Nintendo Reminds Fans Zelda Is Up For Nomination At This Year's Game Awards

The game is a great one, i'd say it has a decent chance at winning.

While flawed, I do think TOTK should win the award.

I don't think it deserves it, personally. And this is coming from a hardcore Nintendo fanboy who hasn't played any of the other nominees except Mario Wonder.

It would be awesome if Wonder won, but I’d be satisfied with spider man 2 or Totk winning

No way this game deserves Game of the Year award after Breath of the Wild already won in 2017 and Tears already re-uses the same features as the previous game. Only difference is you get to build a bunch of contraptions to traverse mostly the same world and find more parts to explore the world and repeat the same gameplay loop as the previous game.

If any game deserves praise for breaking new ground it should be Baldur's Gate 3 because it has a ton of features and is actually a new game worth $70. Just don't tell Nintendo fanboys that since they will defend any Zelda game to high heaven and call it a 10/10 no matter what.

Over Baldur's Gate 3? No.

TOTK, another innovation that uses one imagination to create good and indecent inventions what else can one ask for???

I don't vote any games from list above.
I would rather nominate Bluey as my GOTY candidate.

Hope any other nominee wins except TOTK…. The less accolades it gets the better chances we have to having Zelda back to form again.

Btw… It’s laughable to nominate TOTK for best musical score 😒

I just feel like there's an non-tendo bias at these things so I'm doubtful it'll win. My gut tells me Baldur's Gate will take it but I haven't play that or the other nominees other than Zelda. Who knows, BotW won in 2017 but that was brand new.

100% my GotY and one of the absolute best games I've ever played. This game captured me in a way that I had hoped BotW would have.

I'm getting older and close to quitting gaming because I've played everything out there and I'm getting bored after gaming my whole life. But TotK got me fully hooked for 120 hours and excited about gaming like I was a kid again.

It's sad people really discredit how much work went into the game. It's not remotely a DLC-quality release. Both the main campaign and the side quests are way more interesting. The shrines are much more fun. Masterhand is really cool for creative types, but even if you're not that, then Fuse, Rewind, and Ascend are game changing enough to create a fully fresh experience.

Really hope totk wins. It's quite possibly my favorite game ever.

TotK is an absolutely fantastic game, in my top games of all time, and is truly a feat of software engineering, but even having not played it, BG3 definitely deserves it. Everything I've heard about the game is positive, I've been told about the amazing designs of characters, music, and the interactions with bears. And honestly, I think I've matured in the aspect of realizing that the GOTY does not matter. These are all surely fantastic games in their own ways and the fact that they were nominated at all prove that.

@russell-marlow I wouldn't be a fanboy if the games weren't 10/10

A Nintendo game will never win GOTY again. Too many of the folks voting think they're too cool for Nintendo.

Honestly, with so many GotY worthy titles this year, I am impressed Tears of the Kingdom didn’t get snubbed. The reality is Baldur’s Gate III moved the medium forward in a meaningful way not only from a quality perspective but also community engagement perspective that no one really expected and it’s holding a 96 Metacritic score.

I think the category best Action-Adventure game is a good opportunity for Tears of the Kingdom.

My personal GotY is surprisingly Resident Evil 4 Remake. I thought the effort to remake RE4 and change the themes, make the game darker, modify level design, and all sorts of changes would ruin what was essentially a perfect game. They nailed it and it’s my favourite remake to date.

So many great games… any one game in a normal year really deserves the win but with SO much competition, we all know it’s Baldur’s Gate III.

Honestly don’t really think it deserves it.

Is it a good game? Yes. Maybe even great. Not to beat a long dead horse, but it really is just a $70 expansion to BotW. The map is more or less copy and paste with a few doodads here and there. The underground and sky islands are neat in concept, but end up falling flat because its just the same environments copy and pasted. The flaws of the core gameplay still exist, with entire features replaced with less intuitive ones. It feels strange to say given the long wait, but I think the game is unfinished and didn’t quite reach the ambition of its predecessor.

@russell-marlow i think so myself and have said it for that reason along with baldur's gate that is why totk will not win game of the year..

The game awards are worthless anymore. You vote online and sign up with an email and just like review bombing people use dozens of emails to go cast their votes. No 1 vote per person equals worthless.

@russell-marlow I disagree. The fact that BotW already won just gives TotK even more reason to be up there. The fact that it even is shows how far we have not actually came in gaming. BG3 is good but nowhere as good as it should have been.

@DdG1408

That’s not how it works. From their FAQ

“ Winners are determined by a blended vote between the voting jury (90%) and public fan voting (10%).”

The voting jury is made up of various individuals or representatives from media and influencers within the industry just FYI.

@Not_Soos I respect your insane opinion. (Jokes)

I'm supposed to vote?

Easily my GotY this year(favorite game of all time too). 100% deserves it in my eyes.

That’s tough to vote when I have played so few of these games. I did my bit for TotK though. It was a good game, but BotW just had a little bit more magic for me

This cite has an extremely cynical comment section it’s getting to ign levels

@russell-marlow @Not_Soos I'm going to be the crazy one here and say none of the nominations this year deserve GOTY award.

@Hwatt and the public fan voting doesn’t play a part in it? That’s what I am talking about.
As far as media and influencers voting I care less what they have to say. They are all bought already. I have never agreed with any of their opinions. In fact they shouldn’t even have such a huge take on it even. A few hundred or a couple thousand even people should not be the ones that decide who wins and who doesn’t.
If they really want unbiased awards they need to have a legit way of signing up and the people and people alone vote.
No one should be ok with one person have 5xs more voting power than us.

I would be shocked if Baldur's Gate 3 loses.

TOTK is good but Baldur's gate 3 is definitely GOTY. Some of the other options are laughable though. I love how Blizzard is calling Diablo 4 a GOTY contender, for example. It's trash.

Valiant effort from Nintendo, but who are we kidding? GoTY is gonna be Baldurs Gate

Sorry TOTK, but I voited for Spider-Man 2 and FFXVI mostly. But I chose Fire Emblem Engage as a best strategic game of this year.

I tried to like Baldurs Gate 3, but it’s so dull. It’ll probably win because life. I’m just glad I could skip all the esports categories

@AnVold FFXVI was a beautiful looking game with great music and voice acting, but it was fairly linear and easy. I suck at games generally and I only died once. Plus there’s no replay value

@FawfulsFury i think thats just kind of internet discussion for ya

@SpoonySpoons i agree 100%. I feel underwhelmed with the end product after all the cryptic, drip-fed hype. But damn, if it isnt some good dlc

Wow there's some really salty people on here, yeah you can not like the game but wishing/hoping it doesn't win is a bit too much.

Personally I'm voting for it any chance I get, it's the best game I've played out of the nominees and quite easily. Also wish award sites like this start doing a JRPG of the year award as so many get missed just because of their nicheness.

@Mattock1987 yeah, I voited for it in best soundtrack category (Or how it called? I forgot already)
Yes, it fairy linear and I like it. I already tired of big empty and boring open worlds.
I don't use a noob rings for auto-combo and auto-evasion and I enjoy a gameplay a lot. And yes, there is no replay value. I don't see a problem in it, cause I still have a lot of games to play.

@Yoshif3
You'll never get the old Zelda formula back regardless of how many awards TOTK receives. Better to deal with that now and move on.

@Yoshif3 We won't have Zelda back to form just because it may lose awards. The game already almost got perfect scores by reviewers and is considered the fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time.

really do feel this game is going to get the Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword treatment in a few years:
initially given 10/10, but then people realise it's far from that level.

@westman98

just like how they didn't do another top down Zelda after the series went 3D.

On IGN today I saw 2 game trailer pages in a row, with commenters complaining that the main character (in 2 different games) was female. And then a movie trailer with complaints that the main character in an action movie is female.

And their comments all got lots of "likes". It's like the dregs of the Earth over there.

Question: if turn-based RPGs are not your cup of tea, is Baldur's Gate 3 still game of the year? There's people out there who won't touch that style of game with a 10 foot pole and associate it with D&D/Games Workshop fans...I don't have anything to play it on so I'm in no place to judge.

I hope that a Nintendo game wins it. For me Zelda should win it as it has a more broad appeal, especially to children. It has always been a shining gaming beacon, and a catalyst to so many game mechanics and structures over the years. I have yet to play Baldur's Gate 3 but have heard many good things, so am looking forward to trying it. But It has been a great year in gaming. and Zelda has now twice helped the Switch to dominate the market.

@Hisui25002 wait… didn’t Skyward Sword get perfect scores on release… and how did that turn out? LMAO.

Every Zelda gets 10s on release… then, after the honeymoon period is over, everyone realizes its mistakes and ask for something new in the formula.

And the sales argument is moot. Best selling Zelda in an age where there are more gamers than before, Zelda is better known, and in a console where the attach rate is phenomenal, and where EVERY SINGLE IP has sold better than its predecessors? Who would have guessed?

That’s a testament of how good the console is… not the game.
And you can add that many fell into the trap, bought the game expecting something new and different, just like myself and many others here.
There’s a reason why the retail and resale price has dropped considerably for a “$70 value” AND Nintendo game.

The most awe inspiring game I've ever played is Tears of the Kingdom, so it'll make sense if it wins. If it doesn't that's no big deal. I can't believe how generously packed with awesome stuff TOTK is. There's many armor/clothing pieces I haven't gotten yet, including one that gives you an awesome new way to attack. There's about 115 caves I haven't explored yet, at least 20 lightroots I haven't lit yet, and who knows how many side quests and koroks I haven't experienced yet. And I've played the game hundreds of hours. Of course I've spent plenty of time messing around, building ridiculous 5 story horse trailers, aircrafts that look like visual neurosis (with like 16 elevator rails going far in many directions), bouncing off bubbul frog's opaque bubbles in beautiful caves, and repeatedly using recall on sky rocks just to fly around and observe the beautiful light, clouds, and landscapes, and then gliding back to my horse to continue wandering about. Also, the theme that's in the big reveal trailer, the subtle shrine music, the Lookout Landing song, and the Colgera theme music (really the whole build up of music as you ascend into the sky onto the boats and over the circular wall of storm clouds) make this my favorite game soundtrack. Plus I already loved the Lurelin, Hateno, and Karariko themes. The caves also had expertly done sound design. Oh, and the Depths have awesome music/sound too!

@WiltonRoots It's a very niche style of game, but this one has caught more mainstream attention, I believe. I haven't played it myself, but I really enjoyed the studio's previous game, Divinity Original Sin 2, which is on Switch, so I imagine that BG3 is equally as good. I've heard that the third act isn't as polished though and that there are a lot of bugs in the game. I also think that parts of its fanbase has gotten very toxic lately, saying no other game is as good at it, calling other games sh*t, etc. It's quite sad.

Regarding the GOTY award, I truly don't care. It doesn't make the game winning it any better or the games not winning it any worse. In the end, it is all about opinions, though some people seem to think their opinions are the only ones that are valid. Thus the GOTY award contributes to the increasing and unpleasant toxicity in the gaming community, with fanboys hurling insults at each other over which video game is the best and why other great titles therefore must suck. Sigh...

@Quarth Cheers. Figured as much, might be the darling game of the crowd who are into that sort of thing (much like Elden Ring/Dark Souls), but outside of that circle there's bound to be people who bought it off the hype and the graphics and then realised it's not what they thought it was...a bit like I've hyped Dragon Quest XI to people and you can feel their hesitancy because it's a JRPG.

@WiltonRoots Yeah, that might be the case: the hype machine bringing it up. But that's how it works with most big games.

It seems to be a good game, great even, but people seems to be very forgiving of its flaws, at least on Reddit downvoting every critical comment. But that is Reddit in a nutshell.

@TheBigK I wouldn’t say there’s a bias against Nintendo since they never really have games that qualify for goty and if they do then all the other games just out class Nintendo so they just dominate the family games space

@JohnnyMind While I myself got burned out on the game after 40+ hours, I think it is a high quality game worthy of the praise it has gotten and it is a title that I will return to eventually (I loved BotW and played it the same way, with pauses in between). It is not a perfect game, but as you said: no game is.

But latley I've seen a trend of people hating on the game just because. I get that it is not for everyone, that it has some pacing issues and that some people want the old 3D Zelda formula back. Totally valid points. The game is not excluded from criticism. But a lot of the negativity I've seen is more in comparison to other games, especially now during the GOTY discussions, with it being called DLC and a carbon copy of BotW and that only blind Nintendo fanboys sees it as a masterpiece. I doubt a lot of those commenters have played the game at all, they just wants to put it down because it is in competition with their own favorite game for a stupid award. And of course there are TotK fans putting down the other games being nominated, to be fair.

As I said, the GOTY award (the Game Awards one, because it's the only one that matters apparently) is creating a toxic environment. It's just an industry award, by industry people, for industry people, presented during a show filled with ads and not a lot of substance.

My favorite game this year is Super Mario Wonder. Do I care if it wins some awards or not? No, because that doesn't impact my personal enjoyment of the game. Do I get that it is not for everyone? Yes, because taste is subjective.

Enjoy the games you enjoy. Criticise when you have valid points, but don't crap on other players taste just to validate your own.

I haven't remotely finished Baldur's Gate 3. I'm playing with friends and just haven't put in the hours but I can't imagine I'll put in as much time as in TotK. I haven't put as much time into TotK as BotW either. I think I played Pokemon Shield earlier this year and had a blast and put in 300ish hours, maybe that's my GotY? Haha

I'm not sure I understand what this category even means. Lot of amazing games this year. Surprised FFXVI wasn't nominated. They need a category for Remasters so Metroid Prime Remastered could win. Maybe I'm too confused to vote 😢

TotK felt like DLC.
They better make a completely new game next time, with no reused assets or maps.

When it comes to my favorite Nintendo game, this year, then it's definitely Super Mario Wonder.

But overall, Baldur's Gate 3, really deserves the award.

I have been playing 'Tears of the Kingdom' again for the first time in months after giving up playing it and have been enjoying it more the second time around but I still don't like it as much as 'Breath of the Wild' and I think they should have had an easy mode with less villains and easier to defeat Lynels, Gleeoks and Gloom Hands or brought back the Ancient Arrows and made it that you could get rid of Gleeoks and Gloom Hands with them too.

@FawfulsFury Unfortunately true. The more successful the game, the more contrarians who come out of the woodworks to profess their very-unique-opinions.

@Quarth It’s much the same as when people look at the charts and wonder why a game they like isn’t doing better. Some games are just niche and will never set the charts alight. Much like people who assume they speak for everyone when they think TOTK is terrible, using a handful of people on a niche site who agree with them as proof that everyone agrees. They don’t. Blinkers.

@JohnnyMind Thanks! Yeah, there are always games that will satisfy one's taste. I recently played through the Star Ocean 2 remake and it was excellent! Now I'm playing the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC, Future Redeemed, which also seems great!

@WiltonRoots Yeah, and nothing wrong with niche games really, I truly like some myself. But some people seem to think that everyone must agree with their taste or it is not valid, which is strange to me. Step out of the echo chamber, realise that opinions are diverse and enjoy what you enjoy.

@FaroreAbhorsen the original Metroid Prime already won a lot of GotY awards when it released 20 years ago so maybe it’s why it isn’t there? It really should be though

The Zelda fan in me wants it to win but that same Zelda fan also wants a more traditional Zelda going forward. I'm okay with Baldurs Gate 3 winning. Not okay with spiderman 2 winning due to sony's stance on certain real life subjects.
Wonder seems a great step forward for the 2D Mario games but I don't see it winning GOTY.

@Quarth yep it's all about accepting what the game is, much like despite the hype Metroid Prime 4 gets, when it releases it will never set the charts alight, if anything it will highlight how small the vocal minority are as that's their target market.

Baldur's Gate 3 is my GOTY but TOTK is a close 2nd so i'm happy with either winning.

I voted in all categories, and for TotK wherever it was available.

Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur's Gate 3 are both awesome games about freedom. I think they're both great games, but for me Baldur's Gate 3 was on another level. The characters have wonderful voice acting and backstories, the gameplay was innovative and addicting, the soundtrack was a banger. The amount of freedom and choices you could make that would influence the game were unprecedented.

Tears of the Kingdom I liked because it had the same gameplay as Breath of the Wild but with the addition of Ultra Hand. I had a fun time making crazy vehicles... But overall it didn't feel as refreshing as BG3. If ToTK took place in a new overworld it would've been a different story.

I vote 2023 for the year of the games award. How lucky we are to have 3 or 4 genuine contenders

Tears came so close to being great for me. After the excitement of building cool stuff dies down you quickly realize there aren't enough events or puzzles or battles that rely on it, it's more of an inconsequential albeit fun seasoning rather than a cleverly utilized mechanic outside a few moments in the "temples" and 30 or 40 shrines. The car and boat courses were insulting, literally just driving over a few lights. I wanted my inventions to really be challenged. The story was good but once again the scattershot memories killed a lot of the potential impact. I don't have as many complaints about the sky islands as a lot of people but I really feel the complaints about the depths, despite spending a hundred hours down there, the Yiga compounds were too simple, the scenery was too repetitive, the gloom was annoying and the rewards being mostly the same as what you get From Amiibo cards were very disappointing. There was a LOT in the game but once the hype and mystique died down and you could really observe it for what it is rather than what it could be it just felt like a lot of missed potential.
BG3 deserves this one hands down.

@russell-marlow In what way did Baldur's Gate 3 break new ground that other CRPGs haven't done already? Larian fanboys always proclaim their games as the greatest when they haven't played any other CRPG.

@Hwatt Baldur's Gate 3 didn't move the medium forward at all. Also Tears of the Kingdom is holding a 96 Metacritic review score from more reviewers.

Not to mention Baldur's Gate 3 shipped in a state where it was unfinished and buggy like Cyberpunk. For that alone, it doesn't deserve to win.

@TruestoryYep

As much as I love Tears and yes it does also have a 96, I just don’t see it on the same level.

BG III took table top DnD and made it main stream. Not to mention the game actually released three years ago in early access and has seen a ton of changes, driven by the community, and supported by the developers.

Those are very atypical situations and extremely rare when resulting in a 96 metacritic.

Those are the reasons why BG III will win. It’s not just the quality of the game. It’s everything the lead to the game and the on-going support. We have to split hairs this year because it’s STACKED with quality games.

@TruestoryYep Nintendo fanboys always simping for their pastel-colored kiddy games.

@DdG1408 Welp... I guess the people that voted for game of the year definitely disagreed there.