The Golden Joystick Awards crowned the PC Game of the Year at this year’s event in London on November 15.

There were 24 categories of awards, and a fan vote determined each category winner.

The winner of the category PC Game of the Year is a game that originally came out in the early 2000s, World of Warcraft (WoW) Classic!

WoW Classic is a recreation of World of Warcraft before any expansions, also known as Vanilla WoW.

WoW Classic did face some stiff competition, but ultimately came out on top. Here is the list of candidates that were competing for the Golden Joystick’s PC Game of the Year:

World of Warcraft Classic by Blizzard Entertainment
F1 2019 by Codemasters
Anno 1800 by Ubisoft and Ubisoft Blue Byte
Slay the Spire by Humble Bundle and MegaCrit
Sunless Skies by FailBetter Games
Heaven’s Vault by Inkle
TeamFight Tactics by Riot Games
Total War: Three Kingdoms by SEGA and Creative Assembly
Dicey Dungeons by Terry Cavanaugh
Age of Wonders: Planetfall by Paradox Interactive and Triumph Studios

In the end, the nostalgia and fan passion catapulted WoW Classic to the top. People had been clamoring to be taken back to old school Azeroth for over a decade, and it finally happened.

After each expansion, especially the Cataclysm expansion when Deathwing ravaged Azeroth and changed the appearance of many zones, the support for a dedicated Classic server grew.

Now, WoW Classic is a server option for World of Warcraft. If players go that route, they will go back in time to how things were. They will grind to level 60 and play an end game that had so many people teary-eyed just thinking about.

Since WoW Classic takes place before any expansion, it is missing a lot of content that is a part of the newest expansion Battle for Azeroth.

For example, players can only choose between the eight original races. The Alliance faction can only select between humans, gnomes, dwarves, and night elves, and the Horde faction can only choose between orcs, taurens, trolls, and the undead. Races that released in expansions like blood elves and worgens can’t be chosen.

However, gamers knew what they were getting into with WoW Classic, a recreated experience that they played 15 years ago.

When WoW Classic came out in August, people sat in the queue for hours, waiting to log on, each anticipating their own unique journey.

Some wanted to level as fast as possible to get to the level 60 endgame, and some wanted to progress at a leisurely pace, enjoying each zone as they came.

To many, this is a deserving game to win PC Game of the Year. Wow Classic genuinely delivers the experience so many people were hoping it would.

WoW Classic is currently releasing content updates in phases, and just launched the PvP Honor System along with two world bosses.