This week, Geoff Keighley announced the nominees for The Game Awards take will take place December 11th. With an absolutely jam-packed year of amazing video games, both indie and AAA, I’m sure the list of nominees for Game of the Year pleased and pissed the masses. One nominee for Game of the Year is a Nintendo game: Donkey Kong Bananza. The Game Awards has notoriously placed many of Nintendo’s games under the Best Family Game category, and the games that do receive a GOTY nomination almost always fall short of winning, so we must ask, does Donkey Kong Bananza stand a chance of winning Game of the Year in 2025?
Let’s start with listing the other nominees for 2025 Game of the Year are: Clair Obscur: Expedtion33, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Hades II, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. 2025 has truly been a year of high-quality games–no hyperbole.
The list is interesting in more than one way. First of all, four out of six nominees come from an indie developer. Year over year, indie games have come to dominate the scene, and by representing 2/3 of the 2025 list, their traction continues to grow. Then, of the two AAA games, one of from Nintendo.
Now, let’s take a look at recent history with Nintendo, The Game Awards, and Best Family Game category:
- 2024: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Princess Peach: Showtime!, and Mario Party Jamboree. (they all lost to Astro Bot)
- 2023: Super Mario Bros. Wonder (winner) and Pikmin 4
- 2022: Kirby and the Forgotten Land (winner), Nintendo Switch Sports, and Splatoon 3
- 2021: Mario Party Superstars, New Pokémon Snap, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, and WarioWare: Get it Together (they all lost to It Takes Two)
Of course, Nintendo games such as the above have nabbed Best Action-Adventure, Best Puzzle Game, and more, but only a tiny handful made it to Game of the Year. Here are some examples:
- 2024: None
- 2023: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder (lost to Balder’s Gate 3)
- 2022: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (with Monolith Soft and lost to Elden Ring)
- 2021: Metroid Dread (lost to It Takes Two)
- 2020: Animal Crossing: New Horizons (lost to The Last of Us: Part II)
The last time Nintendo went home with a Game of the Year award was in 2017 with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which competed against Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, and Super Mario Odessey. It likely won due to its change to the Zelda formula with its open world and ability to travel just about anywhere and do almost anything. It was epic in scale and polished as any Nintendo game could be. Many other open world games have been heavily influenced by Breath of the Wild since.
Now, let’s circle back to Donkey Kong Bananza. There are a few things going for it towards potentially winning Game of the Year: it already beat out other great titles that didn’t receive a nomination such as Ghost of Yotei, Silent Hill f, Split Fiction, and Monster Hunter Wilds. It also changed up the Donkey Kong formula, and although the gameplay isn’t revolutionary, the ability to destroy just about any part of the world is a mind-blowing feat.
However, it still has that bias working against it–the bias that Nintendo games are (mostly) for kids. We’ve seen Nintendo games get crushed by both gritty, mature games and/or cult-following indie titles alike (e.g. The Last of Us: Part II, Elden Ring, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), leaving games like Donkey Kong Bananza in the dust, even if it does deserve just as much kudos. For example, the cult-like fanaticism you see for Hollow Knight: Silksong or any Kojima game (in this case, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach) already places a Nintendo game at a disadvantage. It’s quite unfair in my honest and ever-so-humble opinion.
While I think Donkey Kong Bananza is well deserving of the nomination, I am not confident it will take home the award. Granted, a titan in gaming like Nintendo can care less, as they are a proud company that knowns how to release high-quality games. However, it is unfortunate that unless we have a revolutionary title like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and no steep “competitors” (like the poor nominees that will have to face Grand Theft Auto VI whenever that comes out), it’s just highly unlikely a Nintendo game would win Game of the Year.
What are your thoughts on Donkey Kong Bananza’s changes of winning Game of the Year? Please share your thoughts with us on our Boss Rush Facebook Group or our Boss Rush Discord.
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