Game Awards host Geoff Keighley revealed the 2024 nominees across dozens of categories on Monday. It included something for everyone, unless you’re a fan of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which is quickly becoming this year’s Starfield.
The 2024 show, which streams live on December 12, is already shaping up to have its fair share of unexpected twists and lowkey controversies. Would Black Myth: Wukong, a good but not great cinematic boss rush, have been nominated for GOTY in a year with a stronger overall field of contenders? It’s one of the lowest rated games on Metacritic to ever get a nod in that category. Will a certain vocal minority of fans riot if it doesn’t win?
Fortunately for them, my guess is that it at least takes home top honors in the best action game category, but there are plenty of other surprises from this year’s nominee list. Here’s what stands out so far about the 2024 crop of contestants in the Keighley Game Awards coliseum.
2 / 9
Elden Ring was the biggest winner at the Game Awards 2022 and its expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, could clinch the GOTY spot at this year’s show, too. That’s because the event changed its rules this year to allow DLC to be considered alongside full, standalone games. It seemed obvious that the loophole was added to give FromSoftware’s latest release a shot at recognition, and not undeservedly so. Shadow of the Erdtree has received almost universal acclaim. At its most reductive, it’s just more Elden Ring, but that still puts it head-and-shoulders above much of the competition.
At the same time, there are a bunch of other games that could have taken that nomination slot and added something newer and more interesting to the mix. Plus, it’ll be a bit weird if Shadow of the Erdtree wins and a bunch of people run out to play 2024’s GOTY, only to realize they need to play dozens of hours of a different game and also beat two of its toughest bosses. Maybe a better solution is just to give expansions their own category, especially as they become more and more frequent. Factorio’s Space Age DLC, for instance, just came out and reinvents a game that was already one of the best resource management sims around. —Ethan Gach
3 / 9
Despite good reviews, tons of players, and one of the wildest post-launch sagas of the year, Helldivers 2 couldn’t break into the best game category. Arrowhead Game Studios’ coop alien shooter was more than just a great game, it was an entire phenomenon, taking over Tiktok and even convincing normie friends of mine who haven’t played games in ages to hop in. While it’s on the lower end of the Metacritic spectrum for a GOTY winner (at 82), it’s one of the fresher and more innovative games of the decade so far.
The Game Awards jury didn’t agree, however. And based on years past, perhaps no standout game of 2024 had more going against it for a GOTY nomination than Helldivers 2. It’s a multiplayer game with no story-driven campaign, open world, or RPG systems to speak of. It didn’t have the blockbuster production chops to make up for it either, unlike 2016’s Titanfall 2 which snuck into the category even before it was expanded to six entrants. Perhaps to make up for Helldivers 2’s snub, it’s in the running for best ongoing game despite not even being a year old yet. —Ethan Gach
4 / 9
The Balatro takeover began slowly and quietly enough. Some great reviews here, positive chatter on social media there. Eventually, it had people everywhere hooked. Then it came to mobile and everyone kept playing its compulsive mix of roguelike deckbuilding and high-score arcade chase. The mix of playing card combos and Diablo-style buildcrafting is nominated across five different categories, including best game, best indie game, and best mobile game.
Its total number of nominations is equal to that of Silent Hill 2 and one ahead of Black Myth: Wukong, and behind only Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which each have seven. It still seems like a long-shot for the best game win—my guess is that it and Animal Well split the best indie and best debut indie categories—but it’s an impressive showing for a game that wasn’t even on anyone’s radar until it blew up this year. — Ethan Gach
5 / 9
This year, Bioware put out Dragon Age: The Veilguard and it might be one of the company’s best games since the original Mass Effect trilogy. We here at Kotaku really like it. I’m currently in the middle of a 40+ hour playthrough and I’m loving it. Sure, it’s not perfect and some might miss the darker tone of the older Dragon Age games, but what’s here is a very good RPG that expertly balances combat, exploration, and narrative.
And yet, Veilguard only got one nomination at this year’s Game Awards. The new RPG from Bioware was nominated for “Innovation In Accessibility,” a very important category, and the devs should be proud. Still, it’s a bit wild that Veilguard failed to receive any other nominations at this year’s Game Awards. Perhaps the game was too new and too big, and so too few jurors had gotten a chance to finish it and vote for it. Or maybe it had some support, but it was too divisive to get enough votes in any one category. It’s a shame that one of the best BioWare RPGs in years won’t have a chance to win in the RPG category, yet a DLC for Elden Ring is in there. Strange year. — Zack Zwiezen
6 / 9
Folks, if you want an audio clip of Game Awards host and Kojima’s best friend Geoff Keighley saying “Knuckles” with a weird level of enthusiasm, then Monday’s nominations reveal video gave you exactly what you have long wanted. I’m not going to ask why you so desired to hear the video game host say Knuckles in such a manner—that’s between you and God.
Anyway, yes, somehow the instantly forgettable Knuckles (a TV show on Paramount Plus that barely featured Idris Elba’s super-serious take on the echidna warrior) earned a nomination in the “Best Adaptation” category alongside shows like Arcane and Fallout. I guess the competition in 2024 of the Borderlands movie and a so-so Tomb Raider cartoon on Netflix helped make Knuckles seem much better than it was. — Zack Zwiezen
7 / 9
When it was officially announced that Silent Hill 2 was getting remade by Bloober Team, the internet wasn’t happy about it. The very idea of remaking Silent Hill 2 angered people, and it didn’t help that Bloober, a studio with a spotty track record, was handling it. Videos and screenshots that Konami released in the lead-up to the horror game’s launch were criticized and picked apart. And then it came out and…it was good. Really good, even. One of the best horror games in years.
Sure, the remake was not as impactful as the OG game, but they’re different enough that the new Silent Hill 2 feels more like an adaption of the source material that’s worth experiencing in its own right, and not a replacement for the original classic. And now, after years of fans fearing that the Silent Hill 2 remake would suck and ruin the game’s legacy, here we are in December and it’s up for multiple nominations at the Game Awards. What an unexpected ending to this whole saga, and some good news for the devs. — Zack Zwiezen
8 / 9
The sports category at the Game Awards is probably one of the least attention-grabbing groups, but this year it’s most noteworthy for a glaring absence: EA Sports College Football 25. The series’ return after a decade of dormancy put it at the top of the sales charts before it was even fully out, with its $100 deluxe edition even charting separately alongside the base game.
Sales don’t equate to critical acclaim, but in a category full of perennial sequels derided for their lack of innovation and stifling microtransaction economies, it’s interesting that College Football didn’t place at all. It has a higher Metacritic rating than every other game in the category, including WWE 2K24 and F1 24, even if it has far fewer overall reviews than those games. In the end, there’s probably just much less overall interest in a simulation of an American college sport among the Game Awards’ global jury pool. — Ethan Gach
9 / 9