Two weeks after Megabonk developer Vedinad withdrew the game from contention in the Best Debut Indie category at The Game Awards, it's back in the fight—not as a debut (or indie) game, but in the fan-voted Players' Voice category.
"WE'RE SO BACK," Vedinad screamed (virtually, of course) on X. "Megabonk is nominated for The Game Awards—Player's Voice!!
"I withdrew my other nomination due to Megabonk not fitting the category, but with this new nomination we're more back than ever. go vote pls"
Initial nominations for The Game Awards in most categories are selected by "an international jury of over 100 global media and influencer outlets," a group that includes PC Gamer. As detailed in The Game Awards FAQ, winners are selected by a "blended vote" that's 90% voting jury and 10% fan vote, a system that aims to avoid the inherent disadvantage of single-platform games as well as any potential 'social engineering' that could impact the outcome.
But the Players' Voice category is separate from all that. It's 100% based on a public vote, beginning with a slate of 30 games and running through three rounds of voting until only one is left standing.
And with all due respect, that's not great for Megabonk's chances. It was up against very tough competition to start with in the Best Debut Indie category, which includes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the most-nominated game in TGA history. But now its odds are even longer—the full list of contenders include some of the biggest games of 2025 as well as perennially popular live service hits:
- Arc Raiders
- Battlefield 6
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (it's everywhere)
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
- Delta Force
- Dispatch
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- Elden Ring Nightreign
- Final Fantasy 14
- Fortnite
- Genshin Impact
- Ghost of Yotei
- Hades 2
- Helldivers 2
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
- Mario Kart World
- Marvel Rivals
- Megabonk
- Ninja Gaiden 4
- No Man's Sky
- Peak
- REPO
- Silent Hill f
- Sonic Racing: Crossworlds
- Split Fiction
- Warframe
- Wuthering Waves
Anything can happen and I think it'd be great to see a dark horse come up the middle and steal gold, but this field is stacked. This is the one category where I think there's reasonable odds that Clair Obscur will come up short, but that still leaves obvious favorites like Arc Raiders, Silksong, and KC:D2 in the mix, not to mention Helldivers 2 and Fortnite, which can bring significant communities to bear on the voting effort.
We'll find out how it goes in less than two weeks: The Game Awards 2025 takes place on December 11.
