Starfield, Diablo 4 and Hogwarts Legacy are Biggest Losers of TGA 2023
Bethesda, Warner Bros. and Blizzard may have felt underappreciated in their nominations for The Game Awards 2023. Three successful titles, according to the fans, deserved much more recognition.
The annual nominations for The Game Awards are usually easy to predict - we mainly find among them those games that have been the most talked about in recent months. This year's edition, however, turned out to be quite surprising.
The Game Awards 2023
This year's The Game Awards gala will take place on December 8 at 10:30 a.m. PST. Since it will be held in less than a month, voting in all categories opened yesterday, thus revealing the full list of nominated games.
In the most important category - Game of the Year Awards - there are 6 titles: Alan Wake 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Marvel's Spiderman 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros Wonder and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Most of these nominations might have been expected, but comparing them to the calendar of the most talked-about launches of the last 12 months, we might feel that at least three big games are missing among them..
Starfield - 1 nomination
The long-awaited space RPG from Bethesda debuted this September. Starfield is an attempt to satisfy the desires of gamers waiting as long as 25 years for a brand new IP from this studio.
On Metacritic, the game received average rating from critics at 83/100 and 7/10 from gamers.
Finally Starfield was not among the games nominated for the main award of The Game Awards 2023. Fans of Bethesda can only vote for it in the "Best RPG of the Year" category. This is a blow to some fans, because among the titles aspiring to be Game of the Year we won't find a single "exclusive" for Microsoft consoles.
A double disappointment for them is the fact that two Nintendo exclusive titles will compete for the most prestigious award, and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was released so far exclusively on PlayStation 5.
Diablo IV - 2 nominations
Another game, which, to the surprise of quite a few people, will not compete for the title of best game of the year this year, is Diablo IV. This is a continuation of the iconic hack'n'slash series by Blizzard, which debuted in June 2023.
Diablo 4 however, was included in 2 other categories: "best multiplayer" and "accessibility innovation."
Reviews of Diablo 4 on Metacritic are mixed - the game earned an average rating of 86/100 based on critics' texts, but only 2.2/10 from the players. This has to do primarily with the game's business model, which relies on microtransactions.
However, leaving aside the main category of The Game Awards, even people unfavorable to Diablo 4 could agree with the fact that thanks to its epic and demonic settings, this game would have found itself in the "best art direction" category. Instead, however, the lest of games that will compete for this title will include Alan Wake 2, Hi-Fi Rush, Lies of P, the new Super Mario and Zelda.
Hogwarts Legacy - 0 nominations.
The last title often mentioned when discussing games underappreciated by The Game Awards is Hogwarts Legacy. Set in the universe of Harry Potter, the RPG debuted in February 2023 and, due to its subject matter, attracted a slew of fans that take a more casual approach to gaming.
As the only item on this list, Legacy of Hogwarts did not receive any TGA award nominations this year. At the same time, it is the best-rated game of the three listed here - on Metacritic it has an average score of 84/100 from critics and 8.5/10 from gamers.
There is, however, quite a controversy surrounding the charming title, associated with J.K. Rowling - author of the Harry Potter book series. The writer's views have led to the fact that in some places on the web the game was openly boycotted, which could have a bearing on its non-inclusion in the nominations (which games will be included are decided by, among others, editors of industry media from around the world).
It also happens that games released at the beginning of a given year are less likely to be nominated at The Game Awards, which ends the year - it's harder for them to stick in the minds of editors and gamers after several consecutive months packed with exciting launches.
Questioning the title selection
This year's situation is not particularly unique. Every year at The Game Awards, some portion of gamers is dissatisfied with the choices. In such a growing and diverse industry, it's hard to make everyone's wishes come true.
Nevertheless, Josh Sawyer, a designer from Obsidian, decided to draw attention to some noticeable unreliability of the organizers of the gala.
In fact - for the second year in a row, nominations for the awards were announced before the end of the official submission window for potential candidates.
