The Game Awards – Final Player’s Choice Nominees Revealed

The Game Awards are fast approaching, with the massive rewards show incoming on December 12th. One award, completely decided by the gaming community, had stiff competition this year.

But with the dust settling, five games remain. I believe the Players Choice nominees reveal much about the current gaming landscape.

The Nominees for 2024 Players Choice Award

Before I reveal the final five games, one must reflect on the initial batch of games considered for the award.

The roster of games included many highlights in 2024. JRPGs were widely represented, with Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Atlus/SEGA’s Metaphor: ReFantazio being the headliner picks. In addition, the platformer genre was represented by Team Asobi’s Astro Bot and Sonic Team’s Sonic X Shadow Generations.

A full list of the nominations can be found here via IGN, but only five experiences remain for the Players Choice Award.

• Black Myth: WuKong (Game Science)
• Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtreee (From Software)
• Zenless Zone Zero (HoYoverse)
• Genshin Impact (HoYoverse)
• Wuthering Waves (Kuro Games)

If you would like to place your vote, you can do so through the following link.

Thoughts on the Gacha Games Being Nominated

I voiced my issues with this award in an editorial, citing my thoughts on Sonic Frontiers losing the award to Genshin Impact in 2022. When you have games with massive communities like the HoYoverse titles, it just makes other titles competing for the Players Choice Award genuinely unfair.

It also doesn’t help that fans are incentivized to vote for the gacha titles, with the winners typically getting free rolls for characters following the Game Awards. That’s a big reason why even with the Sonic community rallying behind Frontiers at the time, it still lost to the Genshin Impact community.

That being said, many other games had explosive communities in 2024. Fortnite weekly offers players amazing experiences for its players and one cannot ignore the impact Helldivers 2 had on the industry for the early half of 2024. So the fact that Gatcha titles dominated this section is disappointing considering this.

DLC is Game of the Year – Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s Nomination

Despite many people voicing their frustration at Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree being considered Game of the Year material, this nomination says otherwise.

When this expansion, which requires multiple hours into base Elden Ring to access, completely dominates full new experiences released in 2024, it reveals the mindset of the Game Award Panelists. Many of them played the same games we did in 2024, and if the gaming community at large feels it’s the best game of 2024, surely most critics in the industry feel the same way.

It also reveals how dominant the Soulsborne genre has become in recent years. Even for someone who genuinely does not care for the genre, it’s clear that it has entered the ‘casual gamer’ market. Remember, three of the five games nominated for Players Choice are accessible on mobile phones, the largest player base next to PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Elden Ring has once more been nominated for Players Choice. Save for returning live service titles and mobile games, many games do not get nominated more than once for this award. This further proves how much the gaming community values the title and the Soulsborne genre.

And unlike the Gacha titles where the player bases are ‘nudged’ into voting for them, Shadow of the Erdtree‘s nomination is completely outside of From Software and Bandai-Namco’s influence. It was driven, fully by the gaming community.

China Cannot Be Ignored – Black Myth WuKong’s Nomination

One of 2024’s biggest success stories was Game Science’s Black Myth WuKong, a boss-rush-style action title many enjoyed. Despite its success coming from places worldwide, the largest audience for the PC and PlayStation 5 title was China.

The game launched, Black Myth WuKong dominated the Steam charts and sold over 18 million copies. Earning nearly $800 million since launch, it’s clear the game is a massive success for Game Science, but where did the game sell the most?

China showed up for Black Myth, a key reason the Steam numbers are so large. It even helped sell PS5 consoles in that region. With more games coming from China, including NetEase’s smash hit Marvel Rivals, it’s a region the industry cannot ignore.

Closing Thoughts

Despite my comments, I hold no ill will toward any of the games nominated for this award. The gaming community made their voice known and it’s wonderful Jeff’s show even has this award for them. We can only hope this award is refined for next year’s show.

Which game do you think will win the Players Choice Award? Let us know in the comments below!