BAFTA Game Awards are one of the most prestigious accolades in the gaming industry. Akin to other award titles, these, while honoring the winners of each category, also get other underrated contenders the attention they deserve.
Having been around for the last 19 years, the BAFTA Games Award Council is based in the United Kingdom. This year, the award ceremony is all set to take place on April 11, 2024, honoring games and celebrating the people who helped create them. The list of sixty titles for 2023, which will be the contenders across various categories, has been rolled out by the Award Council recently.
BAFTA Games longlist for Game of the Year 2023
The longlist was published on December 15 and has titles that have been seen featuring as contenders and nominees for other games awards. The biggest contenders for Game of the Year, totaling sixty, have been narrowed down from 257 entries. It is also worth noting that this is not the final nominees list, which will be announced almost a month before the ceremony.
The voting for the games will also not begin until January 2024. To no one’s surprise, the fleet is led by no other than Baldur’s Gate 3, a title that has seemingly swept many awards at the 2023 Game Awards. This includes the ever-glorious Game of the Year, Best RPG, and Best Performance in a Gaming Title. The title by the Indie studio Larian very well set the gold standard for RPGs and gaming titles. Other expected titles like Alan Wake 2 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 can also be found in the list. The former is longlisted in 10 categories, and the latter in two.
Hogwarts Legacy also surprisingly appears at the fourth spot with nine long listings from the award partners despite being absent from The Game Awards 2023. The list moves ahead with Square Enix’s FINAL FANTASY XVI and the Nintendo exclusive The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, each longlisted eight times by partners.
Some other titles were delivered by Massive AAA studios, like Bethesda’s latest title based on a new IP, Starfield, which could only be longlisted thrice. Another surprising addition was Activision’s latest trainwreck, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, with the same number of longlist yesses as Starfield.
As mentioned earlier, game awards are platforms for underrated games to shine and get much-needed credit and attention. It is no surprise that a majority of Indie games happen to be present in this subgroup of video game titles. Skimming through the list, one can find some Indie darlings like COCOON, Viewfinder, and Dredge present on the list.
Some games that didn’t come out in 2023 have received new content, like Battlefield 2042, Cyberpunk 2077, and Fortnite, which can be seen in the longlist for the year’s best games. These were all of the longlisted games for Game of the Year. The number in parenthesis alongside the titles is the number of times the members have voted for them:
- Baldur’s Gate 3 (15)
- Alan Wake 2 (14)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (10)
- Hogwarts Legacy (9)
- FINAL FANTASY XVI (8)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (8)
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (7)
- COCOON (6)
- DAVE THE DIVER (6)
- Hi-Fi RUSH (6)
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder (6)
- Viewfinder (6)
- DREDGE (5)
- Diablo IV (4)
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (3)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (3)
- Disney Illusion Island (3)
- Starfield (3)
- Chants of Sennaar (2)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (2)
- EA SPORTS FC 24 (2)
- Jusant (2)
- LEGO 2K Drive (2)
- Venba (2)
- Atomic Heart (1)
- Battlefield 2042 (1)
- Bluey: The Videogame (1)
- Cassette Beasts (1)
- Dead Island 2 (1)
- Deliver Us Mars (1)
- EA Sports WRC (1)
- En Garde! (1)
- F1 23 (1)
- Final Fantasy XIV: Online (1)
- Football Manager 2024 (1)
- Fortnite (1)
- Forza Horizon 5 (1)
- Forza Motorsport (1)
- Genshin Impact (1)
- Goodbye Volcano High (1)
- Horizon Call of the Mountain (1)
- Lies of P (1)
- Lords of the Fallen (1)
- The Making of Katateka (1)
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (1)
- Mortal Kombat 1 (1)
- No Man’s Sky (1)
- Party Animals (1)
- Planet of Lana (1)
- POWERWASH SIMULATOR (1)
- Sea of Stars (1)
- Sea of Thieves (1)
- Sonic Superstars (1)
- Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (1)
- Tchia (1)
- Terra Nil (1)
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1)
- Thirsty Suitors (1)
- Tron: Identity (1)
- Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin (1)
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