Journey, The Walking Dead, Dishonored top 13th annual Game Developers Choice Award nominations

The 13th annual Game Developers Choice Awards are set to take place in late March, and today the nominees were announced. Surprising no one, thatgamecompany’s Journey is among the top nominees along with Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead and Arkane Studios’ Dishonored. Assassin’s Creed III Halo 4 and The Unfinished Swan are also up for a few awards a piece.

Read on for the announcement and the full nominee list. Head on over to the official site for additional details.

 Organizers have revealed the finalists for the 13^th  annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the leading peer-based video game event celebrating the industry’s top games and developers. Winners in all categories will be honored at the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony, taking place on Wednesday, March 27th at 6:30 pm at the Moscone Convention Center during the 2013 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

Independent titles are heavily represented across multiple categories this year, with games from that segment of the industry being nominated alongside some of the year’s biggest mainstream releases. Overall, Thatgamecompany’s visually-and-aurally stunning emotional adventure Journey leads with nods in six categories: Best Design, Best Downloadable Game, Best Audio, Best Visual, Innovation and Game of the Year. Bethesda Softworks’ and Arkane Studios’ historical revenge epic Dishonored is recognized in four categories, Best Narrative, Best Visual, Best Design and Game of the Year.

Another leading nominee is Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, a post-apocalyptic adventure title based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series of the same name, honored in three categories for this year’s awards: Best Downloadable Game, Best Narrative and Game of the Year. Rounding out the Game of the Year finalists are BioWare and Electronic Arts’ action role-playing game Mass Effect 3, also nominated in the Best Narrative category and Firaxis Games’ and 2K Games’ tactical role-playing strategy title X-COM: Enemy Unknown, also recognized in Best Design.

Additional titles with multiple nominations include Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed III and Microsoft Studios’ and 343 Industries’ Halo 4, long-running franchises which are nominated alongside newcomers like Giant Sparrow’s The Unfinished Swan and Subset Games’ FTL: Faster Than Light.

The 2013 Game Developers Choice Awards are open to any video game that was initially released and made publicly available to consumers during the 2012 calendar year, irrespective of platform or delivery medium. Industry professionals participate in open nominations for the selection of this year’s finalists. Winners will be selected by the Game Developers Choice Awards-specific International Choice Awards Network (ICAN), which is an invitation-only organization comprised of leading game creators from all parts of the industry.

The complete list of nominees for the 13^th annual Game Developers Choice Awards is as follows:

Best Audio

• Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games/Devolver Digital)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
• Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)

Best Debut

• Humble Hearts (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
• Polytron Corporation (Fez)
• Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan)
• Subset Games (FTL: Faster Than Light)
• Fireproof Games (The Room )

Best Game Design

• Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
• Mark Of The Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
• Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
• Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)

Best Downloadable Game

• The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
• Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
• Trials: Evolution (RedLynx/Microsoft Studios)
• Mark Of The Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
• Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Technology

• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
• PlanetSide 2 (Sony Online Entertainment)
• Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Treyarch/Activision)
• Assassin’s Creed III  (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game

• Gravity Rush (SCE Japan Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Hero Academy (Robot Entertainment)
• Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• The Room (Fireproof Games)
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (Sora/Nintendo)

Best Narrative

• Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Entertainment/2K Games)
• Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
• Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
• The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
• Virtue’s Last Reward (Chunsoft/Aksys Games)

Best Visual Arts

• Borderlands 2 (Gearbox Software/2K Games)
• Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
• Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
• Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)

Innovation

• Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
• Journey  (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
• The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment)
• ZombiU (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)

Game of the Year

• Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
• The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
• Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)
• Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)

The Game Developers Choice Awards also recognizes three Special Award categories: the Pioneer, Ambassador and Lifetime Achievement awards, which will be announced in the near-future. In addition, the first-ever Audience Award for the Choice Awards ? open to all finalists for this year ? will open for online voting in mid-February.

For more information about the 13^th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, visit http://www.gamechoiceawards.com.  For information about the 2013 GDC, visit http://www.gdconf.com.