Most winners of Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards are determined by a mixture of public voting and jury selection – PC Gamer is one such juror – but one award, called Players’ Voice, is entirely up to the public. Right now, the leader of that public vote is overwhelmingly Sonic Frontiers.
After winning the first two rounds, Sonic Frontiers received 48% of the vote in the third and final round of voting for the Players’ Voice award. (opens in a new tab). In second place, Genshin Impact has 29%, and in third place, Elden Ring only has 13%. God of War: Ragnarok is fourth with 8% and Stray is last with 2%.
“Can we have a Sonic Sweep?!?!?!” wrote Sega Senior Public Relations Manager Evan Bader on Twitter (opens in a new tab) earlier today.
Sonic Frontiers is not among the nominees selected by the jury for the overall TGA Game of the Year award, although Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok and Stray are. Others in the GOTY category are Horizon Forbidden West, A Plague Tale: Requiem, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Elden Ring is pretty sure to win this category. I previously thought Ragnarok might have a chance to disrupt it, but if the public and jurors vote like they do in the Players’ Voice vote, it’s not going to come close.
The Player’s Voice award, on the other hand, will likely go to Sonic Frontiers, which hasn’t been nominated for any other Game Awards. In a way, this discrepancy illustrates why major rewards shouldn’t be decided entirely by fan vote. The Game Awards say (opens in a new tab) it mixes the jury vote and the public vote to prevent the winners from being “socially modified”, and the Sonic fan lobby, which also awarded Sonic Frontiers (opens in a new tab) a higher Metacritic user score than Elden Ring, seems good enough to coordinate its enthusiasm.
An alternative interpretation, however, is that the snobbishness of Sonic Frontiers’ nomination means it was simply underrated by mainstream critics. Our anti-Sonic bias has been exposed! (Also, it came out a bit late in the year.)
Can we get a Sonic Sweep?!?!?! The third round of Players’ Voice voting for #TheGameAwards is over and Sonic Frontiers is in the lead. Vote at: https://t.co/cOdgfvXJM0#SonicSweep #SonicFrontiers pic.twitter.com/PcwrHUHOlSDecember 5, 2022
However, the divide between fans and professional critics isn’t as chaotic as I thought. PC Gamer’s Sonic Frontiers review wasn’t among the most glowing, but there are plenty of positive reviews. According to Gene Park at the Washington Post (opens in a new tab)Frontier’s controls, soundtrack, “evocative” storytelling, and Sonic Adventures-style structure are a boon for long-time Sonic fans.
“Sonic Frontiers won’t win any awards, and he doesn’t need to,” Park wrote in November. “For Hedgehog fans, learning about the game is like winning a lifetime achievement award.”
That last bit may be true, but unless Genshin Impact fans rally quickly (and the gap between matches has narrowed a bit today), it looks like Frontiers will win at least one prize. not imaginary after all. Even non-Sonic fans seem to be getting into the Sonic Sweep. As I saw one voter say on Twitter, Elden Ring and others will get all the attention in the main awards, so why not vote for something else in the category where they can be beaten?
Voting for the Players’ Voice award, as well as the other Game Awards, is open for two additional days. Winners will be announced at The Game Awards 2022 this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET.