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Xbox grabs 12 nominations at The Game Awards 2024 — but PlayStation dominates Game of the Year

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The nominations for The Game Awards 2024 are now live, with games from the Xbox first-party group grabbing 12 noms in total.

The statue for the Game Awards 2024
The Game Awards 2024 marks the tenth entry in Geoff Keighley's award show. (Image credit: The Game Awards)

What you need to know

  • Nominations for The Game Awards 2024 are now live, with select gaming outlets voting once again on a number of categories in the award show hosted by Geoff Keighley.
  • For 2024's entries, the Xbox first-party group saw a respectable 12 nominations across games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2.
  • The team was locked out of the PlayStation-centric Game of the Year category however, with games nominated for the top award including Team Asobi's Astro Bot and Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

The nominations for one of the biggest award shows of the year are in.

The Game Awards 2024 are slated to be held live on Dec. 12, 2024 and will be hosted by the show's creator Geoff Keighley, with the nominations for the show shared on Monday. For 2024, the Xbox first-party group managed to grab a total of 12 nominations across its different publishing brands, with multiple nominations in particular for Treyarch and Raven Software's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Ninja Theory's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2.

Even so, Xbox wasn't quite at the top, securing second place above Square Enix (which had 11 nominations) while PlayStation managed to grab 16 nominations. The latter company was also included in the ultra-discussed Game of the Year category, with Team Asobi's Astro Bot and Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth getting nominated.

You can find the full list of categories and nominees below:

Recent updates

Update, November 20, 2024 — This article previously listed Square Enix as having 12 nominations, per the Game Awards' official material. Careful counting has shown that Square Enix actually had 11 nominations, and so this article has been adjusted to note the actual tally.

Game of the Year

  • Astro Bot
  • Balatro
  • Black Myth: Wukong
  • Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Game Direction

  • Astro Bot
  • Balatro
  • Black Myth: Wukong
  • Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Narrative

  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio
  • Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
  • Silent Hill 2

Best Art Direction

  • Astro Bot
  • Black Myth: Wukong
  • Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio
  • Neva

Best Score and Music

  • Astro Bot
  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio
  • Silent Hill 2
  • Stellar Blade

Best Audio Design

  • Astro Bot
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
  • Silent Hill 2

Best Performance

  • Briana White as Aerith Gainsborough in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Hannah Telle as Max Caulfield in Life is Strange: Double Exposure
  • Humberly González as Kay in Star Wars Outlaws
  • Luke Roberts as James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2
  • Melina Juergens as Senua in Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2

Innovation in Accessibility

  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  • Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred
  • Dragon Age: The Veilguard
  • Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
  • Star Wars Outlaws

Games for Impact

  • Closer the Distance
  • Indika
  • Neva
  • Life is Strange: Double Exposure
  • Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
  • Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

Best Ongoing

  • Destiny 2
  • Diablo 4
  • Final Fantasy XIV
  • Fortnite
  • Helldivers 2

Best Community Support

  • Baldur's Gate 3
  • Final Fantasy XIV
  • Fortnite
  • Helldivers 2
  • No Man's Sky

Best Independent Game

  • Animal Well
  • Balatro
  • Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
  • Neva
  • UFO 50

Best Debut Indie Game

  • Animal Well
  • Balatro
  • Manor Lords
  • Pacific Drive
  • The Plucky Squire

Best Mobile Game

  • AFK Journey
  • Balatro
  • Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket
  • Wuthering Waves
  • Zenless Zone Zero

Best VR/AR

  • Arizona Sunshine Remake
  • Asgard's Wrath 2
  • Batman: Arkham Shadow
  • Metal: Hellsinger VR
  • Metro Awakening

Best Action Game

  • Black Myth: Wukong
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  • Helldivers 2
  • Stellar Blade
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Best Action/Adventure

  • Astro Bot
  • Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
  • Silent Hill 2
  • Star Wars Outlaws
  • The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Best RPG

  • Dragon's Dogma 2
  • Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
  • Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
  • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Fighting

  • Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
  • Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
  • Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics
  • Multiversus
  • Tekken 8

Best Family

  • Astro Bot
  • Princess Peach: Showtime!
  • Super Mario Party Jamboree
  • The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
  • The Plucky Squire

Best Sim/Strategy

  • Age of Mythology: Retold
  • Frostpunk 2
  • Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
  • Manor Lords
  • Unicorn Overlord

Best Sports/Racing

  • F1 24
  • EA Sports FC 24
  • NBA 2K25
  • Top Spin 2K25
  • WWE 2K24

Best Multiplayer

  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
  • Helldivers 2
  • Super Mario Party Jamboree
  • Tekken 8
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Best Adaption

  • Arcane
  • Fallout
  • Knuckles
  • Like a Dragon
  • Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft

Most Anticipated Game

  • Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
  • Ghost of Yōtei
  • Grand Theft Auto 6
  • Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
  • Monster Hunter Wilds

Content Creator of the Year

  • CaseOh
  • IlluJuan
  • Techo Gamerz
  • TypicalGamer
  • Usada Pekora

Best Esports Game

  • Counter-Strike 2
  • DOTA 2
  • League of Legends
  • Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
  • Valorant

Best Esports Athlete

  • Neta Shapira
  • Aleksi Virolainen
  • Jeong Ji-hoon
  • Lee Sang-hyeok
  • Mathieu Herbaut
  • Zheng Yongkang

Best Esports Team

  • Bilibili Gaming
  • Gen.G
  • Navi
  • T1
  • Team Liquid
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Samuel Tolbert
Samuel Tolbert
Freelance Writer

Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Bluesky ‪@samueltolbert.bsky.social‬.

1 Comment Comment from the forums
  • fatpunkslim
    Once again, it’s easy to see Geoff Keighley’s close ties with Sony. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 definitely deserved to be among the Game of the Year nominees. The campaign is exceptional in terms of staging, storyline, with the variety and care given to each mission, the best Call of Duty in years. If it had been a Sony studio, it would obviously have been among the nominees, but here it is only in ‘audio design’ (which is really the bare minimum, it’s almost an insult). Space marine 2 also deserve to be among the Game of the Year nominees. Or Hellblade 2, which has been acclaimed by players on Steam and is, in my opinion, a true gem in terms of storytelling, staging, and simply the most beautiful game of this generation.

    Balatro is great in its genre, but honestly, what is it doing there? Same for the Elden Ring DLC, it’s a very bad signal to the industry if a mere DLC can become GOTY! The industry already suffers enough from remasters and countless DLCs, no need to add more. Putting this type of game in competition with original games is not right. Black Myth: Wukong is highly overrated; it has many qualities but also many flaws that, in my opinion, make it ineligible for a GOTY nomination. Astro Bot is a nice game but nothing more, and it’s a real flop in terms of sales. Stellar Blade is a good first game, but it doesn’t belong there.

    We’ll remember that Astro Bot is the only first-party playstation game and they put it everywhere, lol.😆 This ceremony is a joke.

    It’s Geoff Keighley who chooses the media sites and influencers responsible for nominating the games. And when you look at the list, you can easily see that some sites are clearly affiliated with Sony. Just in France, you can see jeuxvideo.com, Julien Chièze who are clearly sponsored by sony.

    And above all, you see many sites that are not specialized in video games like pride.com, LA Times, etc., which basically just repeat the brands’ marketing. And we know very well that Sony spends the most on marketing, so we end up with an overrepresentation of certain games.
    Reply