The nominees for this years Game Awards have been announced, and there’s quite a few titles that interest me on the list.

The Game of the Year category, has been drawing the most attention, with Astro Bot, Balatro, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio being nominated.

Elden Ring is causing the greatest stir, because they said ahead of time that DLC is eligible to be nominated in any category. A lot of people are saying they changed the rules just so Erdtree could be nominated, but I don’t think this is a rule change. The Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine DLC won Best RPG back in 2016, so it seems to me DLC was always eligible for any category and they only emphasized it this year because it was a GOTY nominee specifically.

Anyway, I’ve started Metaphor and have Astro Bot and Rebirth in my backlog waiting for me. Will I finish any of them in time for the Game Awards show? We shall see. I actually played a good deal of Elden Ring when it came out, but I took a long break from it, so I’m nowhere near ready to even try Shadow of the Erdtree. Someday…

In the Best Game Direction category, the nominees are Astro Bot, Balatro, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor ReFantazio. Yes, it’s the same as the GOTY nominees.

Now for Best Narrative, we have Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, and Silent Hill 2.

That’s an excellent lineup of which I’ve finished none (although to be fair, I know the story of Silent Hill 2), but it does my heart good to see Infinite Wealth making the list. Like a Dragon is still a niche series compared to the big ones, and I thought Infinite Wealth might be skipped entirely. I still need to get back to my playthrough, but I’m happy to see it get a nomination.

Best Art Direction has Astro Bot, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Neva as nominees. From what I’ve played so far of Metaphor, it deserves its spot here.

The nominees for Best Score and Music are Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Silent Hill 2, and Stellar Blade.

Metaphor has a great score from what I’ve heard so far, and I’m happy to see Silent Hill 2 on this list as well. Meanwhile, Stellar Blade is another game on my list to finish. It’s nice to see it get a nomination, although I haven’t played enough yet to really comment on the soundtrack. On the other hand, it’s also one of the nominees for Best Action Game, which I think it has a shot at.

I’m not going to go through every category, so jumping ahead to one of the categories nearest and dearest to my heart – Best RPG – where the nominees are Dragon’s Dogma II, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio.

Now I might not have gotten far enough in Infinite Wealth to comment on the narrative yet, but it definitely felt like a solid RPG. It’s going up against some heavy-hitters, but maybe it has a chance.

There are plenty of other categories and nominees, which you can check out at the official site, so I’ll just mention that the Most Anticipated Game nominees are Death Stranding 2, Ghost of Yotei, Grand Theft Auto VI, Metroid Prime 4, and Monster Hunter Wilds, none of which would even crack my top 10 most anticipated games. It’s actually a bit startling to see so many games I was excited for and plan to play nominated for other categories, while none of my most anticipated games got nominated there.

Meanwhile, it says something dire about my backlog that there are so many games I planned/plan/want to play but still haven’t. Whoops.

Anyway, I’ll try hard to have at least finished a couple of these contenders so I can root for them properly. The Game Awards 2024 is set for December 12 at 4:30 PM PT / 7:30 PM ET, and I’ll tune in more for announcements than for anything else. How do you feel about this year’s Game Awards nominees?