The long winter between the holiday season and GDC in March has begun. To help with the winter wait, however, GDC has decided to share some its award nominations early. The Game Developers Choice Awards won't have its winners announced until GDC takes place, but the awards jury has already completed its nominations for 2019. The nominations offer a look at what game developers consider the most excellent and innovative games of 2019.
The Game of the Year award looks to have some surprising choices compared to The Game Awards 2019 and other major awards events. The Game Awards 2019's Game of the Year, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has been nominated, as have two other nominees in Control and Death Stranding. Rounding out the five nominees are two different titles of a smaller scale. The first is the exploration-based open-world puzzled game Outer Wilds and the second is the virally popular Untitled Goose Game.
Four additional games were provided as Honorable Mentions for the Game of the Year award. These are games that were perhaps closest to getting nominated beyond the 5 that made the cut. These games include Disco Elysium, The Outer Worlds, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Apex Legends.
BEST AUDIO
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward/Activision)
BEST DEBUT
ZA/UM (Disco Elysium)
Mobius Digital(Outer Wilds)
William Chyr Studios(Manifold Garden)
Foam Sword Games (Knights and Bikes)
Chance Agency (Neo Cab)
BEST DESIGN
Baba Is You (Hempuli)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision Publishing, FromSoftware)
Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
INNOVATION AWARD
Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)
Baba Is You (Hempuli)
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)
BEST MOBILE GAME
Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
What the Golf? (Triband Productions/The Label Limited)
Grindstone (Capybara Games)
Sky: Children of the Light (thatgamecompany)
Call of Duty: Mobile (TiMi Studios/Activision)
BEST NARRATIVE
Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)
BEST TECHNOLOGY
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward/Activision)
Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts)
Noita (Nolla Games)
BEST VISUAL ART
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision)
Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)
BEST VR/AR GAME
Vader Immortal (ILMxLAB/Disney)
Blood & Truth (SCEE Studio London/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Asgard's Wrath (Sanzaru Games/Oculus Studios)
Boneworks (Stress Level Zero)
Pistol Whip (Cloudhead Games)
GAME OF THE YEAR
Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision)
Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)
Only one game can win the GDCA's Game of the Year award, however. Members of the International Choice Awards Network of "leading game creators" and Gamasutra's editors will now vote for their choices. ICAN is an invite-only group and its membership isn't made public. Members are asked to recuse themselves from nominating games that they worked on.
Viewers will be able to watch the Game Developers Choice Awards via livestream during the Game Developers Conference convention. GDC 2020 will run from March 16 through March 20 this year. That may seem like an out of place time, but it's the end of the fiscal year and just prior to Q1 when a lot of developers have some free time in their schedule. It's an appropriately end-of-year event, but just in game development terms.