Next year’s Grammy nominees were announced Friday, and they include nominations for video games like Helldivers 2, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Sword of the Sea, which was composed by previous Grammy nominee Austin Wintory.
Five games have been nominated for the Best Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media Grammy, a category that was introduced for the 2023 Grammys. (Stephanie Economou won that year for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok.) The relatively young award is for composers “for an original score created specifically for, or as a companion to, video games and other interactive media,” according to the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which runs the Grammys.
But Helldivers 2 fans may have a big question about how the game is eligible for a 2026 Grammy, when the game was released in February 2024. Well, I’ll tell you.
The eligibility period for the 68th Grammy Awards — that ceremony will be held in February — ran from Aug. 31, 2024 to Aug. 30, 2025. While Helldivers 2‘s release date precedes that, developer Arrowhead Game Studios and composer Wilbert Roget, II didn’t officially release the game’s soundtrack until Sept. 20, 2024, comfortably within the window of eligibility.
Fans of technicalities may have similar questions about the other video games nominated for next year’s Grammys, which follow.
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Secrets of the Spires — Pinar Toprak, composer
- Helldivers 2 — Wilbert Roget, II, composer
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — Gordy Haab, composer
- Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card & A Pirate’s Fortune — Cody Matthew Johnson & Wilbert Roget, II, composers
- Sword of the Sea — Austin Wintory, composer
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was originally released outside of the 2026 eligibility window, but its Secrets of the Spires DLC was released on Nov. 28, 2024, making it eligible. Star Wars Outlaws is in a similar boat; it was officially released on Aug. 30, 2024, a day before the Grammys window. The Wild Card and A Pirate’s Fortune DLC, however, fell within the period of eligibility.
And according to the Grammys’ rules for this sort of thing:
At least two-thirds of the musical tracks for the album must have been used in the shipped game product, as either in-game, live action play or Cinematics within the video game or interactive media product. Album releases will adhere to the same timing guidelines delineated in the Music For Visual Media Field whereby the media product and the soundtrack album often are not in the same eligibility year. The Academy recognizes these timing discrepancies, evaluates them and adjusts
accordingly. Eligible scores may include vocal coloring (not songs) when used in the overall texture of the composition, such as choral groups or solo voices with or without words or syllables. Greater than 50% of the music on an otherwise eligible Video Game Soundtrack or Interactive Media soundtrack must be derived from new episodes or new programming that is released during the GRAMMY eligibility year for which it is entered. This will apply to new DLC (downloaded content in-game) and Seasonal Expansions as well as brand new content.
This year’s batch of Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games composers is a bunch with a lot of nominations. Wintory was previously nominated for Journey in 2013 (under the category Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media) and for Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. Toprak was previously nominated for the base version of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Roget was previously nominated for Star Wars Outlaws. Haab won a Grammy in 2024 for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, sharing the win with his co-composer Stephen Barton.
The 2025 trophy for the Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media Grammy went to Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, an updated version of a 44-year-old game.
The 68th Grammy Awards will be held on Feb. 1, 2026.
