual propensity for surprises, but a lot of the categories this year are much tighter. The show is on 8 April at 7pm BST, hosted once again by comedian Phil Wang, and pretty much everything on this list of nominations would be a worthy winner. That said: if the gloriously clever and maximalist role-playing game Metaphor: ReFantazio doesn't win best narrative, I'll be fumin'. Wanderstop is game is about a formerly fearsome warrior forced to slow the heck down and run a whimsical tea shop in a fantasy forest, and she is not happy about it. It's also a game about burnout. Co-written by Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide) and Karla Zimonja (Gone Home), it will speak to anyone who has ever overinvested in their work and found the meaning suddenly stripped from their life when they can no longer work like they used to. (No idea what you're talking about.) Available on: PS5, Xbox, PC Estimated playtime: 10 hours Inspired by a Bafta survey, I asked a bunch of interesting and distinguished people for their most influential video game of all time. No two people picked the same game. Most of their selections were so brilliantly esoteric that I felt distinctly boring for picking something relatively predictable. Sony has been experimenting with AI-powered game characters: an AI version of Aloy from Horizon was leaked to the Verge, talking to the player in a synthesised voice. Important reminder: Horizon is a story about how greedy technocrats destroyed the earth with the help of AI. There's a new 'official' trailer for The Last of Us season two, with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay returning as heroes Joel and Ellie. Those of us who have played the game will know there is, uh, plenty the trailer doesn't show … And speaking of trailers, there's a 10-minute (yes, 10) trailer for Death Stranding 2, which will be released on 26 June. Being a Hideo Kojima game, it looks equal parts creative, confusing and utterly bonkers. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion 'A lot worse than expected': AI Pac-Man clones, reviewed Are AI-generated video games really on the horizon? Atomfall, the survival game that draws from classic British sci-fi If we're going to rank the hottest video game characters, let's not be boring about it | Amelia Tait Expelled! – turning the tables on the private school class hierarchy | ★★★★☆ Two Point Museum – curate your own fun in this museum management game | ★★★★★ Reader Robin provides this week's question: 'Here's a question I can't get out of my head: how can you play Monster Hunter!? I'm not squeamish at all but I could barely get through a training session, which involved hurting a harmless creature trapped in an arena … I was disgusted and my son was horrified. Then some innocent creature lay dying and I was pulling silly faces and taking photos of the poor thing as it breathed its last. And if Monster Hunter didn't do it for you, what has prompted you to walk away from a game?' This is such a valid question! I was vegetarian for 12 years and yet throughout, I happily cut down majestic creatures in Monster Hunter and felt proud of my achievements. I am so fascinated by this dichotomy that I wrote a whole article about it when Monster Hunter: World came out in 2018. Forgive me for quoting myself, but here's what I wrote: One of the functions of fantasy violence, whether in Monster Hunter or Game of Thrones, is to prompt reflection on the role that violence plays in the real world and in human nature. Monster Hunter might involve killing, but it also restores humans to the hierarchy of the natural world … Perhaps spending hours of my leisure time pretending to be a hunter-gatherer-warrior is an outlet for the slavering carnivore within. I am not vegetarian any more, but I fully acknowledge the dissonance between respecting and admiring these incredible virtual creatures and then killing them to make fancy helmets. The latest game does a lot of cognitive somersaulting in its story to try to make out that killing these dangerous beasts is noble because we do it to protect people and the ecosystem. But on a base level, we're doing it because it's fun, and that is pretty gross on one level. On another: it's fantasy. With absolutely no judgment towards fans of first-person shooters, I am personally more comfortable with killing virtual dragons than killing virtual people. On to the second part of your question: one moment in Grand Theft Auto V made me so uncomfortable that I had to fetch my partner to play through the scene for me. A scene in the story that involves a hillbilly psycho capturing and torturing a guy who is Middle Eastern. You have no choice but to actively participate, and it made me feel nauseated. It's obviously intended to be satirical commentary on the US government's immediate recourse to torture after 9/11, but it massively missed the mark for me. If you've got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Hellblade 2 leads the way at Bafta Games Awards
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II has picked up the most nominations at this year's Bafta Games Awards. The action-adventure game, developed by Cambridge-based studio Ninja Theory, is up for awards in 11 out of 14 categories at the annual ceremony. It's in the running for best game alongside 3D platformer Astro Bot - up for eight awards - which clinched top prize at the US-based Game Awards in December. The event, considered one of the most prestigious in the games industry calendar, will be held in London on 8 April. The other contenders in the best game category are: Balatro - a poker-inspired card game Black Myth: Wukong - an action-adventure made in China and inspired by a popular myth Helldivers II - a multiplayer co-operative shooter The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - the first game in Nintendo's popular series to star the princess it's named after Thank Goodness You're Here! - a wacky cartoon adventure game developed by two friends from Barnsley Bafta hands out prizes each year in a range of categories, including acting, music and game design. Three of the six most-nominated games this year were made in the UK. Still Wakes the Deep, from Scottish studio The Chinese Room, is up for eight awards, while Thank Goodness You're Here! is up for seven. Lego: Horizon Adventures, based on the PlayStation series and largely developed by London-based Studio Gobo, is nominated in four categories. Indie hits Animal Well and Balatro, each have four nominations, as does Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is a sequel to Senua's Sacrifice - which picked up five awards at 2018's gaming Baftas. Its 11 nominations might surprise some - the game was an impressive technical showcase and received positive if not outstanding reviews. However, like the first game, it was praised for its sensitive depiction of the main character's psychosis. Bafta Games committee chair Tara Saunders tells BBC Newsbeat it represents "a strong year for British-made games". She says the voting panel is made up of members across the world who take the awards "very seriously" and vote based on a range of features. "It's all about excellence," she says. "Excellence in the crafts and maybe some of those games have nailed all of those craft areas." Bafta CEO Jane Millichip agrees, and wants to embrace the fact they have a British game category. "Our members are international and they're the people who choose," she says. Arranged by number of categories: Senua's Saga: 11 Astro Bot and Still Wakes the Deep - eight Thank Goodness You're Here! - seven Black Myth: Wukong - five Read more about the nominees: 'Dead reyt': The love letter to Yorkshire making gamers cry laughing Mind games: Hellblade returns to explore psychosis Astro Bot: Could the old-school hit reshape PS5's future? The Bafta Games Awards are no stranger to the odd upset. In 2023, Vampire Survivors - made by a tiny British studio - beat Sony's God of War: Ragnarök to the top prize. This year's best game field has a similar mix of big-budget blockbusters and indie hits. "I love that Bafta can surprise, I love that it's not a given and we can get to that night and we don't know what's going to come out on top," Tara says. "It's putting a spotlight on some really tiny games that might have slipped by." Metaphor: Refantazio and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, two games that featured prominently in nominations elsewhere, only picked up three nominations between them. Times remain tough for people working in the games industry worldwide, with mass layoffs, studio closures and cancelled projects continuing to make headlines. Tara says awards like the Baftas are "a beacon of light in the dark times". "It's really important to pause and celebrate the teams and individuals that have crafted these standout games experiences," she says. And Jane, who also oversees Bafta's events across film, TV and other creative industries, says the gaming awards are a place for people to support each other. "I've never seen a community cheer so much when they lose, it's a brilliant thing to behold," she says. "It's so wonderful to see the whole games community being so supportive of each other and there to celebrate the sector, not themselves. "It's kind of devoid of ego and that's great." You can find a full list of Bafta Games Awards nominations for 2025 here. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
