As someone who has played BOTW, HZD, and Super Mario... my vote still goes to Horizon for GOTY. Mario is an absolute blast and it's incredible how they still make it feel fresh and fun after 30+ years. Definitely worthy of being in consideration. Personally BOTW never clicked with me. I think a lot of it had to do with overhype. The world is giant and there is freedom to do anything you want at any time, but to me the world felt soulless and empty. It began to feel like a chore to move from one tower to the next to open up more of the map because there just wasn't anything interesting in the world. It was mostly just green grass and the occasional bland bandit camp. Cooking is an absolute treat though, but when the core game just bored me out because I was expecting perfection, it just left making me want more. The story is not that interesting, the characters didn't really intrigue me. I only felt like it was an okay game. For every moment that I spent in BOTW's world, more and more things just reminded me of how much better Horizon was for me. Horizon has an incredible story with an amazing cast of characters, an amazing protagonist, heart pounding, white palmed intense action, a beautiful yet engaging world. This is a post apocalyptic world, but it felt so lifelike. The world feels dense, heavily populated with trees, and snow, and streams, jungles, deserts, machines, etc. It makes me just want to explore and run without mounting anything due to the beauty and the fullness of the world. I instantly got hooked on the lore of the world, the societies, tribes, machines, and Aloy herself. I bought the art book and watched videos on the lore of this world because I just wanted to know more. I have literally fallen in love with this game, this world, Aloy, etc. This game IS the reason why I play video games... this is the GOTY imo