A new announcement from The Game Awards reveals the nominees for Game of the Year 2020, and it’s a hotly contested accolade that features games like FF7 Remake, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and The Last of Us Part 2. The Game Awards is an annual award show for the video game industry produced by Geoff Keighley and is widely recognized as the most visible award show of the year, with companies saving announcements and reveals for the presentation.
The Game Awards tends to produce a lot of discussion among fans, and no category does that quite like Game of the Year. 2019’s Game of the Year, for instance, was considered a surprise to many. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice won Game of the Year and, while FromSoftware’s title was undeniably great, it was competing against heavy favorites in Death Stranding and Control. Best indie game is also an often heated debate among fans, with last year’s winner Disco Elysium emerging with the award out of a scrum that included Outer Wilds and Untitled Goose Game, the latter of which saw itself become a meme factory for months after it blew up on social media.
This year’s Game Awards will be just as competitive, especially in the Game of the Year 2020 category. The full list of nominees was revealed on Twitter by The Game Awards earlier today, and features FF7 Remake, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, The Last of Us Part 2, DOOM Eternal, Ghost of Tsushima, and Hades. Despite the many setbacks the industry faced during 2020, that lineup is arguably one of the strongest from top to bottom that’s ever been produced in a single year, and is also notably potentially missing Cyberpunk 2077, which is ineligible for this year’s awards due to its December release date.
It’s hard to pick a favorite among those contenders, and a strong argument could be made for any of them. Animal Crossing: New Horizons might have a slight edge for Game of the Year 2020 simply because of how ubiquitous it has become across different forms of media, with talk shows forming around the game and fan creations continuing to drive more players to the Nintendo Switch title.
Whatever the outcome, this is the kind of list that will have plenty of fans upset over the final choice. Game of the Year 2020 is a competitive affair and it will be interesting to see which game comes out ahead, but The Game Awards 2020 will also be must-watch for video game fans because it’s sure to contain some of the biggest announcements coming for 2021.