Honestly, looking back at the list of game awards 2023 nominees, it feels like a fever dream. Was 2023 actually the best year for gaming in a decade? Probably. But while everyone remembers the big winners, there is a whole layer of drama, snubs, and "wait, how was that nominated?" moments that people just stopped talking about.
We had a bear-romancing RPG going up against a survival horror sequel that felt like a high-art installation. It was chaotic.
The Heavy Hitters Everyone Expected
When Geoff Keighley stepped onto the stage at the Peacock Theater, the air was thick with the scent of high-budget competition. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 basically owned the room from the second the nominations dropped. Both titles snagged eight nominations each. That is a massive haul.
Larian Studios didn't just make a game; they made a cultural reset for the RPG genre. You've got to respect the hustle of a studio that takes a niche franchise and turns it into a mainstream juggernaut. On the other side, Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2 was the critical darling that proved survival horror could be weird, psychological, and musically inclined.
Then you had the Nintendo factor.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder were right there, holding it down for the "fun" side of the industry. It’s kinda wild to think that in any other year, Tears of the Kingdom would have been a locked-in winner for almost everything. But 2023 was different. It was a bloodbath of quality.
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The Snubs That Still Sting
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Hogwarts Legacy.
Despite being one of the biggest commercial successes of the year, it was completely shut out of the game awards 2023 nominees. Zero. Zip. Nada. Whether you think that was due to the controversies surrounding the IP or just the sheer competition, it’s a weird footnote in gaming history.
And what about Starfield?
Bethesda's massive space epic only landed one nomination for Best RPG. For a game that was hyped as the next "ten-year game," that was a pretty hard pill for fans to swallow. It felt like the industry shifted its gaze toward more focused, narrative-heavy experiences while the sprawling sandbox model took a backseat.
The Resident Evil 4 Remake Debate
There was also this quiet grumbling about Resident Evil 4 being in the Game of the Year (GOTY) category. Some people feel remakes shouldn't be eligible for the top prize.
"Should a game we've already played decades ago really be competing with brand new ideas?"
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It's a valid question. But honestly, when a remake is as transformative as Capcom’s 2023 effort, it’s hard to ignore. It wasn't just a fresh coat of paint; it was a fundamental reimagining of action-horror.
Categories That Actually Mattered
Everyone focuses on GOTY, but the specialized categories in the game awards 2023 nominees were where the real stories lived.
- Best Performance: This was a heavyweight fight. You had Neil Newbon as Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3), Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield (Final Fantasy XVI), and Melanie Liburd as Saga Anderson (Alan Wake 2). Neil Newbon eventually took it home, and if you've heard his voice acting, you know why. The man put his whole soul into that sassy vampire.
- Best Independent Game: This category was stacked. Sea of Stars, Cocoon, Dredge, Dave the Diver, and Viewfinder.
- Best Adaptation: This was a big year for gaming on screen. The Last of Us (HBO) went up against The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It was basically a battle between "prestige TV" and "box office titan."
The indie category specifically felt like a mini-GOTY list. Dave the Diver sparked a whole debate about what "indie" even means, considering it was developed by Mintrocket, a sub-brand of the massive corporation Nexon. It’s these kinds of technicalities that make the nomination process so messy and fascinating.
Why 2023 Was an Outlier
We probably won't see a year like this again for a long time. The sheer volume of "9/10" and "10/10" games was unsustainable. Usually, there are one or two clear frontrunners. In the game awards 2023 nominees, you could have made a case for at least four different games winning the top spot and people wouldn't have been mad.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 had seven nominations and somehow went home empty-handed. Think about that for a second. A game that polished, that successful, and that well-reviewed couldn't catch a single win because the competition was just that fierce.
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It wasn't a failure of the game; it was just a testament to how high the bar was set.
Moving Forward From the 2023 List
If you are looking to catch up on what you missed from that era, don't just stick to the winners. The list of game awards 2023 nominees is a perfect roadmap for what makes modern gaming great.
- Play the "Small" Games: If you haven't touched Cocoon or Sea of Stars, you are missing out on the creative peak of the industry.
- Ignore the "Remake" Stigma: If you skipped Resident Evil 4 because you played the original on GameCube, go back. It's a different beast entirely.
- Deep Dive into the Narrative Nominees: Games like Alan Wake 2 and Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (which got a Best Narrative nod) show that the gap between cinema and gaming has basically evaporated.
The real takeaway from the 2023 nominations isn't who won. It's the fact that we had so many options that we actually started complaining about having too many good games. That's a luxury we shouldn't take for granted.
To truly understand the impact of these games, your next step should be to look beyond the "Game of the Year" trophy and explore the Best Art Direction and Innovation in Accessibility nominees. These categories often highlight the technical breakthroughs that define the next five years of how games are actually built and played by everyone.