Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Indies dominate in this year’s BAFTA Game Award nominations

Jon Martindale
By

carmack lawsuit zenimax media baftagames
BAFTA
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is set to award a number of games and developers with its famed trophies in early April, so a month ahead of the show, we’ve been given our first look at the nominations. While indies dominate many of the categories, a few big AAA games have made the cut, too, with Uncharted 4 being nominated for a number of awards.

The BAFTAs have been celebrating some of the most exciting and innovative games for a number of years now, though often particular standouts each year can receive the nod in more than one category. There’s certainly the potential for that to happen this year, too, as although 50 games have been nominated across 15 categories, some, like Inside , Uncharted 4 , Overcooked and Overwatch , appear in more than one.

Recommended Videos

Playdead’s Inside has the chance to take home the most awards, as it has been nominated for Narrative, Original Property, Music, Game Design, Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement and the coveted Best Game category. However, it will have to beat Uncharted 4 in five of those to take home gold. That PS4 exclusive has three nominations for best performance from several of its leading actors.

Related

Frantic indie cooking title Overcooked has also been tipped for a few potential wins. It is competing in the British Game, Debut Game, Family and Multiplayer categories, and is facing off against big names like Firewatch, No Man’s Sky and Battlefield 1 across those awards.

While many of the nominations for the big categories aren’t too surprising considering they are all for new and current games, one of the more interesting categories is the AMD Esports Audience Award, which is voted on entirely by the public. It features much older but popular titles like Counter Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, and DotA 2. There are some newer games in there, too though, like Overwatch and Street Fighter V, as well as freemium mobile title Clash Royale.

The British Academy Games Awards themselves will take place on April 6 in London’s Tobacco Dock, presented by writer and filmmaker Danny Wallace. Tickets can be purchased now for 60 pounds ($73) a piece, or if you’d rather attend virtually, the whole event will be live-streamed on the official Twitch channel.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale
Computing Coordinator
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
The Game Awards could use some new categories, so we made them ourselves
1K looks at a cliff in The Talos Principle 2.

The Game Awards features 24 game-related categories -- and even that doesn't feel like enough every time nominees are announced. Indies and more experimental games are often overlooked as the current categories reward the biggest AAA action-focused titles. Geoff Keighley has stated that he constantly assesses which award categories should be present at The Game Awards, but the only major addition recently was Best Game Adaptation in 2022.

There are entire genres and types of games that can feel ignored every year during The Game Awards. This year, we decided to come up with a few new categories of our own, highlight some potential nominees that we think would be worth nominating for these categories if they were to have existed this year, and explain why each category deserves to be added to the Game Awards.
Best Puzzle Game

Read more
This year’s biggest Game Awards snub is this can’t-miss shooter
El Paso, Elsewhere's main character leans on the hood of a car.

After months of anticipation, The Game Awards 2023 nominees were all revealed on Monday. While there will always be debates over what should and shouldn't have made the cut, there is one pretty glaring omission for me. This year's show snubbed one of the best indie games of the year: Strange Scaffold’s El Paso, Elsewhere.

Released for PC and Xbox on September 26, this indie is a narrative-focused action game inspired by games like Max Payne. While it looks like a thrilling shooter that’ll make you feel like a badass on the surface, it also tells a more compelling story about relationships and abuse. It’s one of the best games of the year and now something that might go very overlooked by general audiences as it’s not nominated at The Game Awards 2023. If you haven’t given it a shot yet, I urge you to check it out before the end of the year.
One of the year’s best
El Paso, Elsewhere's old-school third-person shooter gameplay might seem derivative at first glance, but it actually takes the formula those classic Max Payne games established and executes it better than it ever has been. The game intuitively makes me feel like a badass whenever I walk into a room and take some enemies down during a slow-motion dive. Still, players can’t ever go in completely guns-blazing, as each weapon has limited ammo. That makes each level a delicate ballet of dodging enemies and switching between guns, and that only intensifies with each new level.

Read more
Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 lead this year’s Game Awards nominations
Key art for The Game Awards 2023.

The nominees for The Game Awards 2023 are here following a livestream hosted by Geoff Keighley on Monday morning. It's been an excellent year for video games, and the nominations reflect that, at least in the AAA space. Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 garnered the most nominations, with eight each, but titles like Marvel's Spider-Man 2, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder also garnered several nominations.

In terms of indies, none got that much love in the show's biggest categories. However, games like Cocoon, Dredge, Viewfinder, and Terra Nil did pop up multiple times in the indie-friendly categories. We'll have a few weeks to think about all of these nominations ahead of The Game Awards 2023. This Keighley-hosted event is essentially the video game industry's version of the Oscars. It's one of the biggest stages where developers are awarded for their work and also doubles as a lengthy showcase featuring many game announcements and other gaming-related world premieres. This year is shaping up to be no different and might even go bigger as it's the 10th annual The Game Awards show.

Read more