As the countdown for The Game Awards 2024 ticks, the voting website has revealed their Players’ Voice Nominees. This year’s contenders have shown why they deserve the category for their playability, fun value, and most importantly, offering a unique gaming experience. Here are the nominees for the Players’ Voice three voting rounds.
RPGs
- Black Myth Wukong
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
- Dragon’s Dogma 2
- Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
- Final Fantasy XIV Online
- Persona 3 Reload
Throughout 2024, RPGs have been thriving, earning their spot for the ‘Players’ Voice’ award. Kicking the year off with Persona 3 Reload brought back a fan-favorite of the Persona series, Atlus fans were ready to tackle the critically acclaimed Metaphor: ReFantazio. Both prioritized the manga-style aesthetics to work with the games’ compelling stories and combat.
Following behind came the long-awaited Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2. It will be pitted against EA’s The Veilguard for their world exploration and party system. Dragon’s Dogma 2 may struggle after critics found its battle difficulty with certain monsters can be unfair. Meanwhile, The Veilguard could run ahead in votes for the bonding mechanic.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Senua’s Saga have a strong voice cast and captivating stories exploring the past. Final Fantasy VII could have the edge in the 1st round for the game’s reimaging of character dynamics. Senua’s Saga on the other hand has taken an artistic approach to its storytelling. Aside from the combat, the game uses puzzles to portray Senua’s mental challenges through her losses.
Black Myth Wukong has earned many awards, even winning the ‘Ultimate Game’ Golden Joystick Awards. For a Player’s Voice nominee, its action-orientated gameplay makes it a competitor to watch out for. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is one of the first DLCs to be counted in for a Game Award. Two years after the original game, FromSoftware wanted to offer players an extra challenge to test the player’s determination. It may even beat Black Myth Wukong due to developer Game Science asking players to not discuss feminist propaganda.
Action Games
- Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
- Stellar Blade
- Zenless Zone Zero
- Genshin Impact
- League of Legends
- Mobile Legends: Bang Bang
- Wuthering Waves
Action games gained a lot of love in 2024, especially from Japan and China. It became an exciting adventure for Korean studio Shift Up to show off their first action-adventure RPG, Stellar Blade. Playing as EVE, she explores and learns about humanity’s evolution while fighting the Naytiba. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth makes the list for its wonderful Hawaii experience and multi-controllable party battles. It’s quite the wild card of the bun.ch
Making a return in honor of Akira Toriyama, the DragonBall fighting series returns in Sparking! ZERO It could make it into the 2nd round thanks to more immersive combat that took inspiration from the anime’s battle scenes. Another perk Sparking! ZERO has is the custom battle creator, allowing players to create their own Dragon Ball scenes.
MiHoYo will be having two games competing for Player’s Voice this year. Genshin Impact has won once from its fanbase support in 2022. They wanted the game to win in honor of actor Lee Woo-ri, the Korean VA for Cyno. MiHoYo’s Zenless Zone Zero joins the ranks for its fast-paced action. It could surpass its predecessor for its character roster alone.
The same could be said for Kuro Games’ Wuthering Waves. The game plays similarly to Genshin Impact but focuses more on story events. These events are what players love about the game for they learn about characters using different interactions. Although some of its dialogue can be seen uncanny.
Shooters
- COD: Black Ops 6
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
- Valorant
- Warframe
Shooters have a nice selection compared to 2023. So far, Helldivers 2 is the top competitor for the Player’s Choice. It had a rocky start when players encountered game crashes during the first mission and online matches. Since then, Arrowhead Game Studios has been working vigorously to fix these issues. Now players are enjoying Helldivers 2 in its current state, appreciating the developers’ caring effort.
Now with the latecomer, COD: Black Ops 6, an uphill battle has awakened. The new installment has offered plenty of playable content including multiplayer modes and zombie matches. The Call of Duty franchise also has massive player support that could boost Black Ops 6’s voting counts.
Adventure Games
- Silent Hill 2 Remake
- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
- No Man’s Sky
Adventure games were scarce in 2024, but it has a handful of games that surprised gamers. These three games each have a chance of making the 2nd round. The top contender for Player’s Choice could be Echoes of Wisdom. It became the Zelda game for its innovative sandbox gameplay in an overhead layout.
Silent Hill 2 Remake could follow behind after Bloober Team’s unexpected success. Their recreation of the beloved Silent Hill game showed their dedication to Konami’s storytelling style. It was also the team’s idea to have it played in third-person to improve combat playability.
No Man’s Sky has been relaxing since announcing Light No Fire last year. Hello Games is testing the game capabilities to figure out the best optimization settings and added features in WORLDS. While it may not win Players’ Voice, it’s still a nominee for ‘Community Support’.
Platformers
- Astro Bot
- Sonic x Shadow Generations
Representing platformers in Player’s Voice are two games that captured gamers’ hearts, Astro Bot and Sonic x Shadow Generations. This is a tough match for they both have proven to have fun gameplay and their nostalgia factor.
Astro Bot celebrates the 30th anniversary of PlayStation. Sony hired Team Asobi to create a full platformer of their adorable PS5 mascot who starred in the console’s tech demo. Astro was given many abilities that will help him traverse the PlayStation Dimension. Memorable games like Crash Bandicoot and God of War Ragnarok made an appearance and can become costumes.
Sonic x Shadow Generations became a remake expansion of the 2011 game. Now celebrating games featuring Shadow the Hedgehog, Sega has successfully brought Shadow to the modern gameplay of the Sonic games. Like Astro Bot, he has more abilities from Black Doom that can make him travel stages faster and unleash mass destruction.
Indie Games
- Balatro
- Palworld
Last but not least are the indie games. While not many, Balatro and Palworld have a strong player base. It’s unsure if Palworld would make it for ‘Players’ Voice’ due to the many controversies including the Nintendo court case. Yet gamers enjoy playing for combining creature battles with work simulations and shooters.
Balatro has won a few awards since its debut including two Golden Joystick awards. One of them is the Critics Breakthrough Award for its poker-inspired gameplay that includes jokers. While there is no story, using strategies, it offer replayability as each playthrough starts with different cards each time.
3 Rounds of Players’ Voice
Right now, these 30 nominees will be voted through three rounds. Players’ Voice Round 1 has started today and voting will stop on Dec. 4th at 8 PM GMT. Round 2 will start on Dec. 5th and the Final Round will start on Dec. 9th. Get your votes in before The 2024 Game Awards airs on Dec. 12th!
