The Game Awards 2021 Nominations Announced — Deathloop Leads With 9

Geoff Keigh­ley, host and cre­ator of the annu­al Game Awards, has offi­cial­ly announced the nom­i­nees for the 2021 Game Awards. The show will broad­cast live from Los Ange­les on Decem­ber 9th.

The six games nom­i­nat­ed for Game of the Year include Deathloop, Psy­cho­nauts 2, It Takes Two, Res­i­dent Evil: Vil­lage, Metroid Dread, and Ratch­et and Clank: Rift Apart.

Arkane Stu­dio’s Deathloop leads the pack with a total of 9 nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing Game of the Year and Best Game Direc­tion. Dou­ble Fine’s Psy­cho­nauts 2 and It Takes Two from Haze­light, are tied for sec­ond-most nom­i­na­tions, with five a piece.

Deathloop and Psy­cho­nauts 2’s nom­i­na­tions com­bined bring that num­ber to 14, mak­ing Xbox/Bethesda the lead­ing pub­lish­er at this year’s show. Sony is trail­ing behind by three, with 11 nom­i­na­tions; mean­while Square Enix and EA are tied for third with 10 each.

The 2021 Game Awards start Thurs­day, Decem­ber 9th at 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET. Keigh­ley has already teased 40–50 world pre­miere game announce­ments dur­ing the show. 

You can check out the full list of nom­i­na­tions for the 2021 Game Awards below:

Game of the Year

• Deathloop (Arkane Studios/Bethesda)
• It Takes Two (Haze­light Studios/EA)
• Metroid Dread (Mer­cury Steam/Nintendo)
• Psy­cho­nauts 2 (Dou­ble Fine/Xbox Game Studios)
• Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart (Insom­ni­ac Games/SIE)
• Res­i­dent Evil Vil­lage (Cap­com)

Best Game Direction

• Deathloop (Arkane Studios/Bethesda)
• It Takes Two (Haze­light Studios/EA)
• Retur­nal (Housemarque/SIE)
• Psy­cho­nauts 2 (Dou­ble Fine/Xbox Game Studios)
• Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart (Insom­ni­ac Games/SIE)

Best Ongoing

• Apex Leg­ends (Respawn/EA)
• Call of Duty: War­zone (Infin­i­ty Ward/Raven/Activision)
• Final Fan­ta­sy XIV Online (Square Enix)
• Fort­nite (Epic Games)
• Gen­shin Impact (MiHoYo)

Best Indie

• 12 Min­utes (Luis Antonio/Annapurna Interactive)
• Death’s Door (Acid Nerve/Devolver Digital)
• Kena: Bridge of Spir­its (Ember Lab)
• Inscryp­tion (Daniel Mullins Games/Devolver Digital)
• Loop Hero (Four Quarters/Devolver Digital)

Best Debut Indie

• Kena: Bridge of Spir­its (Ember Lab)
• Sable (Shedworks/Raw Fury)
• The Art­ful Escape (Beethoven & Dinosaur/Annapurna)
• The For­got­ten City (Mod­ern Storyteller/Dear Villagers)
• Val­heim (Iron Gate/Coffee Stain)

Best Narrative

• Deathloop (Arkane Studios/Bethesda)
• It Takes Two (Haze­light Studios/EA)
• Life is Strange: True Col­ors (Deck Nine/SQUARE ENIX)
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Eidos Montreal/SQUARE ENIX)
• Psy­cho­nauts 2 (Dou­ble Fine/Xbox Game Studios)

Best Art Direction

• Deathloop (Arkane Studios/Bethesda)
• Kena: Bridge of Spir­its (Ember Lab)
• Psy­cho­nauts 2 (Dou­ble Fine/Xbox Game Studios)
• Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart (Insom­ni­ac Games/SIE)
• The Art­ful Escape (Beethoven & Dinosaur/Annapurna)

Best Score and Music

• Cyber­punk 2077 (Marcin Przy­by­low­icz, Piotr T. Adam­czyk, Composers)
• Deathloop (Tom Salta, Composer)
• NieR Repli­cant ver.1.22474487139 (Kei­ichi Okabe, Composer)
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Richard Jacques, Composer)
• The Art­ful Escape (John­ny Gal­va­tron & Josh Abra­hams, Composers)

Best Audio Design

• Deathloop (Arkane Studios/Bethesda)
• Forza Hori­zon 5 (Play­ground Games/Xbox Game Studios)
• Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart (Insom­ni­ac Games/SIE)
• Res­i­dent Evil Vil­lage (Cap­com)
• Retur­nal (Housemarque/SIE)

Best Performance

• Eri­ka Mori as Alex Chen, Life is Strange: True Colors
• Gian­car­lo Espos­i­to as Anton Castil­lo, Far Cry 6
• Jason E. Kel­ley as Colt Vahn, Deathloop
• Mag­gie Robert­son as Lady Dim­itres­cu, Res­i­dent Evil Village
• Ozioma Akagha as Julian­na Blake, Deathloop

Games for Impact

• Before Your Eyes (Good­bye­World Games/Skybound Games)
• Boyfriend Dun­geon (Kit­fox Games)
• Chico­ry (Greg Lobanow, Alex­is dean-Jones, Lena Raine, Made­line Berg­er, A Shell in the Pit/Finji)
• Life is Strange: True Col­ors (Deck Nine/SQUARE ENIX)
• No Longer Home (Hum­ble Grove, Hana Lee, Cel Davi­son, Adri­enne Lom­bar­do, Eli Rainsberry/Fellow Traveler)

Best Community Support

• Apex Leg­ends (Respawn/EA)
• Des­tiny 2 (Bungie)
• Final Fan­ta­sy XIV Online (Square Enix)
• Fort­nite (Epic Games)
• No Man’s Sky (Hel­lo Games)

Best Mobile Game

• Fan­tasian (Mist­walk­er)
• Gen­shin Impact (MiHoYo)
• League of Leg­ends: Wild Rift (Riot Games)
• Mar­vel Future Rev­o­lu­tion (Net­mar­ble)
• Poke­mon Unite (TiMi Studios/The Poke­mon Company)

Best VR/AR

• Hit­man 3 (IO Interactive)
• I Expect You To Die 2 (Schell Games)
• Lone Echo II (Ready at Dawn/Oculus Studios)
• Res­i­dent Evil 4 (Arma­ture Studio/Capcom/Oculus Studios)
• Sniper Elite VR (Coatsink/Just Add Water/Rebellion Developments)

Best Action

• Back 4 Blood (Tur­tle Rock/WB Games)
• Chival­ry II (Torn Ban­ner Studios/Tripwire Interactive)
• Deathloop (Arkane Studios/Bethesda)
• Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft Toronto/Ubisoft)
• Retur­nal (Housemarque/SIE)

Best Action/Adventure

• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Eidos Montreal/SQUARE ENIX)
• Metroid Dread (Mer­cury Steam/Nintendo)
• Psy­cho­nauts 2 (Dou­ble Fine/Xbox Game Studios)
• Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart (Insom­ni­ac Games/SIE)
• Res­i­dent Evil Vil­lage (Cap­com)

Best Role Playing

• Cyber­punk 2077 (CD Pro­jekt Red)
• Mon­ster Hunter Rise (Cap­com)
• Scar­let Nexus (Bandai Namco)
• Shin Mega­mi Ten­sei V (Atlus/Sega)
• Tales of Arise (Bandai Namco)

Best Fighting

• Demon Slay­er ‑Kimet­su no Yai­ba- The Hinoka­mi Chron­i­cles (CyberConnect2/Sega)
• Guilty Gear ‑Strive- (Arc Sys­tem Works)
• Melty Blood: Type Lumi­na (French-Bread­/De­light­works)
• Nick­elodeon All-Star Brawl (Ludosity/Fair Play Labs/GameMill)
• Vir­tua Fight­er 5: Ulti­mate Show­down (Sega)

Best Family

• It Takes Two (Haze­light Studios/EA)
• Mario Par­ty Super­stars (NDcube/Nintendo)
• New Poké­mon Snap (Bandai Namco/The Poké­mon Company/Nintendo)
• Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (Nin­ten­do)
• War­i­oWare: Get It Togeth­er! (Intel­li­gent Systems/Nintendo)

Best Sports/Racing

• F1 2021 (Codemasters/EA Sports)
• FIFA 22 (EA Vancouver/EA Sports)
• Forza Hori­zon 5 (Play­ground Games/Xbox Game Studios)
• Hot Wheels Unleashed (Mile­stone)
• Rid­ers Repub­lic (Ubisoft Annecy/Ubisoft)

Best Sim/Strategy

• Age of Empires IV (Rel­ic Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
• Evil Genius 2: World Dom­i­na­tion (Rebel­lion Developments)
• Humankind (Ampli­tude Studios/Sega)
• Inscryp­tion (Daniel Mullins Games/Devolver)
• Microsoft Flight Sim­u­la­tor (Asobo Studio/Xbox Game Studios)

Best Multiplayer

• Back 4 Blood (Tur­tle Rock/WB Games)
• It Takes Two (Haze­light Studios/EA)
• Knock­out City (Velan Studios/EA)
• Mon­ster Hunter Rise (Cap­com)
• New World (Ama­zon Games)
• Val­heim (Iron Gate Studio/Coffee Stain)

Most Anticipated Game

• Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
• God of War Rag­narök (Sony San­ta Monica/SIE)
• Hori­zon For­bid­den West (Guer­ril­la Games/SIE)
• Sequel to The Leg­end of Zel­da: Breath of the Wild (Nin­ten­do)
• Starfield (Bethes­da Game Studios/Bethesda)

Innovation in Accessibility, Presented by Chevrolet

• Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft Toronto/Ubisoft)
• Forza Hori­zon 5 (Play­ground Games/Xbox Game Studios)
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Eidos Montreal/SQUARE ENIX)
• Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart (Insom­ni­ac Games/SIE)
• The Vale: Shad­ow of the Crown (Cre­ative Bytes Studios/Falling Squirrel)

Content Creator of the Year

• Dream
• Fus­lie
• Gaules
• Ibai
• The­Gre­fg

Best Esports Game

• Call of Duty (Activi­sion)
• CS:GO (Valve)
• DOTA2 (Valve)
• League of Leg­ends (Riot Games)
• Val­o­rant (Riot Games)

Best Esports Athlete

• Chris “Simp” Lehr
• Heo “Show­Mak­er” Su
• Magomed “Col­lapse” Khalilov
• Olek­san­dr “s1mple” Kostyliev
• Tyson “TenZ” Ngo

Best Esports Team

• Atlanta FaZe (COD)
• DWG KIA (LOL)
• Natus Vin­cere (CS:GO)
• Sen­tinels (Val­o­rant)
• Team Spir­it (DOTA2)

Best Esports Coach

• Airat “Silent” Gaziev
• Andrey “ENGH” Sholokhov
• Andrii “B1ad3” Horodenskyi
• James “Crow­der” Crowder
• Kim “kkO­ma” Jeong-gyun

Best Esports Event

• 2021 League of Leg­ends World Championship
• PGL Major Stock­holm 2021
• PUBG Mobile Glob­al Cham­pi­onship 2020
• The Inter­na­tion­al 2021
• Val­o­rant Cham­pi­ons Tour: Stage 2 Masters