2013 Game Developers Choice Award nominees led by Journey

Journey, thatgamecompany's emotional desert adventure, leads the field of nominees for the 2013 Game Developers Choice Awards, show organizer UBM Tech Game Network announced today.

Journey received nods in six categories, including Best Audio, Best Visual Arts and Game of the Year. Also nominated for Game of the Year were Arkane Studios' choose-your-own-revenge-adventure, Dishonored; Telltale Games' zombie apocalypse tale of woe, The Walking Dead; Mass Effect 3, the conclusion to BioWare's space opera; and Firaxis Games' modern strategy revival, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. All five games were nominated in multiple categories.

The list of recognized games is a varied group — titles from major publishers and indie studios, as well as consoles and downloadable platforms, are spread across the categories. A few games with multiple nominations are 343 Industries' Halo 4 and Subset Games' FTL: Faster Than Light.

The Game Developers Choice Awards are handed out during the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, with the nominees and winners being chosen not by members of the press, but industry professionals including game developers. This year's award ceremony will begin at 9:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 27. For the first time, the program will include an Audience Award, voting for which will open online in mid-February.

You can peruse the full list of nominees below, along with the developers and publishers responsible for them.

Best Audio
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games/Devolver Digital)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Assassin's Creed 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)

Best Debut
Humble Hearts (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
Polytron Corporation (Fez)
Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan)
Subset Games (FTL: Faster Than Light)
Fireproof Games (The Room)

Best Game Design
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)

Best Downloadable Game
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Trials: Evolution (RedLynx/Microsoft Studios)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)

Best Technology
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
PlanetSide 2 (Sony Online Entertainment)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Treyarch/Activision)
Assassin's Creed 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)

Best Handheld/Mobile Game
Gravity Rush (SCE Japan Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hero Academy (Robot Entertainment)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
The Room (Fireproof Games)
Kid Icarus: Uprising (Sora/Nintendo)

Best Narrative
Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Entertainment/2K Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Virtue's Last Reward (Chunsoft/Aksys Games)

Best Visual Arts
Borderlands 2 (Gearbox Software/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)

Innovation
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment)
ZombiU (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)

Game of the Year
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)