Baldur’s Gate 3 leads the nominations at the Gayming Awards, alongside Thirsty Suitors and Final Fantasy 16.
Baldur's Gate 3 is once again leading the pack at a gaming awards show, this time in recognition of its LGBTQ+ representation. Across five different categories, Baldur's Gate 3 and its developer, Larian Studios, are up for awards that celebrate queer identities in the gaming industry, alongside other games like Final Fantasy 16, Thirsty Suitors, and Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical.
In one category, Baldur's Gate 3 has actually been nominated twice. Both Dame Aylin and Shadowheart are nominated individually in the Best LGBTQ Character category, making it a battle of the Selûne sapphics. Well, unless Shadowheart stayed a Sharran in your game, I suppose.
On top of the five nominations for Baldur's Gate 3 as a game, Larian itself is nominated for the Industry Diversity Award, which celebrates companies that are "promoting, developing and championing diversity" in the gaming scene.
Sitting just behind Baldur's Gate 3 in terms of nominations, we have Thirsty Suitors. This indie hit focuses on a queer Asian-American woman, Jala, who's also nominated for the best LGBTQ character of the year. Outside of this category, Thirsty Suitors is also up for Game of the Year, Best LGBTQ Indie Game, and Authentic Representation.
In third place in terms of nominations, there's Final Fantasy 16. This is up for Game of the Year, Reader's Choice, and Best LGBTQ character, Dion Lesage.
Baldur's Gate 3 has enjoyed a ton of success at various awards shows already, most recently winning five DICE awards, including Game of the Year. Larian used the acceptance speech as an opportunity to call out the sheer amount of layoffs in the gaming industry. Before that, it won the big GOTY prize at The Game Awards, although the devs infamously had their speeches cut short by a prompt to wrap it up after less than 30 seconds. Perhaps because they had to speed through the speech so quickly, they forgot to announce the Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox port, which appeared on Microsoft's storefront as soon as The Game Awards were over.
We'll find out who the big winners are this time around when The Gayming Awards take place on April 7.
