Tech
‘Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree’ Should Not Win, Or Be Nominated For, GOTY 2024
There was really only one major controversy anyone was talking about after the 2024 Game Awards nominations went out yesterday. This year, it was prominently broadcast that DLC and expansions would be eligible for all categories, including Game of the Year. And as such, the stellar Elden Ring expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, was nominated multiple times.
Shadow of the Erdtree has been nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Game Direction, Best RPG and Game of the Year. This has resulted in a whole lot of pushback that Shadow of the Erdtree should not in fact be eligible for these categories, especially Game of the Year, despite these Game Awards rules. Rather, it should be in some sort of separate Best DLC/Expansion category which currently does not exist at the show.
This is correct. Shadow of the Erdtree is the most fun I have had playing anything this year. No, it should not be classified as a full “game,” and take up space in all these categories after Elden Ring itself dominated The Game Awards during its release year.
The length of the game, the idea that it’s longer and more substantive than many other nominees or full games, does not matter. The key factor here is that this expansion is not remotely standalone, but an offshoot of the main game where you have to play anywhere from 20 to 80 hours to even be strong enough to take on the boss you are required to beat to even access the expansion.
If Shadow of the Erdtree was a fully standalone, smaller spin-off, this would be a different conversation. I’m thinking of something like Miles Morales, which may use the same city as Marvel’s Spider-Man, but is a standalone game that does not require you to own or play any part of Spider-Man itself. That is a game. A smaller, cheaper game, but it is its own game. Shadow of the Erdtree is not.
I previously thought that the nominating body would agree with this and therefore not actually nominate Erdtree. That did not happen. So now I’m not going to predict that Erdtree can’t win GOTY, because clearly it can. And might. This feels bad. Especially in the Game of the Year category, it is taking up a slot that could be occupied by a half a dozen other games who would consider even an nomination a big win. But here it is, and we don’t know what “number 7” might have been.
This feels like a rule that was only emphasized this year in particular to accommodate Shadow of the Erdtree. I’m not even sure this existed say, last year, when Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty was one of the best gaming experiences of the year, but not a full game. There is some debate about whether this rule was only just made, or whether it was only highlighted this year. Geoff Keighley has not been especially clear on this fact.
This isn’t the right call. There should be a DLC/Expansion category and even if that might have been an easy win for Shadow of the Erdtree, it should not be taking up space in all these other categories, however good it might be.
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