'Death Stranding' and 'Control' lead Game Awards nominees

The Game Awards takes place in less than a month and voting is now open after Geoff Keighley announced the nominees. Hideo Kojima's sprawling epic Death Stranding leads the pack with nine nominations, including game of the year, game direction, score/music, narrative and performance for both Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen.

Remedy Entertainment's Control wasn't too far behind with eight. It picked up nominations such as game of the year, game direction, art direction and two performance nods. The Outer Worlds, meanwhile, snagged four nominations, including game of the year and RPG.

Joining that trio in the game of the year category are Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Resident Evil 2 and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. SSBU also picked up best family game and fighting game nominations. Resident Evil 2 claimed three other nods for design, acton/adventure and game direction. Sekiro's four additional nominations are in the game direction, art direction, audio design and action/adventure categories.

Fortnite snagged three nominations, including for best esports game, ongoing game and community support. Fortnite World Cup winner Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf was nominated for best esports player as was that tournament for esports event. Other popular ongoing and esports games to pick up nominations include Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Destiny 2, Final Fantasy XIV and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege.

Several other games have multiple nominations, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (three), Gears 5 (three), Sayonara Wild Hearts (three), Borderlands 3 (two) and the game seemingly everyone was talking about not too long ago, Untitled Goose Game (two).

One particularly notable name misses out in the content creator of the year category: last year's winner, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins. The nominees this time around are Jack "Courage" Dunlop, Benjamin "DrLupo" Lupo, Soleil "Ewok" Wheeler, David "Grefg" Martínez and Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek.

You'll find out which titles and personalities will take home prizes when The Game Awards takes place December 12th. As ever, you can expect plenty of game announcements and world premieres on that night too.