While much of the internet is discussing today’s announced Academy Award nominations, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences released the list of nominations for their 17th Annual DICE Awards, arguably gaming’s closest equivalent to the Oscars.
Naughty Dog’s PlayStation-exclusive masterpiece The Last of Us leads the pack with a whopping thirteen nominations including Game of the Year, Game Direction, Game Innovation, Story, and two in Best Performance for the game’s lead actors, Troy Baker (Joel) and Ashley Johnson (Ellie). Rockstar’s open-world achievement Grand Theft Auto V earned seven total nominations. The cerebral Bioshock Infinite received six nods while Tearaway and Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag each received 5. The full list of nominations can be found here.
Last year, thatgamecompany’s Journey (another PlayStation-exclusive) made off with the most nominations and went on to win Game of the Year at the 16th Annual DICE Awards.
The 17th Annual DICE Awards finish off the yearly DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit games conference at 7:30pm Pacific on Thursday, February 6 in Las Vegas and will be live-streamed online. Like Hollywood’s Academy Awards, the DICE Awards are determined by members of the industry. The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences is comprised of over 22,000 members and the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) participates in judging as well.
Let us know in the comments who you’ll be rooting for or think got snubbed at this year’s DICE Awards.