The Game Awards Nominees Reveal One Major Truth About Gaming in 2022

The biggest night in gaming is back, live from Los Angeles, and we finally know the list of nominees who are set to be honored at the ceremony. Airing on Dec. 8, The Game Awards 2022 will see the industry come together to celebrate the latest and greatest the year had to offer, from the big AAAs that dominated the sales charts to the smaller indie hits that captivated us. In fact, it’s a particularly big year for indie darlings competing in the Game of the Year category.

Unsurprisingly, God of War: Ragnarok and Elden Ring lead the nominations, and are both favorites to win Game of the Year. The former, with 10 nominations, is a critically-acclaimed sequel to what is Santa Monica Studio’s action-adventure masterpiece, which also happened to win GOTY in 2018. The other is the latest Soulsborne title from FromSoftware, who most recently won GOTY in 2019 with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Both have massive studios and names attached, with Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin lending his storytelling talents to Elden Ring, which has been nominated in seven categories, including Best Narrative.

Joining those two massive titles on the list of GOTY nominees this year are Horizon Forbidden West (another PlayStation exclusive) and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 from Nintendo. But it’s the indie titles tapped for nomination that provide the biggest revelation about the state of gaming in 2022. For the first time in the show’s history, two smaller-budget indie titles have been nominated in the category: cat-themed dystopian adventure game Stray, from BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna, and A Plague Tale: Requiem, Asobo and Focus Entertainment’s dark survival horror game set during the French Inquisition.

Best of all, these nominations come on the heels of another indie title being named last year’s GOTY, Hazelight Studios’ cooperative action-adventure It Takes Two, which beat out big AAAs like Metroid Dread, Resident Evil Village, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for the award. It’s a clear sign of how indie games continue to break through at The Game Awards, a show that was once better known for lauding big-name studios and big-budget hits. Some would even argue that a third indie title deserved to be nominated in the category, Sam Barlow’s brilliant interactive game Immortality, showing just how strong the year was in indie offerings.

It’ll be interesting to see if either Stray or A Plague Tale: Requiem can pull off the upset against the two clear favorites of the show, but either way, it’s great to see indie representation grow on the show’s high-profile stage.

Here is the complete list of nominees for The Game Awards 2022:

Game of the Year

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Stray
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Best Game Direction

• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Immortality
• Stray

Best Narrative

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Immortality

Best Art Direction

• Elden Ring
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Horizon: Forbidden West
• Scorn
• Stray

Best Score/Music

• Olivier Deriviere – A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Tsukasa Saitoh – Elden Ring
• Bear McCreary – God of War: Ragnarok
• Two Feathers – Metal Hellsinger
• Yasunori Mitsuda

Best Audio Design

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Gran Turismo 7
• Horizon Forbidden West

Best Performance

• Ashly Birch – Horizon: Forbidden West
• Charlotte McBurney – A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Christopher Judge – God of War: Ragnarok
• Manon Gage – Immortality
• Sunny Suljic – God of War: Ragnarok

Games for Impact

• A Memoir Blue
• As Dusk Falls
• Citizen Sleeper
• Endling – Extinction is Forever
• Hindsight
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

Best Ongoing Game

• Apex Legends
• Destiny 2
• Final Fantasy 14 Online
• Fortnite
• Genshin Impact

Best Indie Game

• Cult of the Lamb
• Neon White
• Sifu
• Stray
• TUNIC

Best Debut Indie Game

• Neon White
• NORCO
• Stray
• TUNIC
• Vampire Survivors

Best Mobile Game

• Apex Legends Mobile
• Diablo Immortal
• Genshin Impact
• Marvel Snap
• Tower of Fantasy

Best Community Support

• Apex Legends
• Destiny 2
• Final Fantasy 14 Online
• Fortnite
• No Man’s Sky

Best VR/AR Game

• After the Fall
• Among Us VR
• BONELAB
• Moss: Book II
• Red Matter 2

Innovation in Accessibility

• As Dusk Falls
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Returnal
• Return to Monkey Island
• The Last of Us Part 1
• The Quarry

Best Action Game

• Bayonetta 3
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
• Neon White
• Sifu
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Best Action/Adventure Game

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Stray
• TUNIC

Best RPG

• Elden Ring
• Live a Live
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus
• Triangle Strategy
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Best Fighting Game

• DNF Duel
• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R
• The King of Fighters 15
• MultiVersus
• Sifu

Best Family Game

• Kirby and the Forgotten Land
• LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
• Nintendo Switch Sports
• Splatoon 3

Best Sports/Racing Game

• F1 22
• FIFA 23
• NBA 2K23
• Gran Turismo 7
• OlliOlli World

Best SIM/Strategy Game

• Dune: Spice Wars
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope
• Total War: WARHAMMER 3
• Two Point Campus
• Victoria 3

Best Multiplayer Game

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Multiversus
• Overwatch 2
• Splatoon 3
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Content Creator of the Year

• Karl Jacobs
• Ludwig
• Nibellion
• Nobru
• QTCinderella

Best Esports Athlete

• Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon (Gen.G, LOL)
• Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok (T1, LOL)
• Finn “karrigan” Andersen ( (FaZe Clan – CS:GO)
• Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev (Natus Vincere, CS:GO)
• Jacob “Yay” Whiteaker (Cloud9, Valorant)

Best Esports Coach

• Andrii “B1ad3” Horodenskyi (Natus Vincere, CS:GO)
• Matheus “bzkA” Tarasconi (LOUD, VALORANT)
• Erik “d00mbr0s” Sandgren (FPX, VALORANT)
• Robert “RobbaN” Dahlström (FaZe Clan, CS:GO)
• Go “Score” Dong-bin (Gen.G, LOL)

Best Esports Event

• EVO 2022
• 2022 League of Legends World Championship
• PGL Major Antwerp 2022
• The 2022 Mid-Season Invitational
• VALORANT Champions 2022

Best Esports Game

• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• DOTA 2
• League of Legends
• Rocket League
• VALORANT

Best Esports Team

• DarkZero Esports (Apex Legends)
• FaZe Clan (CS:GO)
• Gen.G (League of Legends)
• LA Thieves (Call of Duty)
• LOUD (Valorant)

Most Anticipated Game

• Final Fantasy 16
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Resident Evil 4
• Starfield
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Best Adaptation

• Arcane: League of Legends
• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
• The Cuphead Show!
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2
• Uncharted