Earlier this week, Tuesday 5th July, the Italian Game Awards gave its top honour to Hot Wheels Unleashed – Best Italian Game.
It was the 10th annual awards ceremony, part of Italy’s First Playable event. The Milanese studio Milestone took home the top gong after the panel decided its debut Hot Wheels game was the best game to come out of the region over the past year.
The game made it into our best games of 2021 list and has since seen a slew of post-release additional content. It has surpassed one million copies sold, beating the development team’s expectations.
Motorcycle simulator RiMS Racing was nominated for the Best Italian Debut Game but lost out to platformer Vesper.
Interestingly, however, the newly expanded studio that created RiMS and a future, unannounced, titles – Nacon Studio Milan – did win the Outstanding Italian Company award.
“Our main objective at Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association is to encourage the growth of our national video game industry and to share it internationally, and the Italian Video Game Award ceremony has succeeded in that”, said Thalita Malagò, General Manager at IIDEA.
This game, Hot Wheels Unleashed, has been beating all the records for us. More than a million copies sold and half a million liveries created,” said Michele Caletti, Executive Producer at Milestone after receiving the top award.
“Milestone is a studio that is getting used to bigger and bigger games. Everyone, 260 people, we’re dedicated and committed to the success of this game.”
