The Game Awardssometimes struggles to find the five or six nominees required to fill out a category. For example, Game Adaptation houses a billion dollar movie inMarioand an Emmy nominated show inThe Last of Us. But it also hasTwisted Metal, which is nominated entirely because it exists, giving it a considerable advantage over other adaptations that do not exist. Short of nominating someBaldur’s Gate 3fanfiction, there weren’t a lot of options. In the pure gaming categories, 2023 is a rich year so loaded with greatness that games that would be a shoe-in other years are getting shut out. Nowhere represents this more than the Best Performance category.
There are six nominees in total for Best Performance: Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield inFinal Fantasy 16, Cameron Monaghan as Cal Kestis inStar Wars Jedi: Survivor, Idris Elba as Solomon Reed inCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Melanie Liburd as Saga Anderson inAlan Wake 2,Neil Newbon as Astarionin Baldur’s Gate 3, and Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker inSpider-Man 2. None of these standout to me as absolute stinkers of a nominee, but this is maybe the hardest category in a loaded year because many games contain several award-worthy performances.
Here’s the six characters behind the Best Performance category
It’s the first time since 2018 that all the nominees are from different games, and back then there were only five rather than six - I would suggest that with an extra nominee, Peter Blomquist as Micah Bell might have joinedRoger Clark as Arthur Morganas a second nominee fromRed Dead Redemption 2. In fact, Blomquist’s biggest competition might have been Benjamin Bryon Davis, Rob Wiethoff, Noshir Dalal, and Alex McKenna, who played Dutch van der Linde, John Marston, Charles Smith, and Sadie Adler respectively.
This detour into the 2018 nominees is going somewhere, I promise. While Newbon is excellent as Astarion, it does feel as though other Baldur’s Gate 3 performers might have gotten in each other’s way and split the vote, costing them all places on the shortlist.Amelia Tyler as the narratoris an often overlooked ingredient in the game’s charm, while Devora Wilde’s turn as Lae’zel has garnered less praise than its layers deserve thanks to the character being neither pleasant nor conventionally attractive -a fact other developers have noted as a trend in companion-based games.Karlach’s divisive endingalso has some of the best line deliveries of the entire game.
Looking at the other nominees, Elba’s fine, but it feels like his name is a big help here. I don’t even think he’s the best part of the expansion - Minji Chang and Cherami Leigh as So Mi and Female Vboth carry more emotional weight. And love Lowenthal as I do, that Symbiote Peter just didn’t do it for me. Nadji Jeter as Miles Morales feels more consistent even with less limelight.Tony Todd probably doesn’t get enough screen time as Venom for a nod, but his Symbiote take was far more ominous than Lowenthal’s descent.
There are also three Game of the Year nominees with no performer up for the award.Super MarioandZeldahave characters who communicate mainly in barks, so that makes sense, butResident Evil 4’sNick Apostolidescommitment to resurrecting the camp of Leon, or Genevieve Buechner’s improvements to Ashley’s infamous (if overblown) whining saw them both take poisoned chalices and survive their drinks.
Some of the characters who weren’t nominated, but could have been
Elsewhere, there are a few other names I would have liked to see get some recognition. Caroline Faber as Lilith inDiablo 4, Lachlan Watson inGoodbye Volcano High, Anthony Rapp as Orpheus in Stray Gods,Brian Timothy Anderson as RosadoinFire Emblem Engage, andLaura Bailey as MagikinMarvel’s Midnight Suns(technically eligible as it missed the cut-off last year) were some performances I feel have gone overlooked this year. While I haven’t played it, my colleague Eric Switzerwrote at length about the role the late Lance Reddick played in Destiny 2, and giventhe criticism Yong Yea is receiving for his English voice of Kiryu Kazuma, it’s worth pointing out that there’s nothing outlawing performances in a foreign language (like Takaya Kuroda as the native Japanese Kiryu) from being nominated.
A possible solution would be a future split down Leading and Supporting lines for these awards. The Golden Joysticks did this, and as a result both Starr and Newbon won there. With a long history of multiple performers from the same game nominated in this category, it makes a lot of sense. The biggest roadblock is probably the ceremony itself. Christopher Judge was rudely rushed last year when celebrating his win, and several awards are brushed over to leave more space for World Premieres and trailers. Some refinement may be needed to the award segment of the show in general, but it would need wholesale changes to get an additional acting award (and therefore additional acceptance speech) a time slot between the commercials.
Next:What Will Geoff Keighley Have To Say About 2023 At The Game Awards?
