Set to occur on December 9, 2021, The Game Awards have announced a complete list of their nominees across a multitude of awards including Game of The Year. The popular award show, which is hosted by Geoff Keighley, is set to return to its traditional in-person format this year and will be held at the Microsoft Theater.
Its choice of venue is apropos as well as Microsoft and they’re recently acquired studio Bethesda lead the nomination field with 20 total nominations. Many of these nominations are for Arkane Lyon’s recent shooter Deathloop which I gave an 8.5 in my review for the game earlier this year. Sony Interactive Entertainment has garnered 11 nominations, with Square Enix and EA Games both garnering 10 each.
The nominees for Game of The Year have boiled down to Microsoft and Bethesda’s Deathloop, Nintendo’s Metroid Dread, Microsoft and Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2, Sony and Insomnia’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, EA and Hazelight’s It Takes Two, and Capcom’s Resident Evil Village. While the list has strong contenders, and it could definitely be a big year for Microsoft, I am personally pulling for It Takes Two in the GoTY category as Josef Fares has absolutely earned a place on the main stage, and who knows what craziness he might unleash, as he did in 2017.
Obviously, when talking about the awards it is impossible to not talk snubs as well. Microsoft title Forza Horizon 5, which was very well received, was a game many had hoped might be nominated for Game of The Year yet wasn’t. Many also hoped Halo Infinite might be nominated for the most anticipated game, however, since Halo Infinite releases the day before the award show it would no longer be anticipated at that time, yet also too late to qualify for this year.
My personal biggest snubs of the year occurred in the Games For Impact and Best Indie Game, in which I would have placed Road 96 as a strong contender and yet was ignored in both. Exploring themes of authoritarianism and tasking players with escaping their country, the game feels more point now than when announced due to the current situations in Belarus and others.
If you would like to see a complete list of nominees, and even vote for who you would like to win, click here. In a recent interview, Keighley stated that there will be a double-digit number of new game announcements also featured during the show.
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