Games That Should Have Been Nominated For GOTY At The Game Awards

Key Takeaways

• Shovel Knight was an excellent indie game that didn’t receive a GOTY nomination in 2014, showcasing The Game Awards’ lack of indie representation at the time.
• Undertale, which became a viral hit in 2015, deserved a GOTY nomination due to its unique mechanics and story, and yet it lost to Rocket League for Best Independent Game.
• Dark Souls 3 was surprisingly left out of the 2016 GOTY nominee list, despite being a FromSoftware project that won over fans and critics with its quality.

The Game Awards is a world-renowned awards ceremony that celebrates the best that the gaming industry has to offer each year, with its most prestigious award being the Game of the Year (or GOTY). Since its 2024 edition is just around the corner, now it’s a good time to reminisce about all the excellent titles that were sadly not nominated for the show’s grand award in previous years.

It’s important to note that these video games should not have replaced the existing nominees at their respective ceremonies; they simply could have ended up on the final list if The Game Awards had space for at least one more nominee. After all, every single year was filled to the brim with excellent video games on all platforms, so it makes sense that some of them couldn’t make the cut.

8 Shovel Knight

The Game Awards 2014

• Nominees: Bayonetta 2, Dark Souls 2, Hearthstone, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, & Dragon Age: Inquisiton (WINNER)

The very first edition of The Game Awards was held in a competitive year with multiple high-quality video games, so a lot of the best ones were sadly left out of the final GOTY nominee list. Furthermore, one of the most egregious examples of this was Yacht Club Games’ excellent 2D side scroller, Shovel Knight.

This is an incredible and super fun indie platformer that made a huge impact on gamers because it had the essence of some of the best classics from the NES era. While Shovel Knight did win the award for Best Independent Game in 2014, the final GOTY nominee list seriously lacked some much-needed Indie representation. Nevertheless, The Game Awards have changed a lot ever since, and a game like Shovel Knight would definitely be nominated for the grand award today.

7 Undertale

The Game Awards 2015

• Nominees: Bloodborne, Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Super Mario Maker, & The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (WINNER)

This is yet another case of a unique Indie game that made a huge impact on the industry, yet it didn’t get its deserved recognition. There’s no denying that Undertale was one of the biggest video games of 2015, since Toby Fox’s brilliant take on the RPG genre became a viral sensation that everybody was talking about during that time.

With creative mechanics, mind-blowing plot twists, a charming sense of humor, and an incredible soundtrack, Undertale has all the elements of the typical GOTY nominee. Weirdly enough, it didn’t even win Best Independent Game, which it was nominated for but lost against Rocket League. This is not much of a surprise, though, since Rocket League was also extremely popular during that time.

6 Dark Souls 3

The Game Awards 2016

• Nominees: Titanfall 2, Doom, Inside, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, & Overwatch (WINNER)

The Game Awards 2016 remains one of the most controversial editions of this awards show, mainly due to the fact that many people believe that a multiplayer game like Overwatch shouldn’t have won GOTY over single-player adventures like Uncharted 4 or Doom (2016). But there’s another great single-player game that is oddly missing from that final list, and it’s Dark Souls 3.

It’s funny because, nowadays, The Game Awards is famous for always awarding and recognizing FromSoftware and its high-quality releases, but Dark Souls 3 didn’t get a single award in 2016, even though it was yet another excellent entry in an iconic series that was received very well by both fans and critics alike. At least it was nominated for Best RPG, but it still ended up losing to The Witcher 3‘s DLC.

5 NieR: Automata

The Game Awards 2017

• Nominees: Horizon: Zero Dawn, Persona 5, Super Mario Odyssey, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, & The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (WINNER)

2017 was an incredible year for gaming, and thus, it was also a great year for The Game Awards. Not only did many excellent PlayStation exclusives come out in 2017, but this was also the debut year of the Nintendo Switch, meaning that it was almost impossible for anything other than Mario or The Legend of Zelda to win the grand award. Nevertheless, it’s still quite weird that NieR: Automata didn’t even get a GOTY nomination.

Square Enix and Platinum Games’ action RPG became an instant hit among players and critics, due to its instantly recognizable characters, incredible boss fights, magical soundtrack, and surprisingly deep story and themes. And yet, it was not nominated GOTY nor could it win in the Best RPG category. On the bright side, NieR: Automata won the award for Best Soundtrack, not to mention that it’s still fondly remembered by many to this day.

4 Devil May Cry 5

The Game Awards 2019

• Nominees: Control, Death Stranding, The Outer Worlds, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, & Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (WINNER)

2019 was yet another highly competitive year with a solid lineup of GOTY nominees and tons of great games that were sadly left out of it. And one of the most beloved titles that didn’t make the cut was Devil May Cry 5, which at least managed to win Best Action Game but could have easily been nominated for the grand award as well.

With the great Hideaki Itsuno in the director’s chair, Devil May Cry 5 was a much-needed return to form for the franchise, especially after the release of the controversial DmC: Devil May Cry in 2013. With its impressive graphics, deep and satisfying combat system, memorable characters, exciting boss fights, and challenging battles, Devil May Cry 5 is without a doubt one of the best games in the hack-and-slash genre.

3 Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy

The Game Awards 2021

• Nominees: Deathloop, Metroid Dread, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Resident Evil Village, & It Takes Two (WINNER)

The 2021 edition of The Game Awards is particularly interesting because, in a year with nominees as prestigious as Metroid Dread or Resident Evil Village, the GOTY award was given to It Takes Two, a more unconventional co-op game made by a smaller studio. This was a different and reasonable final choice, but a lot of other solid titles were still left out of the nomination list, with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy being at the forefront.

After the monumental failure of Marvel’s Avengers, this game was a breath of fresh air that proved that single-player adventures based on classic superhero teams not only could work but that they could be extremely fun and creative. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy did for this team what Insomniac had done for Spider-Man a few years prior, and it’s quite unfortunate that a sequel never materialized. Thankfully, it deservedly won the award for Best Narrative.

2 Pokemon Legends: Arceus

The Game Awards 2022

• Nominees: A Plague Tale: Requiem, Horizon: Forbidden West, Stray, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, God of War Ragnarok, & Elden Ring (WINNER)

It’s easy to forget that the beginning of 2022 was a great time for Pokemon fans, because Pokemon Legends: Arceus came out, and it finally changed the formula of the franchise in fun and creative ways that fans had been asking for. Tragically, a few months after it came out, Game Freak and Nintendo released Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, a game that, while far from bad, was extremely divisive due to its many bugs and glitches.

Scarlet & Violet was not eligible for GOTY, but Pokemon Legends: Arceus was. Sadly, it did not make it in, possibly due to the fact that the former was damaging the reputation of the Pokemon IP around that time. This is still one of the best modern console JRPGs, and it proves that the gameplay of the Pokemon franchise can be effectively retooled for a more modern audience. The Game Awards was aware of its importance, because it was nominated for Best RPG, even though it lost to the star of that year’s event, Elden Ring.

1 Final Fantasy 16

The Game Awards 2023

• Nominees: Alan Wake 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, & Baldur’s Gate (WINNER)

Many people consider 2023 to have been one of the best years for gaming in decades, and as a result, multiple high-quality video games deserved to be nominated for GOTY but didn’t make the final list because there wasn’t enough space for them. Among a sea of examples, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 16 was one of the most unexpected omissions.

This action RPG is far from perfect, but it did so many things right that it managed to leave a huge impact on those who played it all the way through. It has many great qualities, like a dark and engaging storyline, complex characters, incredibly realistic graphics, an addictive combat system, some of the absolute best boss fights in the entire industry, and a beautiful soundtrack, which deservedly won its respective award. Final Fantasy 16 was, for many people, their first glimpse at a true next-gen AAA experience, and it definitely deserved a spot among all the other GOTY nominees in 2023.