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Windows Central

Technology

Brendan Lowry

Golden Joystick Awards 2024 voting is still live for 24 hours — this nominee easily got my GOTY pick

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What you need to know

The Golden Joystick Awards is one of the biggest gaming award ceremonies held every year, and it's back in 2024.
Voting for most of its categories has mostly concluded, but there's still 24 hours to vote for Ultimate Game of the Year and Best Game Adaptation nominees. The link to where you can cast your ballot can be found below.
Specifically, voting ends tomorrow, November 8 at 3 p.m. PST / 6 p.m. EST / 11 p.m. GMT. The winners will then be revealed live during the Golden Joystick Awards on November 21 at 4 p.m. GMT / 11 a.m. EST.
There are 12 nominees for the Ultimate Game of the Year award, with everyone able to vote for three of them. The Best Game Adaptation category has six nominees, and only one can be chosen. A list of all the nominees from both categories is included in the below text.

One of the most popular gaming award ceremonies is the Golden Joystick Awards — an event run by Future plc (known for the Future Games Show), with voting managed by our friends over at GamesRadar+. Similar to The Game Awards, it celebrates the best games that release each year, with players around the world able to vote for nominees across a wide variety of categories. Notably, the commemoration is back for its 42nd year in 2024, and you still have time to vote in it.

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While voting for most categories in the 2024 Golden Joystick Awards has ended, you can still cast your ballot for two: Ultimate Game of the Year and Best Game Adaptation. The former award represents the best overall new game released this year, while the latter will be given to a fan-favorite 2024 movie or TV show that's based on a video game franchise. You have until tomorrow, November 8 at 3 p.m. PST / 6 p.m. EST / 11 p.m. GMT to vote before the cutoff, so do so here soon; note that you can vote for three games for Ultimate Game of the Year, but can only choose one option for Best Game Adaptation.

"We’ve been blown away by the reception to this year’s Golden Joystick Awards with a record 10 million+ votes in our initial round of categories, including Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design and Most Wanted Game," said content director Daniel Dawkins. "Ultimate Game of the Year is our most prestigious award which sits in its own voting window from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8, allowing the judging panel more time to assess the big winter releases."

Without a doubt, Helldivers 2 is my Ultimate Game of the Year pick. (Image credit: PlayStation Studios)

In total, there are 12 nominees for Ultimate Game of the Year, including the following:

Animal Well
Astro Bot
Balatro
Black Myth: Wukong
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Helldivers 2
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Satisfactory
Silent Hill 2
Tekken 8

The nominee pool for Best Game Adaptation is much smaller at six, with the following movies and TV shows available to vote for:

Borderlands
Fallout
Halo Season 2
Knuckles
Like a Dragon: Yakuza
Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft

I haven't played every game in the Ultimate Game of the Year shortlist yet — I really need to get around to trying Metaphor: ReFantazio, in particular — but of the ones that I have, the clear winner for me is Helldivers 2. There's really nothing else like it in the world of co-op games, with the dynamism of its 40-minute missions, the depth of its action-packed gameplay, and its advanced (and often hilarious) physics interactions all coming together to deliver the ultimate PvE shooter. Playing it with my friends has been nothing short of a blast this year, and while I've also enjoyed my time with titles like Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Animal Well, Arrowhead Game Studios' PS5 and Windows PC hit definitely gets my #1 pick.

For Best Game Adaptation, I think it'd be incredibly difficult for any of the nominees to topple the Fallout TV show, as its first season debuted in April to universal acclaim and went on to win Emmy Awards, reach over 100 million viewers, and get renewed for Season 2 in just over a week. The series was so instantly and explosively successful that it even kicked off a Fallout player count resurgence across all the franchise's games, with Fallout 4 benefitting the most. Speaking as a huge Fallout fan, I loved the show, and wasn't really swayed to vote for anything else. I'd probably vote for Borderlands if there was a Worst Game Adaptation category, though, because woof. Halo Season 2 was pretty mediocre, too.

I can't imagine anything other than the Fallout TV show taking home Best Game Adaptation. (Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios)

Once voting concludes tomorrow, all the ballots will be tallied until November 21 at 4 p.m. GMT / 11 a.m. EST, which is when the Golden Joystick Awards are scheduled to begin and winners will be revealed. The event will be streamed live online on relevant YouTube, Twitch, Steam, Facebook and X (Twitter) channels, and also through the Future Games Show, GamesRadar, PC Gamer and TechRadar Gaming.

The awards will be hosted by Ben Starr, best known for his excellent performance as Clive Rosfield in the popular 2023 action RPG Final Fantasy XVI. Some other presenters that will appear during the show include Alex McKenna (Sadie Adler, Red Dead Redemption 2), Alix Wilton Regan (Joanna Dark, Perfect Dark), Neil Newbon (Astarion, Baldur’s Gate 3), Patricia Summersett (Princess Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Ash in Rainbow Six Siege), Cyberpunk 2077 producer Monika Janowska, and the actor and game developer Abubakar Salim.