2 or 3 point difference on Metacrtic has little effect on The Game Awards GOTY, because The Game Awards's reception is limited to a smaller number of publications (that are deemed more important), and the shared "10's" Elden Ring and Ragnarok got do not tell the whole story. It's possible that Ragnarok impressed the relevant reviewers more, but this wasn't expressed as a number because "10" was the limit. Furthermore, the reviewer's score doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of the entire publication/website. Elden Ring may have mostly been reviewed by souls fans, vs Ragnarok possibly resonating better with players outside the main fanbase.
Nevertheless I'm still betting and rooting for Elden Ring to win coz I thought God of War 2018 was overrated, and I consider Miyazaki and FromSoftware to be peak modern gaming. I won't throw a tantrum at Ragnarok winning though!
As for opening sales, as far as I can tell Playstation is still suffering from active PS4 software buyers declining faster than PS5 adoption rate. I'm therefore sceptical it can break TLoU2 Part 2's record. Not sure it will beat GoW 2018's 3.1 million either. But legs/lifetime sales is a different story.
