Yeah, seems like a joke.

Competition too strong. Would've been nominated in 2022, but would've lost against Elden Ring.

Larian with a single game up there with Capcom and Square: this is madness!

Which dev is Alan Wake?

And how many of these Xbox-nomination are because of HiFi-Rush?

Best Art Direction
Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks/Bethesda Softworks)
Lies of P (Round8 Studio/Neowiz Games)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)

Best Score and Music
Alan Wake 2, Composer Petri Alanko (Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing)
Baldur’s Gate 3, Composer Borislav Slavov (Larian Studios)
Final Fantasy XVI, Composer Masayoshi Soken (Square Enix)
Hi-Fi Rush, Audio Director Shuichi Kobori (Tango Gameworks/Bethesda Softworks)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Composed by Nintendo Sound Team (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)

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Personally, I'd remove Tears of the Kingdom from Art Direction and replace it with either Diablo IV or Starfield...But I sort of understand why Starfield wasn't nominated, I don't agree with it at all and it's something that baffles me but people see "realistic" as "boring" I see space as fucking beautiful, others see it as empty boring nothingness. The vistas in Starfield are stunning, I found myself just staring out into space from time to time looking at the planets, the galaxies, etc. I fucking love space, Lol. I think TotK is just an incredibly boring nomination, it's exactly the same as BOTW, it has already been recognised for its Art-Style, give it to something new.

Inon Zur deserves a Best Score nomination too. It is what it is.

Remedy Entertainment is Alan Wake. But credited as Epic Games since Epic published it. 

5 nominations for Hi-Fi Rush. So literally half lol

Res 4 Remake doesn't even deserve a nomination, Lol.

But I honestly agree, I think TotK is awesome but there are a lot more games deserving of GOTY than it, I felt TotK was a very safe sequel, exactly the same art-style, very similar overland with a few village changes, I thought the sky islands were a bit meh and undercooked and I hated the underground, especially when I realised it was just the overland flipped upside down and navigating it was not fun at all, I don't find fun in wondering around in pitch black darkness having to constantly throw lights, avoid the dark smudge stuff and when I hit a large mountain having to spend ages trying to find a way around it instead of climbing over it, Lol. The new mechanics were really awesome though (when they weren't tanking my framerate) and I still loved the art-style, I very much enjoy the overland design and the world, I love Zelda as an IP, I liked the story, but it felt a bit like an Ubisoft iterative sequel than a true leap forward.

So that's why Epic has so many nominations, wondered what they had besides Fortnites, so both questions answer each other.

And great for HiFi-rush! And hopefully Xbox keeps supporting these smaller titles, I mean Grounded and Pentiment are also great and not the usual big AAA-game.

If anything, Starfield should been nominated for best score and soundtrack. Might not be a popular opinion, but RE4 being nominated for GOTY is lame. Remakes and remasters should have their own category.

It really is, I'm seeing Bungie employees throw shade on it as well, well, former Bungie employees, u'know, the former Bungie employees that ran the community aspect that Bungie has laid off. It feels a bit tone deaf, honestly. Like y'all lose your shit when employees are laid off (rightfully so) then reward Bungie for doing it, it ain't like this reward is going to the laid off employees, it's going to Bungie, Lol.

These guys should take Bungie's spot in Best Community Support.

Constant streams, constant updates, the director of the project constantly interacting with the community, etc.

Some of these nominations are just popularity contests of journalists picking the game which is played the most, Lol.