Who remembered that Gamescom gives out awards? Yep. At the end of every event, the show hands out awards to all eligible games that are present at the Cologne-based expo. One of these categories is the 'Best Nintendo Game', which has been around since 2012. However, the award won't be handed out this year as the organisers have scrapped the award for 2024.
TheGamer, who reported on the story, reached out to Gamescom's organisers about the decision to scrap the award, and their response revealed that there were "too few submissions" for the category. Here's the brief statement in full:
"There were too few submissions for the Best Nintendo Switch category this year. The award committee, therefore, decided to cancel the category."
To be eligible for an award at Gamescom, which kicks off tomorrow (20th August), your game needs to be present at the event. Plus, you also need to submit your game forward for an award, and depending on how many, there's a submission fee. Because Nintendo has already confirmed it won't be at the show, well, the above response was to be expected.
However, that doesn't mean there are no Switch games at Gamescom 2024: Little Nightmares III and Civilization VII have been confirmed to be making an appearance, and we're sure there will be plenty of others on the show floor. So a mix of Nintendo's absence, developers prioritising other awards, and perhaps a lack of big Switch titles in 2024 mean that the award was scrapped for this year. Well, there's always next year...
Nintendo dominated the Gamescom 2023 awards, albeit with a game that was already released: a little title known as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (because it was playable at the show, it was eligible for the awards). It won five awards, including Best Gameplay, Best Nintendo Game, and Most Epic.
But arguably the big news from the show was the reports that the company had shown off Switch successor demos to press behind closed doors. As well as this, some rumours pointed at Breath of the Wild demo running at 4K and 60fps on the Switch successor.
Are you surprised the Best Nintendo Game award has been scrapped? Let us know in the comments.