We seem to be in a unique situation with Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, where its developer has lied about how big it is. It is…much, much bigger than they indicated, a sprawling production that is 4-5 times the size of many other games, and with stellar reviews it’s a serious question:
Could this be the first time possibly ever that an expansion to a game wins Game of the Year itself?(An expansion to a game that already won GOTY, no less). Honestly, it feels like a frontrunner, and if that pans out, it would indeed be unprecedented.
This just…doesn’t happen. Part of this is the fact that there are only so many series that even have expansions big enough to potentially be considered their own games. And sometimes award shows will not consider them as qualifying for GOTY as an expansion.
My vote is that should change. An expansion that contains a significant self-contained storyline and is easily as large as what would be thought of as a traditional video game should indeed be considered in this category. Things may get a big tricky with say, expansions for ongoing live games like Destiny 2’s The Final Shape this year, for instance, or FFXIV/WoW expansions, but for the likes of things like The Witcher: Blood and Wine, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and now Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, these should indeed qualify.
But it’s essentially never happened. It may not be a shock, but the last ten years of The Game Awards has nothing like a huge expansion winning GOTY, only full games and a lot of sequels:
- 2023 – Baldur’s Gate 3
- 2022 – Elden Ring
- 2021 – It Takes Two
- 2020 – The Last of Us Part II
- 2019 – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
- 2018 – God of War
- 2017 – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- 2016 – Overwatch
- 2015 – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- 2014 – Dragon Age Inquisition
Outside of The Game Awards, take your pick of other high profile shows’ GOTYs. You’ll find things like Vampire Survivors, Monster Hunter Rise, Hades, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Outer Wilds. In fact, the single exception I can find across a dozen of these major award shows is the SXSW Gaming Awards which gave its 2021 GOTY to Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, a major expansion for that game. I’m not sure I can find a second example.
I think Shadow of the Erdtree presents a unique situation. Granted, there may be some other game that comes along and blows everything else away later in the year, but I’m not seeing anything obvious and the next closest one this year so far is probably FFVII Rebirth. And in other years, even the big expansions I’ve mentioned may have indeed been outclassed, a bit, by the full releases. You may understand why a generational game like Baldur’s Gate 3 beat Phantom Liberty, for instance. Or why the glory days of Overwatch’s launch beat Blood and Wine (Uncharted 4 was also out that year).
But Shadow of the Erdtree? I am not convinced that anything will be out this year that can match it. And as a 20-80 hour game in and of itself, I think whatever rules might be in place to prevent nominations for expansion should be bent if not broken. We do not see these kind of mega-expansions often anymore, and when they do arrive, they deserve their due.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.