The winner of Destructoid’s Best Multiplayer Design of the year is…

…not a first-person shooter

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[Image credit: Mike Lambert]

Counting up the votes for Dtoid’s Best Multiplayer Design was exciting. I had no idea how the voting would go. Big games like Destiny, Titanfall, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare didn’t do half as well as you might have expected In fact, Advanced Warfare got just as many votes as small-but-scrappy titles like Sportsball and 1001 Spikes. Nidhogg and Sportsfriends managed to beat the lot of them though, landing near the middle of the ranks.

Sadly, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare didn’t do so hot, though I chalk that up in part to the fact that not a ton of our staff have played it yet. On the other hand, it was nice to see a strong showing from write-ins like Samurai Gunn, Octodad, Divinity: Original Sin, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Screencheat, Crawl, Cannon BrawlGang Beasts, Mercenary Kings, Hearthstone, Magicka Wizard, and GTA Online.

In the end, it was down to three big games: Towerfall: Ascension, Mario Kart 8, and Smash Bros. for Wii U. Keep reading to find out which title won, and don’t forget to vote in the Reader Poll!

[Image by Thormeister]

Don’t act too surprised. Like you might have guessed, Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U won our award for Best Multiplayer Design, and for good reason. Eight-player brawls, the Smash Tour board game mode, the incredibly varied and interesting character roster, co-op in just about everything, and the weird “multiplayer against your toys” amiibo integration all added together to help Smash Bros. push past the always crowd-pleasing Mario Kart 8 and the young and plucky Towerfall: Ascension. That’s not to say it wasn’t close call. This one was a squeaker. If just one of our staff members had voted differently, either of the two runners-up could have taken the top spot.

Congratulations to the teams at Nintendo, Bandai Namco Entertainment, and Sora for the win! Now about that rumored Ice Climbers DLC…

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Jonathan Holmes
Destructoid Contributor - Jonathan Holmes has been a media star since the Road Rules days, and spends his time covering oddities and indies for Destructoid, with over a decade of industry experience "Where do dreams end and reality begin? Videogames, I suppose."- Gainax, FLCL Vol. 1 "The beach, the trees, even the clouds in the sky... everything is build from little tiny pieces of stuff. Just like in a Gameboy game... a nice tight little world... and all its inhabitants... made out of little building blocks... Why can't these little pixels be the building blocks for love..? For loss... for understanding"- James Kochalka, Reinventing Everything part 1 "I wonder if James Kolchalka has played Mother 3 yet?" Jonathan Holmes
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