The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has officially announced their 24th Annual D.I.C.E Awards nominees!
The D.I.C.E Awards are interesting as games are elected and voted for by developers.
They mostly focus on technical achievements but we will still see awards for the best game in each genre and a Game of The Year trophy!
The event will take place on April 8 2021, so let’s look at who could be in with a shot of winning!
The Nominees
The list of all nominees is incredibly long so we’re going to cut to the big ones and give our predictions!
The full list of nominees can be found here if you want to see all the categories.
For an overall rundown: The Last of Us Part II received the most nominations with 11 followed by Ghost of Tsushima with 10 and Hades got 8. Half-Life: Alyx, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps all got 5.
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Game of the Year
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Nintendo
- Final Fantasy VII Remake - Square Enix
- Ghost Of Tsushima - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Sucker Punch
- Hades - Supergiant Games
- The Last Of Us Part II - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Naughty Dog
Our Prediction:
After it won at The Game Awards we’d expect to see The Last Of Us add another award to its trophy cabinet. At the time of release, it was highly praised for its technical achievements, so amongst developers so it is likely to do well at D.I.C.E too.
Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
- Ghost Of Tsushima - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Sucker Punch
- Hades - Supergiant Games
- Half-Life: Alyx - Valve
- Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition - Annapurna Interactive/Cardboard Computer
- The Last Of Us Part II - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Naughty Dog
Our Prediction:
The Last of Us also won this game award and we could definitely see it happen again. Though the games on this list are excellent, and perhaps the achievements that Half-Life pulled off in VR will be enough to sway voters from a development background?
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Outstanding Achievement in Game Design
- Ghost Of Tsushima - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Sucker Punch
- Hades - Supergiant Games
- Half-Life: Alyx - Valve
- The Last Of Us Part II - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Naughty Dog
- Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Insomniac Games
Our Predictions:
The Last of Us Part II is too easy to predict again. We instead think that Ghost of Tsushima has a good shout with this one and we think Half-Life could win if it doesn’t get Game Direction.
Online Game of the Year
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Nintendo
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Activision Publishing, Inc/Treyarch
- Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout - Devolver Digital/Mediatonic
- Ghost Of Tsushima - Sony Interactive Entertainment/Sucker Punch
- Tetris Effect: Connected - Enhance/Monstars Inc/Resonair/Stage Game
Our Prediction:
Some really outstanding options are on this list but the world really fell in love with two of these games, Animal Crossing and Fall Guys, this year. We’d swing more towards Fall Guys as it felt way more novel as a concept.
Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game
- Coffee Talk - Toge Productions/Chorus Games Worldwide
- Hades - Supergiant Games
- If Found… - Annapurna Interactive/Dreamfeel
- Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition - Annapurna Interactive/Cardboard Computer
- Noita - Nolla Games
Our Prediction:
There are some fantastic games on this list but Hades is almost certain to win. It’s the only one of these games on the GOTY list and so it kinda feels like it would be seen as the best of the bunch.
Mobile Game of the Year
- HoloVista - Aconite
- Legends of Runeterra - Riot Games
- Little Orpheus - The Chinese Room/Sumo Digital
- Song of Bloom - Philipp Stollenmayer
- South of the Circle - Apple/State of Play
Our Prediction:
This is a tough one to predict, though we'd lay our hat in South of the Circle. This emotional ride explored feelings of isolation in a year where those were easy to empathise with. We could also wee Song of Bloom winning with it's great game design but our #1 is South of the Circle!
Be sure to check back after the awards to see whether we were right and for a rundown of all the winners!
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