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Sony, Bethesda, Warner Bros., Square Enix and Nintendo Lead NAVGTR Nominations

Sony, Bethesda, Warner Bros., Square Enix and Nintendo Lead NAVGTR Nominations

LOS ANGELES,  — NAVGTR CORP. — The National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers, a non-profit media organization, has announced nominations for its 15th annual awards program honoring video game art, technology, and production.

The NAVGTR nominees for GAME OF THE YEAR are:

  • Batman: Arkham Knight
  • Bloodborne
  • Fallout 4
  • Splatoon
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The leader in nominations (20) is Fallout 4, setting a record for most nominations.  Heavy Rain is now the second most-nominated game.  With 17 nominations, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt now ties for third most-nominated game in history, along with The Last of Us, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Metroid Prime.

Small budget leaders include Undertale, Ori and the Blind Forest, Her Story, and Crypt of the Necrodancer.  Additional small budget games include Axiom Verge, Grow Home, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Donut County, iDARB, Lines the Game, and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

This year, with 21 nominations, Bethesda Game Studios leads the totals among development companies.  CD Projekt RED has 17, and Nintendo has 14.  Other top developers include Ready at Dawn (10), Rocksteady Studios (9), and Dontnod Entertainment (9).  Developers Toby Fox and Sam Barlow tied the tallies from Microsoft.

By publisher, Sony leads with 25 nominations. Bethesda Softworks has 20, and Warner Bros. and Square Enix have tied with 19 each.  Other top publishers include Nintendo (18), CD Projekt (13), and Activision (11).

Creative and technical award categories recognize achievement in animation, art direction, character design, control design, control precision, game design, game engineering, musical score, sound effects, writing, and more.  For a complete list of 56 categories and nominees, visit here.

This year’s Honorary Award recipients are Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man, and Mark DeLoura, for developing programs for children to explore coding.

The academy now begins the attribution process to assign names and credits to each nominated work.  An initial attribution record will be made available on February 16, and nominated company input is requested by March 1.  Winners will be announced March 21, 2016.

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