We're fast approaching 'The Game Awards' for 2024 and the nominees across each category have now been revealed by the show's creator and host Geoff Keighley.
Starting with the 'Game of the Year' contenders, the nominees include Astro Bot, Balatro, Black Myth: Wukong, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Metaphor: Refantazio and the DLC Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
As recently revealed on The Game Awards' website, expansion packs, DLC, remakes, remasters and new game seasons are now eligible across all categories including the 'Game of the Year' award.
In terms of Nintendo titles nominated, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has been nominated for best action and adventure It's also picked up a "best family game" nomination alongside Princess Peach: Showtime! and Super Mario Party Jamboree.
The new Mario Party entry has been nominated for "best multiplayer" as well. In addition to this, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has been nominated in the "most anticipated category" and the Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket is up for "best mobile game".
The 'player's voice' rounds will open on 2nd December and will be followed by another two rounds where you can vote for your favourite games. The Game Awards for 2024 will air on 12th December. You can find out more in our full guide:
What are your thoughts about this year's nominations? Let us know in the comments.
[source thegameawards.com]
Comments 76
I forgot Showtime even came out this year. Fun game but not really the kind I'd give any awards to.
if DLC can get nominated for GOTY then we might as well get the Switch version 19.0.0 nominated. This is honestly ridiculous
also TTYD and Brothership not being here is a crime, although it is nice that I don't really have any reason to watch this XD
Doesnt the show air December 12th?
I know it didn't happen in 2022 or 2023 but will Nintendo Life be having a stream chat or will it just be Push Square and Pure Xbox?
@Lizuka Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I liked Princess Peach: Showtime enough to 100% it, but it’d have to be a really slow year for it to be the best game in any category.
I do hope the soundtrack shows up on Nintendo Music soon.
So the likes of a DLC, Balatro and Black Myth can be included to get a GOTY nomination, but we leave out a brand new Zelda Entry and/or the Mario RPG’s… what sort of rigged event is this exactly 🤣
Balatro, please, so the past 280 hours of my life will be validated.
Ngl I think Metaphor or AstroBot should win. They’re head and shoulders above the rest other than Erdtree, which as great as it is shouldn’t qualify for the category
DLC and a remake should NOT be nominated for GOTY
EoW is my goty.
Last year it was the indie game controversy, this year it's DLCs. I wonder how much of the reasoning behind these decisions is just to stir up conversation and make this ceremony feel relevant.
I thought that Animal Well was a lock for a GOTY nomination! That’s my only surprise here
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@MeanBeanEgg The game awards seems to hate sonic for some reason. Generations not getting nominated for anything (especially soundtrack) is straight up rediculous.
@Dom_31
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I wouldn’t have picked WuKong, but I also understand that gamers exist beyond the Anglosphere.
Out of the nominees, I'd like to see Astro Bot or Metaphor win Game of the Year.
We need an alternative award show.
This one needs to go.
Honestly, I've never liked how the best family game category has always been so biased toward Nintendo games when it comes to nominees. Thou it's always funny when almost all the nominees are Nintendo games yet Nintendo end up losing against the only non-Nintendo game.
My senses told me it's gonna be yet another terrible show. Both Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Elden Ring DLC don't belong to be nominated here as both are just expansion of already existing games. It's like nominating disc 2 of the same games that were already nominated the years before. No Ys X, no Blazing Strike, no Dragon Quest III 2D-HD, no Mario & Luigi Brothership, and no Visions of Mana are just disappointing.
And TTYD HD doesn't get nominated.... Nintendo games and low budget indie titles are basically being treated like the Oscars treat animated films
I guess my controversial opinion is that these seem like pretty reasonable nominations. Every GOTY nominee is great in their own way, some games unlucky to miss out but there's always a cut off somewhere.
Can't take those awards seriously.
Announcing that dlc is eligible for goty just so they can give it to Elden Ring?
Nominating pieces that aren't even considered good like the Yakuza show.
Giving an award to an upcoming game based on hype?
And nominating the same few titles for everything?
I thought Helldivers would get nominated for either GOTY or Game Direction over Black Myth Wukong. I’d argue Helldivers has better direction than all of the nominees.
Very interested to see where Best Sports/Racing game goes this year. Kinda thought EA College Football would make in the nominees and even take the award, but maybe its too American focused to earn the nom, where at least NBA has global appeal.
Given the pretty small amount of game adaptations released yearly, I was wondering if the well dislikedBorderlands movie would be nominated by default. Thankfully that’s not the case. Regardless though, Arcane Season 2 really doesn’t have any competition, even though and it just squeezed through in the nominations too, which is a shame for Fallout’s case.
Erdtree deserves its Game of the Year nom. Its an entirely different game from Elden Ring. Different campaign, different mechanics, different progression, different enemies, all of which is done very well. It’d be a shame to not recognize it as one of the best games this year because of semantics and technicalities.
My guess is either Astro Bot or Metaphor win Game of the Year. Leaning more towards Astro Bot, since I don’t know how confident a panel would be to award a game that’s in the triple digits in runtime and its been released for a month and half.
@NintendoByNature I agree. EoW is absolutely my GotY for this year. It's so much fun and a lot of love for the series went into creating it.
Last time I really tuned into this program Cranky Kong got a mention. I’m happy to leave it at that
As with most years, I've not bought a single one of the nominees. I pretty much just use this and all the summer events as my semi-annual exposure to the wider gaming community.
Elden ring dlc should not be legible for GotY. It's not a game, it's a dlc. And yeah, I know it's a big dlc and all of that, but monster hunter dlcs on world and rise were great as well. It feels like that dlc will get the GotY and the rest of nominated are just for the show... which is a shame, I'd love to see astrobot get the GotY.
For people complaining that DLC shouldn't be included: why?
I imagine people are going to say "it needs to be a full game to win" etc etc but... Why? I personally loved the DLC of both Breath of the Wild and Rayman Kingdom battle much more than the base games and would award those ahead of their base games
Astro Bot was the most fun I had this year. I will be happy if it wins.
My favourite Nintendo game this year was Mario vs. Donkey Kong. It feels so right and nostalgic, I love it. But I still have to play Brothership, so it could change.
These awards are truly embarrassing.
Not a mention to Mario & Luigi and Dragon Quest 3... Did they come out too late?? Also, STALKER 2, Fantasian and Indiana Jones are going to be out, left for next year's (basically gone).
These awards are strange, perhaps it would be a better idea to do this show on January, with ALL the games from that year included.
Here are all the Switch games nominated:
@Serpenterror Eldin Ring for sure shouldn’t be on here, but FF Rebirth is its own individual adventure. I put over 200 hours into this game and an “expansion” this sure as heck ain’t.
It would be like saying any sequel to an existing title is an expansion.
AnonyQ wrote:
Elden Ring won in 2022.
Let's say Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree wins this year.
Then they say, "hey, we're on a roll, why stop now?" and they add more expansions.
Elden Ring: Fires of the Crystal Shore wins in 2025.
Elden Ring: Swamps of the Dreaded Fate wins in 2026.
Elden Ring: Caves of the Wretched wins in 2027.
Elden RIng: Guys I think we made a mistake wins in 2028.
Elden Ring: Maybe we should have had a DLC category? wins in 2029.
Elden Ring: Or maybe DLC should be in 'Ongoing Game' or something? wins in 2030.
Is the DLC rule change 'actually' a new rule change anyway? The Witcher: Blood & Wine definitely won the best RPG category whatever year that was, and I think a Monster Hunter expansion, Last of Us DLC and probably a World of Warcraft expansion have all be nominated here and there.
I'm not saying I do or don't think they should be eligible, I just think they always have been.
@MontyCircus The old slippery slope argument.
Really don't think winning the game awards will be the deciding factor for them making more DLC. And if they do and it keeps winning? So what it means they're continuing to put out good content.
All game awards are pretty meaningless in the long run. It's mostly exposure and potentially a brag to put on the box/marketing material. And many of them don't even bother with that. But just like 'game of the year' labels, anyone can hand them out and they quickly mean nothing. Hence every year we have 30+ games claiming to be 'Game of the Year'.
So I wouldn't stress it. It means nothing.
The saltiness in the comments section is amazing. People really expect e.g. a more-or-less direct port of an admittedly great game from 20 years ago to be nominated for GOTY, but they complain about a meaty DLC being nominated? If that DLC was released separately, then suddenly it would magically be ok?
Echoes of Wisdom is IMO the most brilliant and creative game out this year. So carefully designed with excelent pacing and design. The soundtrack is also amazing. Not being nominated is just wrong, mkay?
From the nominees I'd go for Metaphor. Astro Bot is cool but not distinctive enough to be considered even close to the best 3D Marios out there. Balatro is very simple but addictive - this year's Vampire Survivors.
Would be surprised if Shadow of the Erdtree didn't win GOTY here as that's definitely why they allowed DLC etc. to be nominated, let's be honest (as much as I think it's not such a bad thing other than the suspicious timing unlike many here on Nintendo Life exactly because of how good those can be as shown by Shadow of the Erdtree itself based on what I've seen/heard of it) - personally, would love to see Astro Bot or Metaphor win!
Anyway, unfortunate even though expected that not a single Nintendo game has been nominated for GOTY, hope they'll at least win some awards in the other categories!
I would love it if Zelda won one of the categories, but it is competing against Astro Bot in both action/adventure and Family game, so it's quite possible Nintendo wins nothing this year.
Although Echoes of Wisdom is my personal GotY, I hope Astro Bot wins the GotY category since Zelda isn't an option.
I'm happy that Peach: Showtime made an appearance even though it has zero chance of winning; great under-rated game and one of my favorites of the year even though not quite my very favorite.
@Desy64 @sanderev It's sad Zelda wasn't a GotY nominee but given the low metacritic reviewer score it was always unlikely. The GotY nominees were literally just the top 4 metacritic scoring games plus Balatro which was in the top 10 plus a single lower-scoring exception, Black Myth: Wukong. Since a lot of publications took a point away from Zelda because of minor performance issues, I feel like it would have had a better chance of being nominated if it had released on the Switch 2, so I think of this as Switch simply showing it's age.
They bend the rules to specifically put in one of their favorite games....Oh my, who will win the categorie this year?! 🤔🤣
If I'm being honest Zelda really isn't hooking me like it should. It's great fun while playing, but not that "I can't wait to get home and squeeze in another hour" type of game a GOTY usually is.
I fear Brotherhood was to close to release.
And I found out we're all a bit/ a lot biased here, go look at the video game Reddit: Nintendo is an after thought at best with most gamers! 😳
@FishyS Yeah I suspect Nintendo will win nothing this year. So that it can be reported Astrobot won most of the 7 nominations it has.
I'm not going to bother watching this stuff because it's all about awarding a small handful of studios like Sony and From Software as many awards as possible every year they have a game instead of giving a diverse set of games recognition for diverse set of awards?
I'd bet Astrobot, FFVIIR, Elden Ring and Balatro will manage to collectively win more awards than every other game nominated
@garfreek Yet the Switch is the best selling console since PS2 and even in its 8th year games like Mario Party and Zelda: Echoes have sold better selling than the likes of FFVIIRebirth or Astrobot.
Sales shouldn't be everything but I think there's something weird when like in 2020 Animal Crossing managed to sell like 30million copies to TLOU2's 4million. The latter was apparently the Game of the Year with the most awards ever received by a game despite reviewing worse than its predecessor. Being given awards as if TLOU2 had surpassed its predecessor regardless of the fact it actually fumbled.
While Animal Crossing: New Horizon was the game people were actually playing, and was more popular than its predecessor, and more reflective of what games people were playing in 2020.
The FFVII remake series is floundering and Square is struggling for relevance, but it still has a strong showing at these award shows. Like it seems more like these shows are a manufactured vision of what the popular games should be rather than what they are.
@garfreek well, jazz is also an after thought at best with most music listeners. Not trying to be cynical here, but I wouldn't bet my taste against the majority. And I own all consoles (and most of the current games)
@FishyS if that's the criteria (Metacritic score) so be it. Would be nice if they showed the criteria, though
@Desy64 Metacritic score is definitely not an official criteria but there is overlap between reviewing outlets which effect metacritic score and the panel which chooses the nominees so it makes sense if the games which were liked during the reviews are still liked. Also, some of the panel outlets are not really gaming organizations at all so they may mostly know the most hyped games.
In practice the GotY category is almost always mostly games at or near the top of the metacritic list although games which got a ton of hype but didn't review as well sometimes make it also.
@FishyS sure. anyway, there's a huge degree of subjectivity in any kind of art and videogames are no different. it's awesome we can all share our different tastes and not rely on GoTY lists. that's how I always find new stuff to play that I wouldn't otherwise
Feels right to me that Nintendo has been left out of the overall GOTY category this year. I'm not sure all the nominees are deserving, but the consensus from most multiformat critics is that FF7 Rebirth and Astro Bot knocked it out of the park this year. Haven't played either yet, but hoping at least one of them will be under the Christmas tree next month.
@Desy64 Oh yeah, I definitely never rely on game awards to pick things I like. And although no one likes to admit it, some of the criteria for some of these nominations or votes may be sacks of money handed around 😆
Justice for PoP: The Lost Crown 😔 I knew it’d get snubbed despite being one of the best games this year by far.
I just don't want Back Myth Wukong to win. We can't give in to authoritarianism.
@Sonicka because EoW wasn't all that great.
@sanderev heck yeah, far away for me. Closest was Prince of Persia. Mario and Luigi is getting there too though.
@AnonyQ People get irrational when it comes to DLC. I mean, there are still people who act like it's unethical to begin working on DLC before the base game is on store shelves.
@Dom_31 I haven't even played it, but I knew exactly which DLC they were talking about before I clicked the article. It's a pretty big deal.
Space Marine 2, Stella Blade, Silent Hill 2 remake, Helldrivers 2, all losing a GotY nomination to dlc, what a joke.
As unlikely is it is (because it’s rigged), can only hope that Black Myth Wukong takes home the win. And would like to see Life is Strange, Star Wars and Dragon Age win nothing.
Why not just make a new category for best remaster/remake, and best DLC/New Season? Then we could see things like Metroid Prime: Remastered up for best remake, and Splatoon 3: Side Order as best expansion.
@AnonyQ Imagine if Doom wins GOTY every year cause it kept getting one or two new expansions one year after another and another and another. Would you want that? It's like gaming is all about Doom. If we allow Elden Ring DLC to get the GOTY win then the dev will abuse that same practice with a second DLC for next year and then a third DLC for the year after. It would be a very boring GOTY if it kept happening like that. Even worst if other devs follow that same practice too.
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@Glasso perhaps in some eyes, maybe. Personally it seemed like an obvious shoe in for GOTY nominee to me - especially if the likes of Black Myth can gain credit.
Black Myth Wukong deserves the win, but considering the absolute jokes that make up the "jury", it's highly unlikely. I'll be paying more attention to The Shame Awards and The Real Game Awards.
Why not just create new categories instead for:
Surely there are enough entries that could qualify for every category that they don’t need to blur the lines (and possibly push out some potential nominees) with the lazy free-for-all approach.
This year's nominees are, as usual, a reminder that rewards shows that combine the highest possible number of judges return the most boring possible nominees.
The GOTY category picks are mostly fine, but, as usual, Art Direction and OST look like they were only allowed to pick from the smallest subset of game releases.
Because when you have the whole industry combine their opinions, that's all you can really get.
I look forward to reading everyone's individual lists, personal nominees, and lasting favorites in the weeks and months to come, because those are the only lists that have any actual value.
Yay can’t wait for my vote to have a 10% influence on the selection while the other 90% is chosen by such gaming legends as the LA times and Variety, not to mention 7/10 legend IGN 😂
i stop watching this crap awards cause its just pointless and rigged at times.
@Serpenterror I want you to name me one game that has DEI and woke culture.
I have zero interest in watching the game awards. It's the same way with the Oscars it's all fluff.
Side Order for GOTY 🗣🗣🗣
Echoes of Wisdom wasn't cinematic, or serious enough to be considered for game of the year I guess...
Why does this really matter to the average gamer? I know Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 isn't gonna get nominated for an award this year but that isn't gonna stop me from having fun and spending another 50 hours on it next year.
Yes, it's rigged. No, it matters not.
imma definitely gonna vote for caseoh and zelda
SotE has more effort put into it than TotK. Anyone complaining that it shouldn't be nominated while TotK deserved to be last year just because you could bUy iT sEpaRaTelY are hypocrites. You have to buy a game within a game, who cares? Do you really care? Luckily it wasn't up to you.
@Ultimapunch Just recently? Concord, SM2 and Dragon Age say hello.
Crazy that they had to throw in a little bonus rule just so they could give a free win to Erdtree. “Can’t have Balatro winning, no sir! An indie for GOTY? Don’t be ridiculous.”
@SpaceboyScreams Alright. Now tell me exactly how those games are woke DEI.
Glad i didn't watch it last year. Won't be watching this year
Geoff Keighley said as much in the announcement for the nomination reveals: "get ready to debate".
All we're gettin' ready for, sir, is watching the show just for the reveals alone. As always.
Man, the AAA industry is always holding out for Nintendo to go third party or something, because the entire show is rigged against us. Off to the "best family game" category we go, I guess.
Also, the best family game will go to Echoes of Wisdom, just to give Nintendo only one award; best action-adventure will go elsewhere. Y'all heard it here first, folks.
@AlexSora89 It's just an industry hugbox where the big publishers pat each other on the back for another year of losses and saving the company by shutting down a couple more studios. Nintendo is winning so hard it ain't even funny anymore. This GOTY show is entirely irrelevant to the general consumer.
I honestly couldn't care less about this award show or what anyone who runs it thinks.
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