The nominees for the Canadian Game Awards are here, and the competition, including Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Star Wars: Squadrons, for the coveted GOTY title is fierce.
The games nominated for Game of the Year are as follows:
- Spiritfarer
- Assassin's Creed Valhalla
- Watch Dogs: Legion
- Hardspace: Shipbreaker
- Star Wars: Squadrons
We're played all five games on the list, and we can say that they're all deserving of this recognition. For example, we praised Assassin's Creed Valhalla for its compelling narrative and RPG mechanics, and acclaimed Star Wars: Squadrons for its immersive space combat gameplay. Our Editor-in-Chief Kirk McKeand was particularly impressed with the indie game Hardspace: Shipbreaker. He called it the "most relaxing game [he] played all year."
You may notice a few games missing from most nominee lists like The Last of Us Part 2 (which won big at The Game Awards) and Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but this awards show is primarily focused on experiences from the Great White North.
"As the third largest developer of video games in the world, this award show celebrates Canada’s spot on the world stage as a leader in interactive entertainment," says the organization on its website, "The Canadian Game Awards has been designed to be 'by the industry and for the industry' with an interest in engaging public and fan participation."
There are many other awards during the show too. Best Performance has varied wildly from The Game Awards, as it has nominated Pascal Langdale as Bagley in Watch Dogs: Legion, Cecilie Stenspil for her portrayal of Eivor in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, and Guillaume Lambert for being the announcer in Journey to the Savage Planet (which recently launched on Stadia). You can read the full list of awards here.
The selection committee for the event is formed of veterans from the industry like tech journalist Marc Saltzman, Social Media Lead of Team Liquid Navneet Randhawa, Nicolas Verge, a Co-Founder of PR company popagenda, and many more.
If you're intrigued to find out what is the Canadian Game of the Year, you can tune into the show on Friday, April 9 at 8pm Eastern. It will be streamed on Twitch and GINX TV Canada.