We have finally arrived at my favorite time of the year for video games. As much as I love playing games throughout the year, internally debating which are my favorites makes me almost equally happy. It’s a way for me to relive a lot of great memories that I had playing them, and I love the discussion. I also love seeing people share their own lists and seeing the excitement it brings them.
Game Awards season is equally thrilling for me. Perhaps it’s the sports fan in me, but I love the competitive element of The Game Awards. I love seeing developers thrilled to win on stage, and of course, The Game Awards often sets up the year to come with many of its trailers and reveals.
The Game Awards season officially kicked off yesterday with the reveal of all the nominees. I predicted these nominees and was correct on 76% of them, so I can’t say I was surprised by much yesterday. Despite my incredible brilliance when it comes to predicting The Game Awards (a very useful life skill), even the great Big Nerd Gaming was thrown off by a few nominations. No matter how many games you play and how much research you do, there are always going to be a few nominees that make you go, “What the fuck?”
Sure enough, it happened again yesterday. I’d say that three different things from the nominations made my jaw drop. Two made me raise an eyebrow, and one elicited mild surprise. I have cataloged my own inner reactions and ranked them for your amusement. Here are my six biggest surprises from The Game Awards nominations.
Also, stay tuned later this week for my winner predictions and fake betting odds!
6. And Roger Snubbed From “Games For Impact”
“Games For Impact” is a category I don’t take all that seriously because it just feels like such a random award. But I’ve slowly grown to accept it as The Game Awards way to honor some indie narrative games that likely wouldn’t get much shine otherwise. And I do think any exposure to the millions and millions who watch this show is good free advertising. My friend Justin from the Stage Select Podcast actually says he uses this category every year to find some games he missed out on during the year.
I still haven’t played and Roger, but I’d like to before the year ends. Everything I’ve seen about this one screams “Games For Impact.” It’s a short visual novel about dementia. It has almost exclusively 8.5s and 9s on OpenCritic, and almost everyone I know who has played it says they teared up at the end. This isn’t higher on the list because it’s not a “major” award, but I still think it would have meant a lot to the developers, and I am pretty shocked it missed out on this.
5. Dispatch Snubbed From Every Category Except “Best Debut Indie”
In my podcast episode where I predicted the nominees, I talked about how several of my wrong predictions last year came from games that were released early or in the middle of November, right before The Game Awards nominees were announced. Perhaps the short window between release and nominations makes it difficult for these games to be played by as many of the voting panel. Yet, I did it again with Arc Raiders (which I’ll talk about in a bit) and Dispatch.
A few things gave me confidence in Dispatch, even before the full reviews from critics dropped. The biggest was seeing the general buzz around it build each week. It seemed to be gaining players with each episode release. Before the final episode, it already had over 1 million in sales, and I imagine that has grown a fair bit since then. The game also felt built in a lab to get some Game Awards nominations. The art style was incredibly gorgeous, it had a great story, and it had some phenomenal performances from actors who had a lot of name recognition. The Game Awards loves to nominate Hollywood actors, so Aaron Paul felt like he had a real shot for a nomination. Also, Dispatch is an indie game, so that gave it an avenue to get a nomination for “Best Indie”.
My confidence grew even more when the reviews started to hit. Dispatch currently sits at an 88 on OpenCritic, which makes it one of the best-reviewed indies of the year.
While I wasn’t outright shocked when Dispatch didn’t get nominations for “Best Performance,” “Best Art Direction,” or “Best Narrative,” my jaw did drop a little when Dispatch was also passed over for “Best Indie,” especially since six games instead of the usual five were nominated this year. To have a game with so much going for it, with great reviews, not at least make it into a category over Absolum (which seems like a great game but hasn’t seen quite the same level of hype and had a slightly lower OpenCritic score) was pretty shocking. I can’t help but think if Dispatch had been released even a few weeks earlier, or with all eight episodes at once, it would be here. I am glad Dispatch at least landed one nomination, but I think it deserved a lot more.
4. Arc Raiders Snubbed From “Best Action” and “Best Audio Design”
Arc Raiders was one of my latest additions to my Game Awards predictions. I kind of dismissed it at the start, but then, it became impossible to ignore. After over 4 million people bought it within weeks, and then once its OpenCritic score came in at an 87 (while getting some lower scores specifically because of AI usage in voice acting), it seemed like a no brainer to add in.
Much like Dispatch, I think it may have been released a bit too late to get the acclaim that I expected it to.
The “Best Action” snub seems particularly wild to me, as this game is simply better rated than almost every other game in that category right now. I also found myself pretty surprised by the snub for “Best Sound Design.” I think the guns in Arc Raiders sound great, and a big key to the gameplay is the sounds you can hear around you, which can either tell you to avoid an area or run towards it. I think a lot of the gameplay is specifically designed around the sound design, and if it were here, I honestly think it would deserve to win based on the games I’ve played this year.
Arc Raiders did at least sneak in a “Best Multiplayer” nomination, but this ended up being a pretty huge snub in some other categories, in my view.
3. Charlie Cox Nominated For “Best Performance”
First off, props to Expedition 33 for landing three “Best Performance” nominations this year. That has only been done one other time in Game Awards history, and that was back in 2016 with Uncharted 4. Frankly, I think it’s an even bigger achievement this year. We had some serious contenders in the performance category that received no nominations. The original Death Stranding had two nominations back in 2019, yet the sequel had zero this year. Dispatch had no nominations despite a star studded cast. Mafia: The Old Country was also snubbed. Having three in here is crazy, but I’d say it’s mostly deserved.
But man, I’m kind of stunned that the third person from Expedition 33 to get nominated is Charlie Cox, even though I did call it out as a potential nominee on my recent prediction podcast. I only said that because he’s a big name, but I really didn’t think it could happen.
I liked his performance a lot. Hell, I even wrote a whole article about how I flipped from being not that into his performance, to being very all in on it. He’s great. But literally nothing that has happened since the game came out has felt like it would lead to his nomination. Charlie Cox has essentially said that it was just a role he kind of took on a whim. He was in and out within four hours, and that was it. He hasn’t played the game and has no interest in it. I think the odds of him actually showing up to the ceremony are slim to none.
It was a great performance, but the story around it, and the lack of lines compared to other characters in the game surprised the hell out of me. Expedition 33 had a lot of other options that could have been the third pick. I’m certainly not offended by this one, but it was one of the few here that truly made my jaw drop.
2. Avowed Nominated For “Best RPG”
When I was predicting the “Best RPG” category, I felt very good about three nominations (KCD2, Expedition 33, and Monster Hunter Wilds) and pretty good about my fourth pick (Outer Worlds 2).
After that, it was a very tough decision. First, there was Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, which currently sits at a 90 on Opencritic. I also thought about Fantasy Life i (which is at an 85), and Oblivion Remastered (which is at an 81). There were also some indies like Deltarune that I considered.
Even though I played it and liked it well enough, I never even thought about Avowed for this spot. It sits at an 80 on OpenCritic, so below every single other game I just mentioned. It also isn’t a game that I saw tons of passion for throughout the year, while I saw tons of people very excited about all of the other games I listed.
My friend Michaela from Dear Gamers tried to warn me that the voting media might not have the level of “international weebery” that I expected. In the end, she was absolutely right. The Japanese games got totally snubbed here, especially Trails in the Sky (given the ratings). But I will say that I do think Avowed is a solid game, and Obsidian getting two games in here in one year is a pretty awesome achievement.
1. Donkey Kong Bananza Snubbed From “Best Action/Adventure Game”
Sometimes, I think the critics who pick these nominations just get confused about where to nominate certain games. But as a slightly open ended 3D platformer with combat and puzzle solving, it seems pretty wild to me that Donkey Kong Bananza didn’t get a nomination in “Best Action/Adventure Game” when it got a full blown “Game of the Year” nomination. It literally makes no sense, especially since Astro Bot was in this same category last year. Bananza did get a “Best Family” nomination, but simply, some critics screwed up badly when making nominations. And to be clear, being in “Best Family” doesn’t exempt you from other genre categories, as Split Fiction made it into both of these categories despite not getting a “Game of the Year” nomination.
I don’t have much to say on this one, because it’s just inexplicable. It’s a complete oversight by the committee, and it’s disappointing, as Silksong vs. Bananza vs. Death Stranding 2 would have been an interesting battle here. Shame on the voters for this one! If I were on the committee, this never would have happened (actually, I wouldn’t have nominated Bananza at all personally, but that’s another story).
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