The long winter between the holiday season and GDC in March has begun. To help with the winter wait, however, GDC has decided to share some its award nominations early. TheGame Developers Choice Awardswon’t have its winners announced until GDC takes place, but the awards jury has already completed its nominations for 2019. The nominations offer a look at what game developers consider the most excellent and innovative games of 2019.
The Game of the Year award looks to have some surprising choices compared to The Game Awards 2019 and other major awards events.The Game Awards 2019’s Game of the Year,Sekiro: Shadows Die Twicehas been nominated, as have two other nominees inControlandDeath Stranding. Rounding out the five nominees are two different titles of a smaller scale. The first is the exploration-based open-world puzzled gameOuter Wildsand the second is the virally popularUntitled Goose Game.
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Four additional games were provided as Honorable Mentions for the Game of the Year award. These are games that were perhaps closest to getting nominated beyond the 5 that made the cut. These games includeDisco Elysium,The Outer Worlds,Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, andApex Legends.
Foam Sword Games (Knights and Bikes)
Sky: Children of the Light (thatgamecompany)
Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)
Only one game can win the GDCA’s Game of the Year award, however. Members of the International Choice Awards Network of “leading game creators” and Gamasutra’s editors will now vote for their choices. ICAN is an invite-only group and its membership isn’t made public. Members are asked to recuse themselves from nominating games that they worked on.
Viewers will be able to watch the Game Developers Choice Awards via livestream during theGame Developers Conferenceconvention. GDC 2020 will run from March 16 through March 20 this year. That may seem like an out of place time, but it’s the end of the fiscal year and just prior to Q1 when a lot of developers have some free time in their schedule. It’s an appropriately end-of-year event, but just in game development terms.
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