Balatro creator LocalThunk is throwing his weight around to make sure Blue Prince gets some love at The Game Awards: 'Geoff my man I better see Blue Prince as a GOTY nominee'

A young man looking at something in a dark room

(Image credit: Raw Fury)

Blue Prince is exceptionally good—"one of the best puzzle games in years," PC Gamer's Chris Livingston enthused in his 92% review. And he's not the only one who thinks so: Balatro creator LocalThunk is so taken by the game that he's basically demanding Geoff Keighley give it a Game of the Year nomination in the 2025 Game Awards.

LocalThunk made his first declaration of Blue Prince love on Bluesky, writing, "Blue Prince will get a GOTY nomination at TGA." To back up his claim, he also linked to images from review aggregation site Metacritic, where the game holds a 92 overall rating and is currently the top-rated videogame of 2025, beating out Split Fiction by a single point.

A solid argument! Just one problem: Geoff Keighley, the guy who runs The Game Awards, is on Bluesky but doesn't use it much. So, 25 minutes after posting his Bluesky prediction, LocalThunk nipped over to X to make a somewhat more forceful—some might even say vaguely threatening—plea.

"Geoff my man I better see Blue Prince as a GOTY nominee at the Game Awards this year," he tweeted. "Seriously though read any review on the game. The first commercial release from the studio no less! Very excited for them."

Geoff my man I better see Blue Prince as a GOTY nominee at the Game Awards this year. Seriously though read any review on the game. The first commercial release from the studio no less! Very excited for them — (Image credit: LocalThunk (Twitter))

For the record, I don't think LocalThunk is going to show up at this year's Game Awards and pop Geoff in the snoot if Blue Prince doesn't draw a Game of the Year nomination. I'll also be very surprised if Blue Prince doesn't get that nom. The Game Awards is primarily about the glitz, glamor, and massive budgets of the mainstream game industry, but there's space for offbeat indie hits, and yeah, you know where I'm going with this: Balatro was nominated for Game of the Year at the TGAs in 2024 and while it was nudged out by Astro Bot, it did win in the Best Indie Game, Best Debut Indie Game, and Best Mobile Game categories.

That gives LocalThunk's opinion on the matter a little more weight than, say, mine or yours, and Keighley (who doesn't hand-pick GOTY nominees, to be clear) took notice. "Amazing game," he replied. "Been tracking this one for a while!"

Blue Prince developer Dogubomb noticed too, writing "Thank you so much!" in response to LocalThunk's or else-flavored message on X. Always nice to see indie developers supporting each other, isn't it?

Blue Prince is not actually out yet, but it will be soon: It's set to go live on Steam at 7 am PT/10 am ET on April 10.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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