PC Gamer's GOTY 2022 and end-of-year award nominees

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Which game will win Game of the Year?

Which ones will move? Which ones will talk? But more important, which ones can dance?
(Image credit: PC Gamer)

And now, your nominees for PC Gamer's 2022 GOTY awards. [rips open an oversized novelty envelope] 

  • Card Shark
  • Citizen Sleeper
  • Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
  • Disney Dreamlight Valley
  • Dome Keeper
  • Dorfromantik
  • Dwarf Fortress
  • Elden Ring
  • God of War
  • Grounded
  • Immortality
  • Marvel's Midnight Suns
  • Monster Hunter Rise
  • MultiVersus
  • Neon White
  • Overwatch 2
  • Persona 5 Royal
  • Roadwarden
  • Scorn
  • Strange Horticulture
  • Stray
  • Teardown
  • The Case of the Golden Idol
  • The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
  • Total War: Warhammer 3
  • Trombone Champ
  • Tunic
  • Vampire Survivors
  • Weird West
  • Wordle

[turns the oversized envelope upside-down, shakes it to make sure it's empty]

These 30 games drew the most discussion and interest from our panel of more than two dozen PC Gamer editors. Some of them will get awards, revealed first in the next issue of PC Gamer, which you can subscribe to at under $4 per issue in the US.

If 2023 had a theme, it was its prestige independent games. In Neon White, Weird West, Immortality, Citizen Sleeper, Dwarf Fortress, and Vampire Survivors, we saw small studios going off-genre to make original, captivating games. This wasn't another year where a trend like roguelikes made up a disproportionate amount of the indie output.

Keep your browser tuned to pcgamer.com as we prepare to reveal a new award winner each day through the end of the year, beginning next week.

Evan Lahti
Evan Lahti
Strategic Director

Evan's a hardcore FPS enthusiast who joined PC Gamer in 2008. After an era spent publishing reviews, news, and cover features, he now oversees editorial operations for PC Gamer worldwide, including setting policy, training, and editing stories written by the wider team. His most-played FPSes are CS:GO, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress Classic, Rainbow Six Siege, and Arma 2. His first multiplayer FPS was Quake 2, played on serial LAN in his uncle's basement, the ideal conditions for instilling a lifelong fondness for fragging. Evan also leads production of the PC Gaming Show, the annual E3 showcase event dedicated to PC gaming.

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