The Game Awards nominated Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for GOTY, and the internet is furious

Yesterday, The Game Awards revealed its full list of nominees, but most people could only focus on the most prestigious award: Game of the Year (or GOTY). However, among some expected choices like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth or Astro Bot, there was a peculiar one that stood out: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

This is because Shadow of the Erdtree is actually a DLC campaign for Elden Ring, and not a full new game. This was not a complete surprise, however. While DLC has technically been eligible for multiple categories, the official website explained this fact in detail just this year.

Reactions to the Shadow of the Erdtree nomination were extremely negative for the most part. Gamers all over social media complained that a DLC should never be nominated for GOTY because it doesn’t count as a full new release, seeing as you can’t really play Shadow of the Erdtree without owning Elden Ring first. Other gamers are furious because it feels like this DLC is taking the spot of other excellent games from 2024 that belonged in the running for GOTY instead, like Silent Hill 2, Helldivers 2 or Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

On top of that, many other people claimed that this is unfair because this is the first time The Game Awards states that DLCs are eligible for all categories (especially GOTY) while plenty of other critically-acclaimed expansions, like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, didn’t get that privilege on their respective years. As always, some jokesters saw this is as an opportunity to make memes about the controversial nomination.

The Game Awards’ history with Elden Ring and FromSoftware

The idea of nominating a DLC for GOTY is already controversial enough, but what makes it even worse is that Elden Ring won the Game of the Year award back in 2022, so it definitely feels like another, new game deserves its time in the spotlight instead. Some people pointed out that The Game Awards often favor FromSoftware games, even though the studio’s only other title to win GOTY was Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, in 2019.

To no one’s surprise, the Elden Ring Subreddit is one of the few places on the internet that seems satisfied with Shadow of the Erdtree‘s GOTY nomination. Many fans defend it, stating that this DLC is so expansive and ambitious that it feels like a whole new game, and that nobody would complain if FromSoftware and Bandai Namco sold it as a standalone sequel. However, a silent minority in the Subreddit do agree that, as high-quality as Shadow of the Erdtree is, it still is a DLC, and The Game Awards should have only nominated it in its respective category.

For now, we can’t be sure if Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree will actually win the Game of the Year award or not, but we’ll find out very soon, when the Game Awards go live on December 12, 2024, at 9:30 PM GMT-3.