Yesterday, The Game Awards revealed the full list of nominations for 2024. Among the nominees were expected, well-received titles like Metaphor: ReFantazio, Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which all earned the most nominations of the year. However, another big nominee, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, has sparked debates online about its inclusion in the bigger categories due to its nature as an expansion.
Fans have been debating online whether Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree deserves to be nominated alongside other standalone games like Black Myth: Wukong, Astro Bot and Metaphor: ReFantazio. To make matters trickier, Elden Ring already won Game of the Year back in 2022 and many feel that Shadow of the Erdtree, an expansion to the award-winning base game, isn’t fair as there’s now a chance that it could win the biggest award of the show again.
Some arguments state that, unlike standalone releases like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales which can be accessed without playing Marvel’s Spider-Man, Shadow of the Erdtree requires players to progress pretty far into the game in order to access the DLC in the first place. Many also believe that The Game Awards should rather create a new category for Best DLC/Expansion as that frees up space for other worthy contenders to receive nominations in the bigger categories.
The Game Awards made it clear that DLCs, expansions and remakes/remasters are eligible for nominations, saying in a recently released statement:
“The Game Awards aims to recognise the best creative and technical work each year, irrespective of the format of that content’s release. Expansion packs, new game seasons, DLCs, remakes and remasters are eligible in all categories, if the jury deems the new creative and technical work to be worthy of a nomination. Factors such as the newness of the content and its price/value should be taken into consideration.”
There’s no arguing the quality and staggering amount of content that Shadow of the Erdtree offers – moreso than many full-priced AAA releases this year – but it has brought up interesting conversations about how we treat these types of situations going forward.
