Baldur's Gate 3, Alan Wake 2 and Zelda lead The Game Awards 2023 nominees

^{Image: The Game Awards}

Baldur’s Gate 3 and Tears of the Kingdom lead the nominations in a very competitive year for The Game Awards.

The Game Awards 2023 has officially made its nominations public, celebrating the best games and creators in the games industry this year. Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 lead the nominations with eight nods each, including in the highly-coveted Game of the Year category. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was the third-most nominated game with seven nods, followed by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder with five each, and Resident Evil 4 with three in total.

All of the above games were also nominated for the highly-coveted Game of the Year award, which will likely be a nail-bitingly close call given how competitive the category is shaping up to be this year. The newly-introduced Best Adaptation category looks equally competitive, with Castlevania: Nocturne, Gran Turismo, The Last of Us, Twisted Metal and The Super Mario Bros. Movie all picking up nominations. Five Nights at Freddy’s got snubbed for Best Adaptation, however, which is sure to create some healthy discourse online.

Nintendo came out of this year’s Game Awards with the most number of nominations: 15 in total. Sony PlayStation came in second at 13, Xbox at 10 and Epic Games at nine. In Epic’s case, most of its nominations were attributed to Alan Wake 2. On the esports side of things, EVO 2023, the 2023 League of Legends World Championship, VALORANT Champions 2023, Blast.tv Paris Major 2023 and The International Dota 2 Championships 2023 were all nominated for Best Esports Event.

The Game Awards 2023 will stream live on December 7, 2023, revealing the winners of each category while also delivering announcements and previews from all manner of upcoming games like usual. As far as snubs go, it’s interesting that Starfield and Final Fantasy 16 missed out on Game of the Year nominations - with the former only getting one nomination in total.

Here’s the full list of nominees:

Game of the Year

Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Insomniac Games/SIE)
Resident Evil 4 (Capcom)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)

Best Game Direction

Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2(Insomniac Games/SIE)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)

Best Adaptation

Castlevania: Nocturne (Powerhouse Animation/Netflix)
Gran Turismo (PlayStation Productions/Sony Pictures)
The Last of Us (PlayStation Productions/HBO)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Illumination/Nintendo/Universal Pictures)
Twisted Metal (PlayStation Productions/Peacock)

Best Narrative

Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (CD Projekt Red)
Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix)
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Insomniac Games/SIE)

Best Art Direction

Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks/Bethesda Softworks)
Lies of P (Round8 Studio/Neowiz Games)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)

Best Score and Music

Alan Wake 2, Composer Petri Alanko (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Baldur’s Gate 3, Composer Borislav Slavov (Larian Studios)
Final Fantasy XVI, Composer Masayoshi Soken (Square Enix)
Hi-Fi Rush, Audio Director Shuichi Kobori (Tango Gameworks/Bethesda Softworks)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Composed by Nintendo Sound Team (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)