As 2023 finally ends, many wrap-ups have been done as a summary for the year with many events. Indeed, 2023 was a fun one for the gaming community, with so many great games such as Marvel’s Spiderman 2, Alan Wake 2, and the big winner in The Game Awards, Baldur’s Gate 3. In the gaming realm, awards like The Game Awards and Golden Joystick Awards are the big gaming summary events that the wide audience gets to vote for their favourite games and marks as the best achievement the developers and publishers had paid effort onto.
Steam, the well-known PC gaming platform have also their own 2023 Steam Awards following with the wide range of games available every year. At the end of the voting and concluding session, the winners have also been revealed. Many guesses may arise, such as: Is Baldur’s Gate 3 again the winner of the day? Which nominee won on Steam? It’s time to end the guessing and reveal the winners of the 2023 Steam Awards in different categories.
Winners of the 2023 Steam Awards
The Steam Awards distinguishes itself from The Game Awards by having regular Steam users vote for the winners, in contrast to The Game Awards, where industry representatives participate in the selection process. Notably, due to Steam being a PC platform, games exclusive to consoles are ineligible for voting.
The nominations for the 2023 Steam Awards started on December 21st 2023 till January 2nd 2024, when the voting lasted through the Steam Winter Sale, which made it a highlight to look out for after the Autumn Sale. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the winners of the 2023 Steam Awards.
Revealing the Winners in 11 Different Categories
- Game of the Year Award: Baldur’s Gate 3
- VR Game of the Year Award: Labyrinthine
- Labour of Love Award: Red Dead Redemption 2
- Best Game on Steam Deck Award: Hogwarts Legacy
- Better With Friends Award: Lethal Company
- Outstanding Visual Style Award: Atomic Heart
- Most Innovative Gameplay Award: Starfield
- Best Game You Suck At Award: Sifu
- Best Soundtrack Award: The Last of Us Part 1
- Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award: Baldur’s Gate 3
- Sit Back and Relax Award: Dave The Diver
For the audience guessing that Baldur’s Gate 3 will definitely win something in this 2023 Steam Awards, you got it right. It is the platform’s top game of the year, really not much of a surprise but a firm guess.
After securing a victory in the Steam Awards, Baldur’s Gate 3 continued its triumphant run through 2023 by dominating various awards shows as the Game of the Year. The game’s exceptional level of detail and player freedom contributed to its success.
Beyond clinching Steam’s premier award, it also garnered six awards at The Game Awards 2023, including Best Multiplayer Game, Best Performance, Best Community Support, and others. One noteworthy aspect of the Steam Awards is that user votes decide the winners, allowing recognition for lower-budget games as well.
On the other hand, Lethal Company secured Steam’s Better With Friends award, enabling a group of friends to journey between perilous planets while collecting resources for an unscrupulous corporation. The game’s humorous tone, charming art style, and engaging gameplay mechanics propelled Lethal Company to maintain over 100,000 concurrent Steam players consistently since its launch, a milestone it continues to uphold at the time of writing.
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2023: One of the Best Years in Gaming
2023 was truly a feast for gamers, given a diverse selection of high-quality games to enjoy. In fact, data indicates that 2023 stands out as one of the most remarkable years in gaming history, boasting a higher number of games with a Metacritic review average of 90 or above than ever before.
However, it’s noteworthy that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, one of the highly acclaimed games of 2023, wasn’t considered for the 2023 Steam Awards due to its exclusivity to the Nintendo Switch platform.
Closing Words
The results of the 2023 Steam Awards have once again proved Baldur’s Gate 3 to be the biggest winner of the year, which is also one of the most reputable years for Larian Studios. Still, besides Baldur’s Gate, it’s important to acknowledge other great games as well besides the ones mentioned at the beginning of this article. Rockstar Games with Red Dead Redemption 2 and Avalanche Software with Hogwarts Legacy are also great games that well-deserved the winner’s place in the category.
The end of 2023 Steam Awards also marks as the end of Steam’s summary in the past year, and in the meantime of playing these great games, it’s also time for us to look forward to the upcoming games in 2024, and hold expectations for great games too.
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