Continued Grand Theft Auto 6It retreated in 2026, and last week’s release of Nintendo Switch 2 could be a gaming event in 2025. Mario Kart Worldan ambitious sequel to one of the best-selling games of all time, from Nintendo’s entertainment plan and development (to give Nintendo’s game development department a full title).
I think such auspicious titles will be almost an automatic candidate for Game of the Year at the December Game Awards. it’s not. Mario Kart World Critics have been doing well with critics, as well as their predecessors and other 2025 games. But the fact is that even if it had a metallic rating of 96, it cut off all of that competition, but it’s not yet a reliable competitor and probably won’t even be even nominated. Because it’s a racing game.
We discussed previously the bias in the ju-referee genre of Game Awards. The short version means that action-adventure and role-playing games are highly preferred, especially when they have a strong focus on the story. Sports, Sims, Strategy, Combat and Racing games are in good luck. It doesn’t matter how good they are and how many reviewers love them. It never happened.
As far as racing games go, there are two cases that provide a definitive precedent for status as an absolute no-hoper in the Game of the Year competition.
At first, appropriately Mario Map 8The perfect expression of this extremely popular series is widely considered. The original Wii U Incarnation was released in 2014, the first year of the Game Awards. It was well reviewed, with 88 ratings on both Metallic and Openslytic – not as high as some of the games of that year. Bayonetta 2 and Dark Souls 2but at least as much as the ultimate winner, Dragon Age: Inquisition. It won both the best family and the best sports/racing games categories, but was not nominated for Game of the Year. (It wasn’t even Nintendo’s other big game that year. Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS.which of did It has a metacore of 92, which is better than the nominated games. )
There is an even worse example Forza Horizon 5. This was one of the most reviewed games of 2021, if not the best. And it was a rather soft year for the new release, which resulted in one of the weakest Game of the Year fields in game award history, and a surprising victory for Hazelight’s co-op adventure. It takes two. Forza Horizon 5The only game in competition with meta scores over 90 should have walked it. But again, they didn’t even get nominations.
Ceiling Mario Kart WorldThe fate of the fact that it is not included Forza Horizon 5Critical, it’s a class of class. Reviews are gradually appearing – presses were not offered early access, but now they have settled 87 on Metallic and 86 on OpenCritic. Reviewers (like me) praise it, but criticize the implementation of the open world in a new page-turning game in Mario Kart.
Nintendo’s slim hope for repeated goty victory in the Switch launch year The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I’m resting now Donkey Kong Bananza Or maybe Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. If they work, both can win nominations. Last year, winner Ast Robot Opened Goty Door to a family-friendly platform game, Metroid was previously nominated (Metroid Dred 2021).
but Mario Kart WorldGoty nominations and chances of victory were zero before anyone played it. Goty Jury’s strange genre of blindness sees it. It can be argued that genres like racing games are too niche to consider to be too niche, or at least too niche to play wide enough among the big ju apprentices of the game awards. but Mario Kart 8 Deluxe68 million sales lied to it. Everyone plays Mario Kart.
Instead, the offensive truth is that the ju-described gaming awards are quite broad sample of the important community of video games, racing games, or fighting games, sims, etc. – do not consider a true representation of greatness or art. That’s certainly an assumption worth trying.
