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[This press release is posted in addition to our regular editorial content]
The British Academy Games Awards is BAFTA’s annual celebration of the very best in games of 2020. The nominations announced today highlight an outstanding level of creative excellence from a broad range of UK and international development teams.
The Awards will take place on Thursday 25 March as a 90-minute online live stream and will be hosted by presenter and journalist Elle Osili-Wood. The ceremony will see 17 craft areas honoured, the public-voted EE Game of the Year award, and the BAFTA Fellowship, the recipient of which to be announced shortly. Winners’ acceptance speeches will be streamed live, shining a light on the creative talent behind the year’s biggest titles. This year’s show format will focus on the audience at home, highlighting the role that games play in our lives and how they have kept us all connected, entertained and inspired over the past year. The Awards will be live streamed on BAFTA’s Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, YouTube and, for the first time, Steam – www.bafta.org/games/howtowatch
The highlights of today’s nominations are:
- 13 nominations for The Last of Us Part II. 13 is the highest number of nominations for a game in the history of the BAFTA Games Awards (beating last year’s record of 11 by Control and Death Stranding; the first standalone games ceremony was in 2004)
- 10 nominations for Ghost of Tsushima
- Eight nominations for Hades
- Seven nominations for Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Six nominations for Dreams
- Five nominations each for Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Fall Guys
- Four nominations each for CYBERPUNK 2077, Half-Life: Alyx and Sackboy: A Big Adventure
- Nominations in the Game Beyond Entertainment category: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Before I Forget, Dreams, Spiritfarer, The Last of Us Part II and Tell Me Why
- Other games receiving nominations: Airborne Kingdom, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Astro’s Playroom, Call of the Sea, CARRION, Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Deep Rock Galactic, Demon’s Souls, Doom: Eternal, F1 2020, Factorio, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Flight Simulator, Fortnite, Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition, Minecraft Dungeons, No Man’s Sky, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Röki, Sea of Thieves, The Falconeer, The Last Campfire and VALORANT
Voting is now open for the EE Game of the Year, the only award voted for by the public. The shortlist is Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Call of Duty: Warzone, Ghost of Tsushima, Hades, The Last of Us Part II and VALORANT. Vote now at https://ee.co.uk/why-ee/
The host of this year’s ceremony, Elle Osili-Wood, is one of the most recognisable faces in games and a member of BAFTA’s Games Committee. A video games presenter and journalist, Elle been named by GamesIndustry.biz as one of the most influential women in gaming. Having started her career as a political reporter for the BBC, Elle quickly gravitated towards her lifelong passion for games. Whether interviewing game designers, investigating the science of games for BBC Sounds or presenting from E3 for PlayStation, Elle is a passionate advocate for the industry and the talent it represents.
The Awards are supported by BAFTA’s official games partners Electronic Arts, PlayStation, SEGA Europe LTD, Tencent Games and Ubisoft, with EE sponsoring the only award voted for by the public.
The Awards, including the nominations, are voted for by BAFTA’s global membership, comprising experienced games industry practitioners from a range of backgrounds in game development and production. We particularly welcome applications from women, people from underrepresented ethnic groups, people with disabilities and those who are based outside London, UK. To become a BAFTA member, visit membership.bafta.org.
BAFTA curates a year-round global programme of events and initiatives that support the games industry. This includes developer talks, showcases, debates, scholarships and networking, as well as the flagship Games Lecture by an inspirational practitioner.
BAFTA Young Game Designers gives young people and educators insights into the industry and access to the brightest creative minds in games. BAFTA Crew Games is a network that connects practitioners working in the UK games industry and provides participants with a skills development programme.
The BAFTA Games Awards is part of the London Games Festival, which runs from 19 March to 28 March. The London Games Festival is showcasing 40 games in its official selection and delivering a range of free content to games fans around the world. LGF is backed by the Mayor of London and delivered by Games London – an initiative from the city’s screen industries agency Film London and video game trade body Ukie (The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment) – which has generated over £60m for games businesses since 2015.
A full list of nominations accompanies this release. Nominations are correct at the time of going to print. BAFTA reserves the right to make changes to the names listed at any time up until 25 March 2021.
