PS Blog Game of the Year Awards 2023: voting is now open

A few hours ago, Valve closed the Steam Awards 2023 polls to announce the winners in each of the ten categories. Unsurprisingly, Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 brought home another Game of the Year award after the previous wins at the Golden Joystick and The Game Awards, beating finalists Resident Evil 4, EA Sports FC 24, Lethal Company (the runaway early access smash hit of the last couple of months), and Hogwarts Legacy.

The winners of The Steam Awards 2023 were announced yesterday, but a few of the victors have called the value of the fan vote into question.

Steam has unveiled the winners of its annual fan-voted awards. Headlining the categories is the Game of the Year award, which predictably went to Baldur’s Gate 3. The RPG was up against Hogwarts Legacy, EA Sports FC 24, Resident Evil 4, and Lethal Company. Baldur’s Gate 3 also managed to walk away with the Outstanding Story-Rich Game award, where it was in competition with Lies of P, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Resident Evil 4, and Love Is All Around.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Baldur's Gate 3 has claimed the Game of the Year award in the 2023 Steam Awards, along with the crown for Outstanding Story-Rich Game. It probably would have won even more, but the Steam Awards rules limit games to nominations in a maximum of two categories, presumably to avoid any across-the-board ass-kickings.

The player-voted Steam Awards have reached their conclusion, and the results are about as weird as the nominees. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the weirdest game possible won in several categories, such as Red Dead Redemption 2 for the Labor Of Love award and Starfield for "Most Innovative Gameplay".

If you’re still exploring the vast reaches of Starfield and are somehow hungry for more, you’re in luck. An “End of the Year Update” dropped by Bethesda outlined some of what’s to come in 2024. 

Monster Hunter Now is celebrating the end of the year with «A Happy Hunting New Year» event. This festivity brings back some familiar monstrous faces while also offering increased monster appearance rates, ensuring that hunters worldwide will have plenty to do ahead of 2024.

So 2023 has been a wild year in the games industry. We've seen multiple MMORPG expansions drop — and not from the genre's heaviest hitters, while the industry itself has had a banner year in the RPG genre alone. Games like Final Fantasy XVI, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and, of course, Baldur's Gate 3 dominated people's playtime this year.

The polls are closed and your votes counted for the PlayStation Blog Game of the Year 2023. The winners of these awards, spanning 18 categories, have been shaped entirely by player choice. A thank you to everyone who voted and – given the strength of titles released in the past 12 months – were stuck with some difficult decisions to make. And of course, our thanks to all the studios and creatives whose work have helped define PlayStation’s 2023. 

The nominees for the public-voted Steam Awards have been announced and they are, perhaps more than ever before, baffling to me. If I was being uncharitable, I'd say that's because the list is overrun by games with large multiplayer communities that can be encouraged to vote for them - but who would want to be uncharitable? Let's instead say that the list is certainly not boring, even if Starfield gets a nod for "most innovative gameplay".

The Game Awards has already revealed its Game of the Year, us at Push Square are currently preparing our own end-of-year content, and now the official PlayStation Blog wants your votes across a number of PS5, PS4 categories. Live until midnight on 17th December 2023, you can help decide 18 different categories. That includes separate PS5 and PS4 Games of the Year, Studio of the Year, Best Multiplayer Experience, and more.

With The Game Awards 2023 now squarely in the rear view mirror, it's time to reflect on what was shown during Geoff Keighley's big end of year bash. Criticisms of the format and actual award presentations aside, the event did give us some significant game reveals.