Organizers of the 2020 Game Developers Conference have announced the nominees for the 20th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, and Death Stranding is leading the pack. The event is already scheduled to take place between March 16th and 20th at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

The Game Developers Choice Awards have been held as an integral part of GDC for the past 20 years in a row. GDC is different from most other industry events in the sense that it's not a trade show or a fan convention - it is a peer-based summit where developers gather to discuss and celebrate each other's work. According to the event's website, any video game that was released and made publicly available during the 2019 calendar year is eligible for free nomination in the 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards, irrespective of platform or delivery medium. Nominees and winners are selected by an invitation-only organization of "leading game creators from all parts of the industry." Previous winners in the Game of the Year category have included 2018's reinvention of God of War, as well as modern masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in 2017.

Related: The Best Video Games Of 2019

In a recent post on the official website, GDC organizers revealed this year's crop of games that have been nominated for its various awards. Death Stranding racked up the most nominations across multiple categories and will be considered for Best Audio, Best Design, the Innovation Award, Best Narrative Game, Best Technology, Best Visual Art and Game of the Year. Other major contenders include Control and Outer Wilds, which both received five nominations each. Control is up for Best Audio, Best Narrative, Best Technology, Best Visual Art and Game of the Year. Outer Wilds is in the running for Best Debut, Best Design, the Innovation Award, Best Narrative and Game of the Year.

Death Stranding

A number of other games are also finalists in multiple categories, such as Disco Elysium and Untitled Goose Game with four nominations each. Sayonara Wild Hearts and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice were both nominated for three awards. The awards show itself will be hosted by Kim Swift of Portal and Left 4 Dead fame, who is now the director of game design at Stadia 2P Games. The ceremony will be happening on March 18th and will be livestreamed on GDC's Twitch channel.

2019 was nothing to scoff at in terms of high-quality video game releases, and the GDCA nominations reflect that. Although we don't actually know the identities of the people who are judging these games, an award show hosted by developers is generally more interesting than something like the ad-ridden Game Awards, for example. Devs can appreciate games like Death Stranding for different reasons than players and critics, but ultimately, they're still part of those two groups as well.

Next: Screen Rant's 2019 Game Of The Year

Source: GDC