Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree shouldn't be eligible for Game of the Year

The Game Awards 2024 nomination of Elden Ring's expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, sparks controversy, with critics arguing that DLC shouldn't compete for Game of the Year against new 2024 releases, despite its quality. The inclusion raises questions about the criteria and potential bias towards established studios.

The nominees for The Game Awards 2024 are here, and there's already a controversy brewing. Alongside the five excellent games tipped for Game of the Year that actually released in 2024 sits Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, an expansion to a game that released in 2022. An undeniably excellent piece of DLC, its inclusion in a list of the best games of the year feels misplaced, and even borderline disrespectful.

Geoff Keighley laid the groundwork for this decision last week, when he confirmed that expansions and re-releases would be eligible at The Game Awards. That's not necessarily new – Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty was a leading nominee at last year's show, despite the base game releasing in 2020. But of its five nods (including community support and best performer for Idris Elba), only one – Best Narrative – was in a traditional 'Best' category. That's perhaps not a nomination I would have made myself, but there's a rationale behind it that I'm prepared to accept – putting a narrative-heavy, somewhat-standalone expansion forward for a narrative award makes sense.

But for me, for this award, Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't fit within that rationale. Much like Phantom Liberty's narrative nod, the argument that its level of craft might warrant nomination for Best Game Direction is one that I can live with. But to even do that ignores the argument at the center of this entire debate: Shadow of the Erdtree is an expansion, not a game, and the game that it's an expansion to did not come out in 2024. To name it a potential 'game of the year' is a contradiction that not only struggles to make sense, but also risks subverting the whole point of having a game of the year in the first place.

Plenty of people don't play the best games of a given year in the same 12-month period that they came out in. If we're prepared to look back two full years to find a Game of the Year contender, what's to stop that line from blurring more? What's to stop the gap from stretching further and further, or even crossing console generation lines as the years progress? And if we're looking ever further back into the past to hand out award show acclaim, how many deserving releases will miss out on their potential nomination because of a returning juggernaut that might have released half a generation ago? There's a strong case to be made for a substantial number of actual 2024 releases to have filled Shadow of the Erdtree's spot – Helldivers 2, Animal Well, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, to name my personal picks alone. Perhaps none of those games would have won the top prize – the rest of the field is extremely strong – but at least their inclusion would have made sense, and their developers would have had the chance to share in the same acclaim that FromSoft already won in 2022.

None of this gets in the way of our 5-star Elden Ring review, our 5-star Shadow of the Erdtree review, or the fact that FromSoftware is a leading voice in the industry that deserves to have praise heaped upon it. But expansions, DLC, remasters, and re-releases are not new games, and as such should not be part of Game of the Year discussions. There are several ways that they can be honored – at the Golden Joystick Awards, Shadow of the Erdtree is up for Best Game Expansion as part of a stacked field that includes add-ons to Diablo 4, World of Warcraft, and Destiny 2. At The Game Awards, it's also up for Best Game Direction – a nod that, like Phantom Liberty's narrative nomination, seems fitting for the high profile release that it was. 2024 has not been the strongest year for the games industry, admittedly, but surely The Game Awards could have found more than five great games to nominate without heaping a second serving of praise on one of the most acclaimed development teams of the past two decades?

Our list of new games 2024 will give you a sense of the titles that should actually have made the GOTY list.