The Game Awards best adaptation category is here and it might as well be a two-horse race

The Game Awards is on the way, and now the nominees for its major categories have been revealed including Best Adaption. This category puts five TV shows based on video game properties head-to-head with only one able to emerge the winner.

You shouldn’t be shocked to hear who made the cut this year — and no it wasn’t that god-awful Borderlands movie. This year, it’s really just a battle of two goliaths as the other three nominees watch from the sidelines.

This year’s nominees for The Game Awards Best Adaption award in 2024 include Arcane, Fallout, Knuckles, Like a Dragon: Yakuza, and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.

Honestly, this crop of nominees shows just how far we’ve come when bringing video game stories to the screen, and 2024 has been an exceptionally great year for it. However, it’s really just the battle of Arcane and Fallout this time as these two shows have proven to be some of the best adaptions we’ve ever seen.

Arcane is back for its second season, and it’s looking to claim its second Game Award. The show first aired in 2021, and won an award the following year. New episodes of the show are just as magical as the first with absolutely stunning animation paired with the incredible storytelling that utilizes characters from League of Legends perfectly.

The only real contender that can stop the animated Netflix show from getting its second win is Amazon’s Fallout series. A surprise to many, the live-action Fallout series is actually good. No, it’s great! 

Fallout is based on the Bethesda game series and includes many of the characters that fans of the series will recognize like the Brotherhood of Steel, Vault Dwellers, and the Ghoul. The best part about this show is that it’s accessible to anyone regardless of whether you’re familiar with the games or not. It’s one of the best sci-fi shows we’ve seen in years and would be a shoo-in for the Game Award in any other year, but this time it will need to duel it out.

Don’t get it twisted, the other nominees are still serviceable. Knuckles is a spin-off of the live-action Sonic movies that provide further worldbuilding through a subdued tale that brings the Echidna down to earth. Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is an animated take on the iconic video game character, and lastly Like a Dragon: Yakuza is a commendable live-action take on the hit game—be it the weakest contender on this list.

We’d be shocked if the winner wasn’t either Arcane or Fallout as would the entire video game community, so hopefully, there are no curveballs thrown in at the finish line. Really, there’s no way of knowing for sure what game will win, but whether it is the League of Legends-inspired animated hit or Fallout, it will be well deserved.

If you haven’t yet caught Arcane, the final episodes are set to release on Netflix on Nov. 23, 2024. Fallout is available to watch in full on Prime Video now.