2015 was a pretty spectacular year in games with the likes of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and more, with the annual DICE Awards once again returning to honor the best and biggest achievements in game design within the last year for its 19th annual ceremony.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) revealed its full list of nominations for the group's 19th Annual DICE Awards for the best achievements in game design and interactive entertainment for 2015, with both The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Rise of the Tomb Raider leading the nomination tallies with 8 total nominations each.

Right behind The Witcher 3 and Rise of the Tomb Raider were Ori and the Blind Forest at 6 nominations, Fallout 4 at 5 nominations, and Her Story, The Order: 1886, and Star Wars: Battlefront each grabbing four nominations each.

In addition to the full list of nominations, the AIAS also revealed that the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who passed in the summer of 2015, will be awarded with the group's Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of his memory, joining alongside only five other recipients of the award in the AIAS's history: Bing Gordon (EA founder), Doug Lowenstein (ESA founder), Ken Kutaragi (former president of PlayStation), Minoru Arakawa (former president of Nintendo of America), and Howard Lincoln (former chairman of Nintendo of America).

The ceremony will also include the induction of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima into the AIAS's DICE Hall of Fame, which had previously been announced by the group last week, ahead of the full awards nomination list.

The 19th Annual DICE Awards will take place on February 18th, 2016 in Las Vegas - the full list of nominees for this year's ceremony are below: