Beloved RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 game out on top at this year’s The Game Awards, winning five of its eight nominated categories, including the coveted Game of the Year award.
It also won Best RPG, Best Multiplayer, Best Community Support, and technically wins with Neil Newborn for Best Performance in Astarion, the lovable vampire rogue.
Despite all the wins, it wasn’t quite a clean sweep. Narrative horror sequel Alan Wake 2 was also nominated for eight awards, winning three of them: Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, and Best Art Direction.
No other game won more than a single award, a remarkable statistic as 2023 saw the launch of a new 3D Zelda game, a new Mario game, and a new Bethesda RPG.
The first two won a single award each. Super Mario Bros. Wonder won Best Family Game, while The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom easily earned Best Action/Adventure Game.
Starfield was completely snubbed, as was Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which had been nominated for the second-most awards at seven.
The award show looked like a success, with no awkward or meme-worthy moments as in year’s past. On the other hand, many awards were quickly glossed over without presentation, and those who did come up on stage were quickly ushered off to make room for more trailers and announcements.
At times, it felt more like E3 than a prestige award show.
The official YouTube stream peaked at around 900,000 viewers, and already sports over 5 million views just 12 hours later.
Other winners include 16-bit RPG darling Sea of Stars for Best Indie Game, open-world island adventure Tchia for Games for Impact, and HBO’s The Last of US for Best Adaptation (sorry, Super Mario Bros. Movie!).
Props to the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion for earning the once-divisive first-person RPG the Best Ongoing award.
And Most Anticipated Game goes to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the follow-up to 2020’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which only actually told a fraction of the original game’s story.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was last year’s Most Anticipated game, proving that 2023 was just an incredible year for gaming.
