The Game Awards announced its nominees for its 2024 show on Monday, capping off a varied year for video games. The games highlighted skew toward the typical batch of action and role-playing titles, like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree bringing the FromSoftware juggernaut back to The Game Awards and Black Myth Wukong getting into Game of the Year, although indies like Balatro and the family game Astro Bot collected a big batch of nominations.
Leading the pack this year are Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with seven nominations each, while Metaphor: ReFantazio received six nominations. Sony Interactive Entertainment wins in terms of companies represented with 16 nominations, with Square Enix and Xbox receiving 12 each, and Sega rounding out the top with 11.
The Game of the Year category (and by extension Best Game Direction since the nominees are identical) is a odd batch. While top nominees Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio are represented, the other three are a surprise indie hit (Balatro), a DLC expansion to a previous Game of the Year winner (Shadow of the Erdtree), and a popular but critically-mixed action game (Black Myth: Wukong). Balatro got five nominees total, while the other two got four each.
Most of the other nominees were expected, although Silent Hill 2 getting a nomination for best narrative (the story was written over 20 years ago), Dragon Age: The Veilguard only getting one mention, and Star Wars Outlaws, a game that underperformed for Ubisoft, getting three nominations, are some of the stranger appearances on the list this year.
The winners will be revealed during the event on December 12, which will also feature a ton of game reveals and trailers. You can see the full list of The Game Awards 2024 nominees below:
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?