Geoff Keighley announced The Game Awards’ 2024 nominees this week and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is looking like a major player heading into the December 12th ceremony. FromSoftware’s action RPG notched four nominations, including the two big ones, Best Game Direction and Game of the Year. That means that The Game Awards’ voting body considers an expansion to not only be a game, but one of the six best games released in 2024.
Should DLC Be Eligible Alongside Standalone Games?
The announcement that DLC was eligible caused some controversy before the nominees were even revealed, with online commenters debating whether Shadow of the Erdtree, or any DLC, should be eligible for awards. I get the arguments against it, but Shadow of the Erdtree obviously should be eligible. In every way that matters, it’s a game.
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Shadow of the Erdtree is either worthy of award recognition, or it’s not. That’s the simple choice we face.
Of course, it must be acknowledged that The Game Awards are extremely silly. We pay attention to them because, well, it’s fun to see your favorite game recognized on an international stage and smaller games benefit from the burst of attention the show provides. But, at the end of the day, TGA is an hours-long ad block with the odd award sandwiched in. It isn’t a serious thing, and we probably shouldn’t take it that seriously. That being said…
The biggest argument against Shadow of the Erdtree being nominated is that you have to play a whole lot of Elden Ring to even get to the point where you can play it. That’s a big obstacle for would-be players, whereas you can just play the rest of the nominees as soon as they’re done installing. As much as it’s an obstacle for players, it’s arguably a bigger obstacle for Erdtree’s awards chances. If the choice is between Shadow of the Erdtree and Astro Bot — which anyone can pick up and play without doing an ounce of homework beforehand — the great game with no strings attached is probably going to win.
But that makes Erdtree notching a nomination all the more impressive. You mean people had to, effectively, play two games to finish this and it still got voted one of the six best games of the year? That makes Erdtree’s path to victory much harder, but its reliance on an existing game shouldn’t be disqualifying.
Shadow Of The Erdtree May Be DLC, But It’s Longer Than Most Games
Shadow of the Erdtree is definitively a game’s worth of content. HowLongToBeat.com‘s community has it clocking in at 25.5 hours for the main story, and 51 hours if you go for a completionist run. That makes it significantly longer than at least one of the games it’s nominated against (Astro Bot). This year’s nominees are mostly RPGs, and it is shorter than giants like Metaphor: ReFantazio. But that’s a fluke — it’s longer than four of last year’s GOTY nominees.
Length isn’t everything, but it’s undeniable that, when gamers talk about whether or not a game is worthy of praise, length often plays a role. I enjoyed both of the Alan Wake 2 expansions that came out this year, but both are only a few hours long. That makes the argument that they should stand alongside 80-hour behemoths like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth more of an uphill battle for value-focused players.
I’ve made this case before, but DLC is something the industry should be celebrating, not moving away from. Expansions offer an opportunity for less experienced developers to step into leadership roles, which makes it an important training ground to help a studio’s younger employees level up. It also is the only portion of the game that developers make after shipping, which means it has potential to be quite good. Erdtree getting a GOTY nod could be an incentive for more developers to keep producing DLC, and that’s a win for me.
But most importantly, if a game is really good, it should be recognized for that. Shadow of the Erdtree is an expansion, but it took years to make, provided dozens of hours of content for players, and was one of the best liked releases of the year. Why not reward it with a nomination?
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