>>718778786 (OP)
All of top row would be deserved.
I'm guessing it won't be Bananza though because Astro Bot won last year and I bet Keighley and his jury would sooner kill the entire event than give the GotY to a game with a "child friendly aesthetic" two years in a row. They want videogames to be considered serious high art and like fine film after all. For whatever the reason.
Then that just leaves Silksong and Expedition 33.
One could assume that Death Stranding 2 would have a chance, especially with how much of a Kojima dicksuck Keighley and his jury friends are.
But Death Stranding 1 already lost to GotY to Sekiro back in 2019 and sequels always have got a handicap in these kinds of things so that does not bode well for Death Stranding 2.
But both Expedition 33 and Silksong have got that underdog credibility. Being made by small dev teams not part of the AAA machine.
Silksong might have a more cartoony aesthetic, which might genuinely be a handicap with Keighley's crowd. But its lack of bright colours and Hollow Knight's reputation of having had a huge world with meticulously crafted lore deep down, appeals that kind of crowd.
And Expedition 33, while not just being the kind of RPG that fans of Final Fantasy and other turnbased RPGs have been asking for, for years. An actual return to form. It has also got all that cheesy performance acting stuff that Keighley and his friends fucking loves because they somehow want games to be movies for some reason. E33 is no movie, but that actor stuff no doubt gives it huge pluses among that kind of crowd.
So my bet is E33. Not only is it an amazing game, it also appeals to its target audience perfectly. But if it ended up being Silksong I'd hardly call that surprising.
And if it actually ended up being Bananza somehow, I would find that surprising, but it's an amazing and genuinely unique game so I'd still call it deserved.
I'd be very, very surprised if it was any of the bottom row though. Can't see that happening.
