Horizon: Zero Dawn Leads the Way with Five Nominations at The Game Awards

And so it should!!! My Game of the Year easily....

my game of the year is scalebound.wow.Microsoft really did a good job with this game.not only is scalebound game of the year worthy.but it's one of the best game ever made.well done.word up son😂

I assume Liam meant Horizon: Zero Dawn came out on top for the Playstation brand since this is a Playstation site. In addition to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild getting six nominations, Super Mario Odyssey also has six nominations. Ultimately, it's great to see how many incredible games came out for all platforms this year!

4 games got six nominations:

** Horizon Zero Dawn
** The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
** Super Mario Odyssey
** Destiny 2

@NintendoFan4Lyf I'm sure Zelda is good, but it just seems like a poor man's Horizon to me . I guess I now know how Splatoon fans must feel.

Persona 5 is my personal GOTY. Having said that, Horizon: Zero Dawn is the most impressive game I've played this year, if not ever.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Horizon indeed looks much more impressive than Zelda, but personally I think the gameplay in Zelda is more creative, the world is full of surprises and there're much more freedom.

Both are fantastic games though so does it really matter which one wins?

I think every person and their pet of choice knows that Zelda is going to win, whether it deserves to or not. But good for them getting 6 nominations, I hope they win something, cos they actually deserve it

@playstation1995 haha!Nice one!

Horizon is easily my game of the year with Persona 5 a very close second...then again I'm easily pleased..<carries on playing Cat Quest>

I've played a lot of great games this year but I think Horizon was my fave. It deserves all of its success.

Damn I'm watching most anticipated category Sony is on fire.

i swear to those saying Persona 5 or Horizon or Hellblade is GoTY I smh in disappointment

The real GoTY is... KNACK 2 BAYBEE!!!!

@Godsent I haven't played Zelda, think I'll get it for Christmas. So I'm sure to find out myself.

Not that it REALLY matters, but the Ashley Burch nomination has to count towards Horizon.
Ashley Burch = Aloy , just like Nolan North = Nathan Drake

I really hope Horizon wins something , not only my GOTY but my game of this console generation so far.

Best Chinese Game is a category???

Awesome guerrilla really deserve it great game

Hellblade should take Audio.
NieR should take Score/Music.
Art Direction will either go to Persona or Cuphead.
I think Edith Finch will pull out Narrative.
Games for Impact should be Hellblade.

I don’t necessarily agree, but Zelda will probably take GotY and Best Game Direction.

Unfortunately we just know mario/zelda are going to walk away with everything anyway. 😔

Good for HZD, though sad it won't win much because it's up against BotW. Zelda is definitely my favorite sandbox of the year, but HZD is my favorite action RPG hands down.

Nier Automata should be up there for Game of the Year but whatever. Hopefully it wins the categories it did get nominated in.

I'm rooting for BotW, but I'll be happy if that, SMO, or P5 win. All amazing games.

Haven't played Horizon, so I have no idea how to feel about that, but I would, on principle, prefer it to win over an open-access game if it comes down to it.

HZD definitely gets my vote. I loved Hollow Knight, Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Lost Legacy, Mario+Rabbids, etc, but Horizon was an absolutely wondrous experience, IMO.

Interestingly, having both Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey nominated for the same categories might cannibalize votes for each other. I wouldn't be surprised if Horizon: Zero Dawn ends up winning because of this.

@Hordak
Horizon and Persona face the same issue. Both were released exclusively on PlayStation platforms.

@Kidfried Thats a hole no one wants to fall down.

Got my first chance on Odyssey just now and its good (have to test these chrimbo presents). However its just Mario, the controls are great and its really rewarding even with the tiny bit Ive played. But its not even on the same level as Horizon which I cant wait to get back too.

Yakuza zero is goty anyway. Pfft.

@themcnoisy Yakuza 0! YES! I had much more fun and hours with it than Horizon...but I still think Horizon is the most innovative game of this year...I just got bored of some missions, thought it needed more variety

@Kidfried Probably because Nintendo is marketing the Switch as a home console, and, frankly, The Game Awards' categories aren't really designed to accomodate a hybrid device that pretty much eradicates the line separating home console and handheld hardware.

@Neolit Yeah, I don't really want BotW to color my experience of Horizon, which is one of the reasons I haven't played the latter yet (also not keen on playing an open world game apparently filled with invisible walls and "you are leaving the play area" messages, but I'll judge that when I actually play the game).

Oh and btw, I hope someone backs me up on this....but if you don't vote on SPLATOON 2 on the two categories it's nominated, then that means you're a poor man.

@johncalmc @gmxs I disagree, I think it'll be a repeat of last year. Everybody thought Uncharted 4 had it in the bag yet Overwatch won. This year it'll be PUBG winning even though people think Zelda will win.

@Neolit I'm the opposite I played both simultaneously and easily liked horizon more. Truthfully what did botw do better than horizon besides physics,climb anything and exploration. Horizon easily bests it when it comes to story,characters,side quests,enemies,voice acting and their a.i well the machines and the big one the combat.

please let Horizon Zero Dawn win GOTY award. it is one of my favorite game in 2017

I know I wont be happy with the results, these award shows are fixed.

Love to see P5 to win!

@Ralizah Well, if you look on the map, there is no place to go, so not really invisible walls.

@LiamCroft Rad pic on H:ZD for the article. That area would be so much fun.

@get2sammyb Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't The Last Guardian supposed to be eligible for this year's awards? Zero nominations??? really?

@Neolit Sure. I mean, if absolutely nothing else (and I'm sure it's a fine game in its own right), Horizon is a visual marvel. Every screenshot of the game I've seen is absolutely stunning.

On a related note, I just got the platinum for Horizon and I feel quite good about myself.

@starhops @Ralizah Funnily I wrote that within the first ten hours with the game. Now 35+ hours in I understand the visual cues. In Horizon the dreaded inability to jump over a knee high rock for seemingly no reason happened a lot in the early game, especially when I was attempting to grab a flower at the top of a mountain. The reality was I came at the collectible from the wrong side of the mountain the designers wanted the player to take. Its happened since with a banuk model, I couldnt find the correct way up and just kept jumping in a row and managed to make it lol.

To me the none scripted climbing can be hit and miss. But its not really a true platform game so Ive learnt to forgive Horizon in that regard when the graphics and over arching lore are so good.

Zelda would be mine. Horizon second.

Nintendo games usually get ignored in these game of the year prizes so Horizon will probably clean up!

Nier would have been my GoTY if they offered the choice but I went with Persona 5 and third would have been Horizon. It was really hard to choose though so many good games this year. Nioh, Yakuza 0, Mario Odyssey, Cuphead, Hellblade, and Splatoon 2 among with many others.

I seem it have a very unpopular opinion on BoTW though.

Yep Horizon ZD be me favourite this year. Definitely best gfx for me as well. Story also was decent from start to finish. It was the only one I completed! Other games were a bit too grindy, too long, too short and couldn't keep me interested beyond 30 hours. Can it also win New IP? Huge risk for Guerilla to step away from their norm (killzone FPS) and create an entirely new world. Bravo haha bravo!

::Checks out Most Anticipated, doesn't see Ghost of Tsushima::
HAH, sure guys...suuuuure ;p

Anyway, I'm happy that BotW and Hellblade are up there so much. Also, Mario is rocking a lot of categories. What a great year.

@Neolit Haha gotcha, I see what you mean... maybe since I've been gaming since the 70s, those walls seem part of the experience. I would love to play BotW for sure. I'm really happy it does the Zelda brand proud.

@themcnoisy I've done that one before. I've only fallen to my death once while doing the crazy rock-hop.

Persona won't win but I wish it would. Nier deserves more but at least it got something.

Congratulations for Guerrilla, Horizon is my game of the generation and I really want them to win some awards.

And VGA is garbage. Best Youtuber? Best esport? Best Chinese game? Also they put PUBG as a GOTY contender but not Nier, Nioh, Uncharted, Wolfenstein 2, lmao.
Of course that PUBG will win, just to please the PC crowd....

@NintendoFan4Lyf A new IP versus a 20 year old IP i think i am more impressed with Horizon.

Good stuff

I'd vote Super Mario Odyssey Game of the Year (if Yakuza 0 was in there, I'd go that way, disappointing that game was completely overlooked for any awards) but I have a feeling PubG is going to steal that award eventhough all the other nominees are infinitely better. Horizon should take best narrative, and possibly art direction. The other stuff I think there are games in each category that are slightly better. Ashly Burch probably has the inside track on best performance although I thought Claudia Black and Laura Bailey both knocked it out of the park in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. That's a very interesting category.

Other category that's interesting is best VR/AR game. Just looking at it, I'd say Resident Evil VII should be a slam dunk, the game is awesome, but maybe it doesn't have the same impact in VR as some of those other titles even if they are of overall lesser quality.

@Ralizah "you are leaving the play area"

You need to perform some serious shenanigans with the intention of leaving the map, otherwise you won't ever see that message.

@Kidfried
In a recent interview didn't Reggie call the Switch a home console that can be brought on the go? That's probably why they left it off. Beyond that, both games received a ton of nominations, gotta give some of the others a bit of love as well.

@Octane kind of, see comment 51. Ralizah was echoing something I mentioned in a thread a few weeks ago. It was part of my initial impressions.

With Horizon the pros easily start to outweigh the cons but theres no doubt in my mind some of the gameplay structure is weak ;

1) constant visits to vendors to ditch loot and the strange upgrade paths for ammo and special ammo storage making you keep useless things in your inventory. I was picking up stuff all of the time. I feel its misjudged how mind numbing this process is.
2) The waypoint marker can be really confusing, sometimes taking you away from targets on the map.
3) The off piste climbing is hard to judge, Ive fallen to a lengthy relaod screen 9/10 times so far

counting is hard, i guess...

Finally got a chance to peruse the nominees and I gotta say, the PlayStation exclusives did quite well for themselves this year. Nintendo did okay although I didn’t actually count them but it seemed like there were more PS exclusives nominated. Maybe I’m looking at it through my fanboy bias.
And as we like to hammer home on this site, PS owns the “Most anticipated games” category. 3/5 are exclusives and the other two are muliplatform which Playstation will get also (RDR, MHW) Further evidence that PS has absolutely the best outlook in the near future.
Now the handheld game category ... Nintendo just dominates everyone, I’ll give them that (and that’s without even counting the Switch titles as handheld)

@Th3solution Sony owning "most anticipated" is kind of a gimme, given Microsoft doesn't appear to do exclusives any more and Nintendo probably won't reveal its 2018 lineup until January. Similarly, Nintendo owning the "handheld game" category is also a gimme, as the Vita didn't really get much in the way of noteworthy exclusive releases, leaving 3DS with basically no competition.

@get2sammyb
Is it really a dark horse though? It's one of the most popular games and after Overwatch's win last year, I don't think this kind of game taking GOTY is too surprising at all.

@Ralizah You should play Horizon soon. Especially now that The Frozen Wilds is out. It really is the best game of the year!

BOTW or Mario will win. I think BOTW did enough new stuff to mean it will be considered as having a bigger impact to gaming. PUBG might also have that.

It is a shame as while I could see that BOTW had some great innovation, I loved Horizon as an experience way more.

@themcnoisy I've only seen it once in a YouTube video, and I've done plenty of Skyrim-style mountain jumping.

I get what you're saying though, I wish the inventory could be upgraded beyond its current capacity, since you never know when you're going to need those turkey bones or that fox skin.

You can change the waypoint marker. There's several options, I prefer off or set on the location. The default option has a built-in path finder. It doesn't tell you where your destination is, but it shows you where to go next, and the result is that it changes location over time. So it's more accurate, since it tells you how you should walk, but I suppose it takes a bit of time getting used to.

@Octane I get that but the wayoint marker jumps around all over the place at times. As I said I love Horizon Ive literally just finished all the corrupted zones, but theres huge room for improvement.

Pubg cant possibly win a goty award, its casual ship. The games fun enough and the tense standoffs are decent enough, but come on! If that ship wins ahead of Horizon the awards are pointless. I havent played Zelda so I cant comment and only tested Odyssey yesterday so I cant compare them to pubg. But its throw away garbage.

@themcnoisy Yeah, the marker follows the roads, and always point to the nearest junction on the calculated path. It works, but you need to understand how it works, and you need to pay attention to it. Just turn it off, or set the marker permanently on its destination, that's what I did too.

And of course, there's always room for improvement I think! I've got a list of improvements I'd like to see as well. But it's a solid first entry IMO. Especially for a new IP.

@Octane Right on bro. I forgot to mention once I set the hud to periodical or something (cant remember the term, its context sensitive) it changed the whole game. The hud really is a cluster. That option really should be default setting.

@themcnoisy Dynamic? Haven't tried that yet. Icons don't bother me that much. Skyward Sword had an entire frickin' Wii Remote on screen, and I could live with that too

@Octane thats the one its awesome. It should be set to default as its more natural.