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Awards season is almost here. What games will be nominated for GOTY this year?

LakeOf9

LakeOf9

Member
With the bulk of this year's major releases now behind us, I figure it's time for the final breakdown of games that will and will not be nominated for the GOTY awards come awards season. Rather than simply doing a list, I decided to break these games down into tiers corresponding to their likelihood of being nominated:

ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY GOING TO BE IN
  • Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
  • Hollow Knight Silksong
  • Hades II
ALMOST CERTAINLY GOING TO BE IN
  • Donkey Kong Bananza
  • Death Stranding 2 On the Beach
POSSIBLE CHANCE OF BEING IN
  • Split Fiction
  • Ghost of Yotei
  • Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
GOOD GAMES BUT UNLIKELY TO BE IN
  • Silent Hill f
  • ARC Raiders
  • Battlefield 6
  • Mario Kart World
  • Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
  • Absolum
  • Ninja Gaiden 4
ALMOST GUARANTEED TO NOT BE IN
  • Assassin's Creed Shadows
  • Pokemon Legends ZA
  • Borderlands 4
  • Monster Hunter Wilds
  • Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
 
BF6 has a good chance of making into this list.

Monster Hunter Wilds lost its momentum HARD. It is a good game after the updates, but it is too little too late. And the performance patch is only planned for December. So that is that.
 
Clair Obsur started out really good but these battles are getting very repetitive. I'm about 10 or 12 hours in and I'm losing interest, I might need to increase the difficulty. :(
Hollow Knight Silksong is the opposite, Way too hard for me.
But I can see why both games could be considered GOTY.
 
Might as well be a good place to ask: I want to play Hades II, but I never touched the first one. Should I just go into II like that or will I be missing out?

That being said, most fun I've had gaming this year has been with Legends ZA, although I get why it won't be near any award shows this year haha
 
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Honestly, this is a great list, and I think you pretty much nailed the probalities. The only (incredibly minor) change I would make is moving Silksong down a tier, just because I think that some on the jury might have fallen off of it due to its difficulty and there's a lot of indie competition this year. I still think it's more likely than not going to be nominated, but I don't think it's an absolute lock in the way that Clair Obscur and (to a slightly lesser degree) Hades II are.

Edit: Oh, and I would squeeze Blue Prince in somewhere, probably in the "possible" tier. It's kind of a long shot because of all the indie competition I mentioned, but I think it's still a dark horse to be nominated.
 
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  • Death Straning 2
  • Ghost of Wokei
  • Monster Hunter Wilds
  • """Indie"""" quota: Expedition 33, Silksong, Blue Prince or Hades II
  • Nintendo quota: DK Bananza, Mario Kart
  • In PC focused websites: Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
 
Already know that a generational game like KCD2 is going to be mega snubbed this year, but I've also made peace with it because I don't give a shit what the games media has to say.
 
"I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance."

Don't underestimate how much value will be placed on KCD's Damascene conversion from a canonically heterosexual protagonist and 'There were no black people in medieval Bohemia. Period.' to being a diverse gay sex simulator. This is huge to overcome.

For player awards I would guess (hope) Exp33. Funny to think that before the year began, Wilds almost seemed a sure thing in the event GTA6 got delayed.
 
Expedition 33 and Hollow Knight : Silksong are guaranteed nominees.

The other 4 spots will be fought over by Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Donkey Kong Bonanza, Split Fiction and Hades 2.

It's actually been a pretty average year outside of the two guarantees. Some of the above games scored pretty well, but still didn't live up to the pre-release hype for me.

People shit on 2024, but some of those other 6 games here wouldn't have been nominated last year either. None of them would have beaten Rebirth or Metaphor, let alone Astro Bot.
 
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calico said:
Don't underestimate how much value will be placed on KCD's Damascene conversion from a canonically heterosexual protagonist and 'There were no black people in medieval Bohemia. Period.' to being a diverse gay sex simulator. This is huge to overcome.
Click to expand...

eLvT2RxYrQKBkchh.gif
 
Jigsaah said:
I think Battlefield has a phenomenal chance for GOTY. I think Expedition 33 takes it though.
Click to expand...

I mean, maybe the multiplayer, but the story mode is a mix bag.

I wouldn't recommend to GOTY to be honest. Games need to be as good as the entire packet.
 
Don't really care lol. Shut up and show me the world premieres already Geoff.
 
Feel like you nailed it OP. Only 8 games have a chance of being on there, I think maybe Hades 2 gets a snub, it reviewed well but it came and went fast. As for the other, maybe they snub Yotei. Dorito Pope loves Kojima and Fares too much to snub them, and Silksong too.
 
If there was a category for "Game of the Year Still In Beta", I'd give it to Deadlock. I'm addicted. The game is amazing.
 
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mayham2199 said:
Does it really matter this year who is nominated? E33 is going to win. Just like in 2023 it didn't matter who got nominated we all knew BG3 was winning.
Click to expand...
This Up Here GIF by Chord Overstreet


I haven't played anything this year that even comes close to Expedition 33.
 
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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle being robbed due to the late release in 2024. I still think Game Awards should be held in late January and cover the previous year in its entirety.
 
I know some of you would cut their wrists or punch a baby if their favorite game doesnt win/get nominated, but this is just sad. Only reason Geoffs show is worth watching is because of new game annoucements. Thats all I care. My own GOTY so far is Clair Obscur with Split Fiction second and Hollow Knight being on third place. I dont care if they win or not nor will I rage about it.

I will punch a baby tho if Silent HIll f wins anything, fuck dat trash
 
calico said:
Don't underestimate how much value will be placed on KCD's Damascene conversion from a canonically heterosexual protagonist and 'There were no black people in medieval Bohemia. Period.' to being a diverse gay sex simulator. This is huge to overcome.
Click to expand...

KCD just completely dropped off the radar. I don't think it's winning anything.

I think it's fairly obvious Expedition 33's gonna be this year's big winner in most places.
 
adamsapple said:
KCD just completely dropped off the radar. I don't think it's winning anything.

I think it's fairly obvious Expedition 33's gonna be this year's big winner in most places.
Click to expand...

With this year mostly being ho-hum, that's my guess as well.
 
Whoever think bf6 deserves to win should really get their head checked.

Bf6 is a solid addition, but everything they've done and promised and backtracked since release would deem it not worthy.

Game is fun as hell, but the entire MP UI/Battlepass experience is a shitty COD clone that is only saved by the gameplay- when its not being broken with bugs, glitches and or exploits
 
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Good luck beating Expedition 33 this year.

My personal GOTY is Dune Awakening. Nearly 300 hours in, and the only reason I don't have more is because stupid real life gets in the way.
Battlefield 6 is solid, but the single player campaign is just a Michael Bay movie, and the multiplayer is just a return to what the series is as opposed to the best its been.
Haven't dug into Arc Raiders, so that's my dark horse heading into the end of the year.
 
I would guess.

For sure:
-Expedition 33: Great game, high scores and it's a feel-good story (new IP, small team, cool story about how key members of the dev team met, etc)
-Hades 2: Indie darling and insanely high metascore
-Dk Bonanza: High Reviews, it's Nintendo

Very Likely:
- Silksong: Another indie darling with high scores. Not as high as Hades 2 though, and I think some journos definitely got filtered by the difficulty
- Death Stranding 2: Kojima and good reviews, but it seems to have come and gone rather quickly
- Split Fiction: High scores, It takes two was a favorite among journos. But it didn't feel as novel as It Takes Two

Likely:
- Kingdom Come 2: Great game, good scores, but it came out too early in the year and won't have the recency bias of other games
 
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