It’s perfectly normal to speculate what game might win the coveted title of Game of the Year at The Game Awards as the year goes on. It happens literally every year, and discussion is always sparked whenever a particularly good game comes out.
What makes a little less sense is when gamers are adamant about how unreleased games will fare during awards season. Sure, we can all guess that certain titles are likely to be great, but how many times have we been burned in the past by things being completely and utterly disappointing? Just look at Cyberpunk 2077 - although CD Projekt Red’s futuristic open-world RPG has now made quite the comeback (it just recently earned a ‘very positive’ overall rating on Steam), on release, the bugs and glitches were unbearable, and the whole situation felt particularly awful since everyone was so excited for it.
Take a look at the story trailer for Starfield below.
I’m sure you now see where this is going. Over on Reddit, some Starfield fans are already wondering if the game has “a chance in hell of winning GOTY” when, they allege, there’s so much “Zelda bias in the media”.
“I don't think anything stands a chance against [Tears of the Kingdom], which is sad because I don't think TotK was even all that good. However, it does have mass appeal and, as you said, Zelda bias,” one user wrote. “I'd say it will be Starfield. People still talk about Breath of the Wild whereas Tears of the Kingdom seems like it's already [been and gone],” another added.
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Others, however, have pointed out that these discussions should probably wait until Starfield is actually out and in our hands: “Starfield hasn’t even been released. We don’t know anything about how this game will present itself,” one user said. “Personally I think it will be great, but this is a great example of a time in which we should temper our expectations regarding something we haven’t actually seen. I think we should talk about Starfield being a GOTY contender after we get our hands on it… just my two cents.”
Starfield is set to launch on 6 September, but early access will begin on 1 September.