The Bafta Games Awards 2023 are due to take place on Thursday March 30, and speculation about who is going to win is already heating up.
The awards, the nominations for which were announced on March 2, comprise 18 different categories, including Best Game, Best British Game, and Best Debut.
Though the nominations span 45 games – a new record for Bafta – some of the frontrunners include PlayStation’s God of War: Ragnarök (which boasts 15 nominations), indie favourite Stray (with nine), and Elden Ring (with eight). A Plague Tale: Requiem, Tunic, Immortality, Vampire Survivors, and Horizon: Forbidden West are also up for five nominations each.
“It’s definitely sweeping the awards season,” says Tara Saunders, Bafta’s Games Committee chairwoman and studio head at PlayStation London Studio, of God of War: Ragnarök’s success.
“But it’s well deserved in all of the categories that it’s been in. It’s got super-high quality in music, animation, and just the game as a whole.”
However, for Saunders, the list this year is notable for another reason: “Actually, it’s not just about those big games, it’s actually really shining a light on both those big but also the small, high-quality games that people may not actually know about.”
These include viral hit Trombone Champ, satanic-comedy game Cult of the Lamb, and Vampire Survivors, all of which are also up for nominations.
“There’s such a huge variety in those game plays,” Saunders, says. “Something like Trombone Champ can sit in the same award category or alongside a blockbuster, and it makes you go, ‘Oh, wow!’ But then, when you’ve kind of played that and you experience it, you can understand why it’s there.”
The competition also features the EE Game of the Year Award, where the public can vote for their favourite title from a shortlist of six that includes viral hit Marvel Snap, Horizon: Forbidden West, and Elden Ring.
Despite these big-budget titles, this year has also seen a huge rise in the prominence of indie games, which Bafta CEO Jane Millichip says is highlighted best by the Games Beyond Entertainment category – that is, games with a social purpose.
“It is more naturally suited to those up-and-coming studios, and [there’s] a really wide range of stories and narrative form in that category this year, which is really pleasing,” explains Millichip.
“And important stories, whether it’s tackling dementia, culture, and capitalism, endangered species, often with first-person narratives, which pull the games player into a much more empathetic environment. And they’re also hugely entertaining.”
Several British studios have also been nominated for their work – exemplified best in the Best British Game category, where nominees include Citizen Sleeper, Vampire Survivors, and OlliOlli World.
“There’s a really vibrant, UK games industry,” Saunders says, “but its strength lies in being able to work across borders.
“You can have a game made by people all across the globe and are working on one team… you get much more cultural influences coming through into games, because of the flexibility that the teams have to bring in more diverse talent because they’re not locked to a location any more.
“Games are direct to consumer in a way that certainly television isn’t,” Millichip adds. “I love the fact that gamers themselves have a great deal of agency and power to drive us in the various directions that they want us to go; that’s great.”
Who will be hosting the awards?
This year around, the show’s host will be veteran gaming presenter Frankie Ward. She has previously worked on E4’s GamesMaster show, co-presents the My Life in Pixels podcast and is a gamer herself, often posting streams on Twitch.
“I can’t believe I get the honour of being part of the awards this year, and I’m currently having to practice how to be calm in conversations with the amazing people whose work I’ve been raving about for the past year,” Ward said when the announcement was made. “Video games are entertainment’s best medium for connection, and I’m so excited to celebrate the people who bring the world together with their creative and technical achievements in gaming.”
How to watch the awards
The ceremony will take place on Thursday March 30 at 6.50pm BST at the Southbank Theatre. It will be streamed exclusively on the BAFTA’s Twitch channel.
Nominations categories
ANIMATION
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE II Mark Grigsby, Bruce Ferris, Khoa Le - Infinity Ward/Activision Publishing, Inc
GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK Bruno Velazquez, Erica Pinto, Mehdi Yssef - Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment
HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST Development Team – Guerrilla/Sony Interactive Entertainment
LEGO STAR WARS: THE SKYWALKER SAGA Development Team – TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
SIFU Development Team – Sloclap/Sloclap & Kepler Interactive
STRAY Jophray Mikolajczyk, Jean-Marie Vouillon, Simon Jacquart - BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive
BEST GAME
CULT OF THE LAMB Development Team - Massive Monster/Devolver Digital
ELDEN RING Development Team – FromSoftware/BANDAI Namco Europe
GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK Eric Williams, Chad Cox, Yumi Yang - Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment
MARVEL SNAP Development Team – Second Dinner Studios/Nuverse
STRAY Development Team - BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive
VAMPIRE SURVIVORS Development Team – poncle/poncle
BRITISH GAME
CITIZEN SLEEPER Gareth Damian Martin, Guillaume Singelin, Amos Roddy - Jump Over the Age/Fellow Traveller
OLLIOLLI WORLD Development Team - Roll7/Private Division
ROLLERDROME Development Team - Roll7/Private Division
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER III Development Team - Creative Assembly/SEGA
TWO POINT CAMPUS Development Team - Two Point Studios/SEGA
VAMPIRE SURVIVORS Development Team – poncle/poncle
DEBUT GAME
AS DUSK FALLS Caroline Marchal, Charu Desodt - INTERIOR/NIGHT/Xbox Game Studios
THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL Andrejs KļaviŚ, Ernests KļaviŚ - Color Gray Games/Playstack
STRAY Development Team - BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive
TROMBONE CHAMP Development Team - Holy Wow Studios/ Holy Wow Studios
TUNIC Development Team - TUNIC Team/FINJI
VAMPIRE SURVIVORS Development Team – poncle/poncle
FAMILY
DISNEY DREAMLIGHT VALLEY Development Team - Gameloft/ Gameloft
KIRBY AND THE FORGOTTEN LAND Development Team - HAL Laboratory/Nintendo
LEGO STAR WARS: THE SKYWALKER SAGA Development Team - TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
MARIO + RABBIDS SPARKS OF HOPE Development Team - Ubisoft Milan; Ubisoft Paris/Ubisoft
NINTENDO SWITCH SPORTS Development Team - Nintendo EPD/Nintendo
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: SHREDDER’S REVENGE Development Team - Tribute Games/Dotemu
GAME DESIGN
CULT OF THE LAMB Development Team - Massive Monster/Devolver Digital
ELDEN RING Development Team – FromSoftware/BANDAI NAMCO Europe
GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK Jason McDonald, Andrew Chrysafidis, Luis Sanchez - Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment
HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST Development Team – Guerrilla/Sony Interactive Entertainment
TUNIC Development Team - TUNIC Team/FINJI
VAMPIRE SURVIVORS Development Team – poncle/poncle
NARRATIVE
CITIZEN SLEEPER Gareth Damian Martin - Jump Over the Age/Fellow Traveller
GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK Matt Sophos, Richard Gaubert - Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment
IMMORTALITY Sam Barlow, Amelia Gray, Allan Scott - Half Mermaid Productions/Half Mermaid Productions
PENTIMENT Josh Sawyer, Kate Dollarhyde, Zoe Franznick - Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studio
A PLAGUE TALE: REQUIEM Writing Team - Asobo Studio/Focus Entertainment
STRAY Writing Team - BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive
PERFORMER IN A LEADING ROLE
ALAIN MESA as Alejandro Vargas in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
CHARLOTTE MCBURNEY as Amicia de Rune in A Plague Tale: Requiem
CHRISTOPHER JUDGE as Kratos in God of War Ragnarök
MANON GAGE as Marissa Marcel in Immortality
SIOBHAN WILLIAMS as Laura in The Quarry
SUNNY SULJIC as Atreus in God of War Ragnarök
EE GAME OF THE YEAR (voted for by the public)
ELDEN RING FromSoftware/BANDAI NAMCO Europe
GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment
HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST Guerrilla/Sony Interactive Entertainment
IMMORTALITY Half Mermaid Productions/Half Mermaid Productions
MARVEL SNAP Second Dinner Studios/Nuverse
STRAY BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive
