Nominees

Game of the Year

  • Black Myth: Wukong
  • Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl
  • Balatro
  • Helldivers 2
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

VR Game of the Year

  • Metro Awakening VR
  • Davigo
  • Maestro
  • Blade and Sorcery
  • Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2

Labor of Love

  • Stardew Valley
  • Baldur’s Gate 3
  • Dota 2
  • No Man’s Sky
  • Elden Ring

Best Game on Steam Deck

  • Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor
  • Balatro
  • Hades 2
  • God of War: Ragnarok
  • Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Better with Friends

  • Palworld
  • Helldivers 2
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
  • Sons of the Forest
  • Satisfactory

Outstanding Visual Style

  • Silent Hill 2
  • Neva
  • Nine Sols
  • Metaphor ReFantazio
  • Hades 2

Most Innovative Gameplay

  • Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl
  • Balatro
  • Helldivers 2
  • Liar’s Bar
  • Satisfactory

Best Game You Suck At

  • Black Myth Wukong
  • Ghost of Tsushima
  • Dragon Ball Sparking Zero
  • The Finals
  • Tekken 8

Best Soundtrack

  • Silent Hill 2
  • Red Dead Redemption
  • Fate Stay Night
  • Horizon Forbidden West
  • Frostpunk 2

Outstanding Story-Rich Game

  • Black Myth Wukong
  • Ghost of Tsushima
  • Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl
  • Mouthwashing
  • Final Fantasy XVI

Sit Back and Relax

  • Tiny Glade
  • House Flipper 2
  • Farming Simulator 25
  • Webfishing
  • TCG Card Shop Simulator
  • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 days ago

    Nominating Stalker 2 for Most Innovative Gameplay Award seems crazy to me. It’s a great game, but I definitely wouldn’t call it innovative.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      9 days ago

      It has always been a “Which game has the bigger fan base” contest 🤷‍♂️

      I don’t think I ever agreed with the nominations or the the final winners, because they never make any sense other than through the hype and fan-base lens.

      • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
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        9 days ago

        Occasionally good games get nominated for the correct categories (Terraria for Labor of Love) but it’s very rare. I haven’t even played any 2024 games but wanted the badge so I just nominated some off brand games that will never win.

    • Artyom@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      In the modern gaming industry, it’s considered innovative to not be shit cuz your shareholders forced you to abandon all morals.

  • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 days ago

    The Best Game You Suck At Award nominations seem weird to me. Especially The Finals and Dragon Ball.

    Games like A Difficult Game About Climbing or Shadow of the Erdtree make more sense to me.

    • Screen_Shatter@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Shadow of the erdtree all the way. People bitched so much about it being too hard. Great DLC, was not that hard compared to other souls games (the final boss was a total bastard though holy shit I died a lot)

    • SlamWich@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I think The Finals is one of the more difficult shooters to wrap your head around and takes forever to get really good at. I think many people use this category “fun game where I always get my ass kicked” low skill floor high skill ceiling games.

  • Zoldyck@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Early access games shouldn’t be allowed. Hades 2 isn’t even officially released yet.

  • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 days ago

    I’m a little disappointed not to see Elite Dangerous nominated for Labor of Love. The game is ten years old, and the developers have recently been bringing in new features like it was still new.

    • CitricBase@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      It’s unfortunate. Games don’t get nominated by being apt for the category, they get nominated by being popular. Heck, last year RDR2 won in this category, and it’s never had any community support beyond a bug fix patch or two.

      This whole thing is a popularity contest, for the most part. No way anyone nominating or voting in these awards has played more than a few of the eligible games.

    • mhague@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I’m surprised to see ED brought up. They gave up console players and won’t even push token updates, like when they balanced engineers for PC players to reduce the grinding. Tried to get back into it but I guess it’s now a legacy game and Frontier straight up bailed.

      The game isn’t shut down though. I can still buy their MTX stuff. That’s got to count against them.

      • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 days ago

        Yeah, they stopped updating the legacy PC client, too. I suspect it’s in the same game world as your console, still alive and playable, but with no new content.

        The new client is free, but also more resource-hungry; I guess they didn’t have the budget to get it working on consoles.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    9 days ago

    I’d like to see Black Myth Wukong win nothing just because of how salty they get over it.

    • tb_@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      It’s going to be based on user votes, and given just how popular that game was I don’t think it unlikely to win.

    • Zoldyck@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I don’t understand the appeal of this game. Played it for a couple of hours because it got hyped so much. What makes this game so fun for people?

      • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.ee
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        9 days ago

        I mean, fun is subjective. For a lot of people Balatro strikes just the right spot between strategy and randomness, and is very replayable. It’s perfectly okay if it’s not your cup of tea, though.

        • Zoldyck@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          True. It’s just that I usually like these kind of games. It’s probably just me.

  • falkerie71@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    Outstanding visual is pretty packed this year, but I wish Nine Sols wins it. It’s not even underrated, just feels like it wasn’t talked much about outside of Hollow Knight enjoyers, maybe due to it launching on PC only (console version came out only recently), or perhaps due to the studio’s turbulent past. More people should really give it a go.

  • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 days ago

    So Palword was nominated for the Better With Friends award, meaning they are okay with it being in the awards despite being a beta, but it didn’t get nominated for GOTY.

    Robbed.

  • CallMeButtLove@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    I’m surprised to see God of War Ragnarok on the best game for Steam deck. I tried playing the first one on there and got like 15 fps. Does this somehow run better?

  • caut_R@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Labor of Love is a tough one… I might as well flip a coin between at least three of them, they all deserve it