Board 8 > The Game Awards Nominees announced [Keighleys]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Game of the Year
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Balatro (LocalThunk/Playstack)
Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science)
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)

Best Game Direction
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Balatro (LocalThunk/Playstack)
Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science)
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)

Best Narrative
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega)
Metaphor: ReFantanzio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)
Senuas Saga: Hellblade II (Ninja Theory/Xbox Game Studios)
Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team/Konami)

Best Art Direction
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science)
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)
Neva (Nomada Studio/Devolver)

Best Score and Music
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)
Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team/Konami)
Stellar Blade (Shift Up/SIE)

Best Audio Design
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Treyarch/Raven/Activision/Xbox)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Senuas Saga: Hellblade 2 (Ninja Theory/Xbox Game Studios)
Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team/Konami)

Best Performance
Briana White, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Hannah Telle, Life is Strange: Double Exposure
Humberly Gonzlez, Star Wars Outlaws
Luke Roberts, Silent Hill 2
Melina Juergens, Senuas Saga: Hellblade 2

Innovation in Accessibility
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Treyarch/Raven/Activision/Xbox)
Diablo IV (Blizzard/Xbox)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (BioWare/EA)
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)
Star Wars Outlaws (Massive Entertainment/Ubisoft)

Games for Impact
Closer the Distance (Osmotic Studios/Skybound Games)
Indika (Odd Meter/11 Bit Studios)
Neva (Nomada Studio/Devolver)
Life is Strange: Double Exposure (Deck Nine/Square Enix)
Senuas Saga: Hellblade II (Ninja Theory/Xbox Game Studios)
Tales of Kenzera: Zau (Surgent Studios/EA)

Best Ongoing Game
Destiny 2 (Bungie/SIE)
Diablo IV (Blizzard/Xbox)
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/SIE)

Best Community Support
Baldurs Gate 3 (Larian)
Final Fantasy XIV (Square Enix)
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/SIE)
No Mans Sky (Hello Games)

Best Independent Game
Animal Well (Shared Memory/Bigmode)
Balatro (LocalThunk/Playstack)
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
Neva (Nomada Studio/Devolver)
UFO 50 (Mossmouth)

Best Debut Indie Game
Animal Well (Shared Memory/Bigmode)
Balatro (LocalThunk/Playstack)
Manor Lords (Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse)
Pacific Drive (Ironwood Studios/Kepler Interactive)
The Plucky Squire (All Possible Futures/Devolver)

Best Mobile Game
AFK Journey (FARLIGHT/Lilith Games)
Balatro (LocalThunk/Playstack)
Pokmon Trading Card Game Pocket (Creatures Inc/TPCI)
Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)
Zenless Zone Zero (miHoYo)

Best VR/AR Game
Arizona Sunshine Remake (Vertigo Games)
Asgards Wrath 2 (Sanzaru Games/Oculus Studios)
Batman: Arkham Shadow (Camouflaj/Oculus Studios)
Metal: Hellsinger VR (Lab 42/The Outsiders/Funcom)
Metro Awakening (Vertigo Games)

Best Action Game
Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Treyarch/Raven/Activision/Xbox)
Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/SIE)
Stellar Blade (Shift Up/SIE)
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (Saber Interactive/Focus Entertainment)

Best Action/Adventure Game
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)
Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team/Konami)
Star Wars Outlaws (Massive Entertainment/Ubisoft)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Grezzo/Nintendo)

Best RPG
Dragons Dogma 2 (Capcom)
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)

Best Fighting Game
Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO (Spike Chunsoft/Bandai Namco)
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (Arc System Works/Cygames)
Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics (Capcom)
MultiVersus (Player First Games/WB Games)
Tekken 8 (Bandai Namco)

Best Family Game
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Princess Peach: Showtime! (Good-Feel/Nintendo)
Super Mario Party Jamboree (Nintendo Cube/Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Grezzo/Nintendo)
The Plucky Squire (All Possible Futures/Devolver)

Best Sim/Strategy Game
Age of Mythology: Retold (Worlds Edge/Forgotten Empires/Xbox Game Studios)
Frostpunk 2 (11 Bit Studios)
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Capcom)
Manor Lords (Slavic Magic/Hooded Horse)
Unicorn Overlord (Vanillaware/Sega/Atlus)

Best Sports/Racing Game
F1 24 (Codemasters/EA Sports)
EA Sports FC 25 (EA Vancouver/EA Romania/EA Sports)
NBA 2K25 (Visual Concepts/2K)
Top Spin 2K25 (Hangar 13/2K)
WWE 2K24 (Visual Concepts/2K)

Best Multiplayer Game
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Treyarch/Raven/Activision/Xbox)
Helldivers 2 (Arrow Game Studios/SIE)
Super Mario Party Jamboree (Nintendo Cube/Nintendo)
Tekken 8 (Bandai Namco)
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 (Saber Interactive/Focus Entertainment)

Best Adaptation
Arcane (Riot/Fortiche/Netflix)
Fallout (Bethesda/Kilter Films/Amazon MGM Studios)
Knuckles (Sega/Paramount)
Like a Dragon: Yakuza (Sega/Amazon MGM Studios)
Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (Crystal Dynamics/Legendary/Netflix)

Most Anticipated Game
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Kojima Productions/SIE)
Ghost of Ytei (Sucker Punch Productions/SIE)
Grand Theft Auto VI (Rockstar Games)
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (Retro Studios/Nintendo)
Monster Hunter Wilds (Capcom)

Content Creator of the Year
CaseOh
IlloJuan
Techno Gamerz
TypicalGamer
Usada Pekora

Best Esports Game
Counter-Strike 2 (Valve)
DOTA 2 (Valve)
League of Legends (Riot Games)
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (Moonton)
Valorant (Riot Games)

Best Esports Athlete<

andylt posted...

Black Myth: Waking
Elden Ring Shadow of the Eritrea

My two favorite games

Also hell yeah, let's go AFK Journey :)

Metaphor having nobody nominated for Best Performance is a travesty, the (English at least from what I've played) voice actors are superb

Yeah where is Heismay for best performance. That VA is

will hope for Rebirth getting Best Score & Best RPG, would be surprised if it got anything else, really banking on third game getting "Return of the King" award show treatment, lol :(

Are there any past instances of DLC getting nominated in? Erdtree being eligible just feels so unfair, frankly...

no Hades II for anticipated game is criminal but I guess it's caught in awards show limbo of being in EA disqualifying it from that but not qualifying it for any proper categories.... or I guess those are 5 major game announcements so maybe it's fair enough.

I hope Animal Well wins. It's like Halo 2 meets Halo 3

Metaphor vs astro bot is the fight here but I wouldn't put it past Keighley to rig it for Elden Ring DLC

Oh wow CaseOh making it BIG huh? Genshin got robbed in the Best Ongoing department tbh. Sad nothing on the smaller side like Persona 3 Reload even got a VA spot.

(Edited to a more comprehensive list. Stupid Polygon only had half the categories)

I think Astro Bot takes this still.

Elden Ring DLC winning GotY would be so unfathomably stupid. And I enjoyed the DLC (not as much as base though)

DLC being on the GotY nominees is stupid as hell.

Astro Bot probably gonna sweep every category tbh

why?

PoP should win Innovation in Accessibility for being a Ubisoft game that's accessible offline

Yeah I'm confused about the DLC discourse. If a single DLC is good enough to be GOTY then what's the problem?

Why does it matter if it's a DLC or if they sell it as a standalone game if all of the content is the same?

Are people just upset that Elden Ring might win twice?

I'm surprised there's such a big backlash to Elden too, honestly. I'd understand the outrage if a remaster was up there, but not a DLC.

Best RPG interests me. With Elden Ring, FF7, and Metaphor in there, we could see who is likely in second place for GotY behind Astro Bot (assuming Astro wins of course).

Erdtree is basically a new game, it's fine. Hoping Rebirth, thinking Astro Bot which is also probably great (haven't played it yet)

As someone who very much did not like Elden Ring, I can't imagine I would like Erdtree. So it's basically a waste of a spot for me.

Ranking things it would be:

Balatro (LocalThunk/Playstack)
ASTRO BOT (Team Asobi/SIE)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Studio Zero/Atlus/Sega)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (Square Enix)
Black Myth: Wukong (Game Science) - Haven't played
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco) - Haven't played, but din't like the base game

I am once again asking them to split Performance into Lead and Supporting.

A DLC getting nominated for GotY is in fact dumb

Make a separate category

MartinFF7 posted...

will hope for Rebirth getting Best Score & Best RPG

As someone who loved Rebirth and would vote for it in almost any category, Score HAS to go to Fantazio.

Regarding the DLC discussion, the inclusion of Erdtree is totally justified

Really? I've never come away from Fantazio humming a damn thing. I hadn't thought about it before but compared to Persona games and especially compared to Rebirth the score feels totally unmemorable

My pet peeve is best indie and best debut indie having overlapping nominees. The winner of Best Indie always gets Debut Indie too when it's in both, I think. The point of having two categories should be to honor two separate games.

I would bet real life dollars that SH2 wins score

Steiner posted...

Really? I've never come away from Fantazio humming a damn thing. I hadn't thought about it before but compared to Persona games and especially compared to Rebirth the score feels totally unmemorable

So during my first few hours playing Fantazio I thought it couldn't compare to any of the Persona games, but all the battle themes are now ingrained in my brain (I blame the rapping monk)

I sadly feel nothing except the urge to go listen to Take Over again

linkhatesganon posted...

As someone who loved Rebirth and would vote for it in almost any category, Score HAS to go to Fantazio.

I am of the exact opposite opinion, where I think a OST is the ONLY thing Rebirth deserves, and Metaphor should beat it everywhere else.

Metaphor has some amazing tracks, but it's very limited. Meanwhile, the OST is the only thing I still look back on Rebirth fondly for at this point.

skullbone posted...

Yeah I'm confused about the DLC discourse. If a single DLC is good enough to be GOTY then what's the problem?

Why does it matter if it's a DLC or if they sell it as a standalone game if all of the content is the same?

Are people just upset that Elden Ring might win twice?

I personally wouldn't mind it winning, even if it should be in a different category. Though I've seen a very valid counter-argument people are making that you need to play through a significant amount of Elden Ring first to be able to access it.

FFDragon posted...

I would bet real life dollars that SH2 wins score

honestly it feels to me like they overproduced most tracks, but it was always going to be hard to live up to the actual perfection that is the original recorded soundtrack. I'd still take it as a legacy win for Yamaoka, though.

I wouldn't mind a dlc getting a game of the year nod if they didn't also refuse to ever nominate fighting games for anything other than Best Fighting Game regardless of how acclaimed they are

Metaphor's OST isn't catchy per se but it goes hard and does a great job with giving a grand fantasy feel to match the world, I do think it's fantastic

I am glad Stellar Blade at least got a nom for music.

You have to play through Elden Ring to play the DLC. It is an extension of the base game. It is not a standalone expansion. It'd be different if From released it as a separate campaign, but that's not what Erdtree is. It's an extension of a 2022 game.

Loved Erdtree. Never gonna replay it because of how much of the base game you have to beat to access it.

Johnbobb posted...

I wouldn't mind a dlc getting a game of the year nod if they didn't also refuse to ever nominate fighting games for anything other than Best Fighting Game regardless of how acclaimed they are

I actually just found out Smash got in because I was curious

although it had to go in a year later because of the cutoff

https://x.com/ChrisVoiceman/status/1858573127841665119

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Loved Erdtree. Never gonna replay it because of how much of the base game you have to beat to access it.

Hadnt even considered that. You straight up have to replay 90% of the game to play the DLC again.

Well at least I think this will probably be the last time this happens from the reaction.

Getting up to beating Mohg is not 90% of the game lol

But yea you do have to play a fair portion to get to it, I mean technically there's ways to get to Mohg quick but generally yea it's playing a fair bit

I'd say I beat Mohg like 85% of the way into the game. Playing normally, without obscure shortcuts, he is very much an endgame boss.

It was the way I played it!

"Just bumrush Radahn and Mohg to get to the DLC in no time at all, ignoring your level, weapon level, and flask upgrades!"

The least deranged Soulslike advice for the majority of the player base.

Also what's with Dragon Age 4 not even getting nominated for best RPG?

Johnbobb posted...

Also what's with Dragon Age 4 not even getting nominated for best RPG?

It didn't sell very well and disappointed around half the fanbase.

Not to mention that 3 of the 5 nominees in RPG are in GOTY so it's a tough crowd. I've heard repeated praise for Like a Dragon (and plenty of people on B8 putting it in mix for GOTY consideration) so then it's Dragon Age 4 vs. Dragon's Dogma 2 for the last spot there and can't recall the word on the street or what the release buzz was like re: DD2.

Last I heard about Dragon's Dogma 2 was that it rocked until the last act, which absolutely cratered to the point where a ton of people just quit playing and never finished it.

Johnbobb posted...

Also what's with Dragon Age 4 not even getting nominated for best RPG?

All the nominees reviewed better.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Last I heard about Dragon's Dogma 2 was that it rocked until the last act, which absolutely cratered to the point where a ton of people just quit playing and never finished it.

Isn't the game only two acts?

Huh, I'm realising it's been a big year for RPGs with Dragon in the title. At least Dragon Age got a single nom, that's one more than Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D!

Games with more than 2 noms:

7: Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
6: Metaphor: ReFantazio
5: Balatro, Silent Hill 2
4: Black Myth: Wukong, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Helldivers II, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II
3: Neva, Star Wars Outlaws

I wonder if Silent Hill was next in line for a GotY nom. I'll admit I know absolutely nothing about Black Myth Wukong but I'm surprised it got in over it!

How many winners will be read out by Keighley in between trailers for the new Fortnite battle pass and whatever open-world IP Ubisoft decides to bring back (My gut says Far Cry)?