By Sagar V. Mankar 
The National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) recently announced nominees for its 23rd annual awards honoring top achievements in gaming art, technology, and production.
NAVGTR is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting and recognizing game developers and hosting annual awards for more than two decades.
With over 54 competitive categories, which games and developers will take home the coveted golden joystick this year?
Let’s dive into the top nominees and frontrunners.
Spider-Man 2 Swings into the Lead
Insomniac Games’ PlayStation exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 dominates with a whopping 21 nominations, positioning the webslinger sequel as the frontrunner across multiple categories.
Spidey got nominations for Best Animation, Best Control Design, Art Direction, Character Design, Engineering, and even Game of the Year.
Other Top Nominees:
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical and Final Fantasy XVI each got 8 nominatinations.
Immortals of Aveum and Hi-Fi RUSH got 7 nominations.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Starfield, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Lies of P, High on Life: High on Knife, and Baldur’s Gate III each got 6 nominations.
Open Race for Game of the Year
Speaking of GOTY, Spider-Man 2 faces off against several epic adventures.
These include dark thriller Alan Wake 2, massive RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, underwater explorer Dave the Diver, and the long-awaited The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
With diverse genres up for the top prize, the field remains wide open.
Nostalgic Zelda or narrative-driven Alan Wake 2 could potentially stage an upset.
But Spidey might spin a web of wins across other categories to secure GOTY.
Top Studios in the Running
For developers, Insomniac Games leads the pack with 21 nominations, but Nintendo EPD(10), Square Enix(9), Tango Gameworks(8), and newcomer Ascendant Studios(7) also earned multiple nods for their standout 2023 titles.
On the publisher side, Sony Interactive tops the list with 24 nominations but faces stiff competition from mainstays like Nintendo and Square Enix as well as first-time nominees Netflix and Bandai Namco.
Fresh IPs Make a Splash
In a market saturated with sequels, new intellectual properties like supernatural musical Stray Gods, time-hopping Tchia, and underwater adventure Dave the Diver earned nominations for their innovative concepts and gameplay.
While securing wins against franchise juggernauts could prove challenging, these fresh IPs have a strong chance in genre-specific categories like Art Direction and Score thanks to their creativity.
Individual Achievements Up for Grabs
For individual nominees, Insomniac’s Bryan Intihar, Square Enix’s Yasumi Matsuno, and Zelda’s Hidemaro Fujibayashi stand out with multiple directing and writing nods.
Top voice actors also contend, including Yuri Lowenthal as Spider-Man and Critical Role’s Laura Bailey for her comedy performance in Stray Gods.
Who Will Reign Supreme?
The NAVGTR winners are anyone’s guess until the final envelopes are unsealed on February 27.
But with tight races across genres, we could see fresh faces steal some upsets from veteran franchises.
Check the full Nominations: Here