Steam has announced the winners of the Steam Awards 2023

Steam has announced the winners of the Steam Awards 2023 based on the results of player voting. Among the winners are both games that really deserve the award and outright strange and unacceptable winners.

The Game of the Year award was deservedly given to Baldur’s Gate 3. The VR Game of the Year is Labyrinthine by the international team of Valko Game Studios (I think there are people from a dozen countries, fortunately without Russia).

The Labor of Love Award was unexpectedly won by Red Dead Redemption 2, usually it goes to simulators. The Best Game on Steam Deck Award was also quite unexpectedly Hogwarts Legacy, which was developed primarily for powerful systems, not portable consoles. The Better with Friends Award for the best cooperative game went to the end-of-year Steam phenomenon Lethal Company.

The next two laureates raise a LOT of questions. The award for Outstanding Visual Style Award was given to the thoroughly secondary Russian Atomic Heart, from a studio that supports war crimes against the population of Ukraine.

The Most Innovative Gameplay Award went to Starfield. For all our love for this game, its gameplay contains absolutely nothing innovative. Not at all. It’s a classic Bethesda game, with classic gameplay that’s more than 20 years old.

Fighting game Sifu won the Best Game You Suck At Award. Interestingly, this game was actually released back in 2022, but it only appeared on Steam in 2023. The Best Soundtrack Award went to The Last of Us Part I, which has finally been released on PC.

The prize for Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award was expectedly awarded to Baldur’s Gate 3. And the Sit Back and Relax Award, for the most relaxing gameplay (it seems it’s not really true, and Steam is glitching again), goes to DAVE THE DIVER, which was not even available in Ukraine after its release.

Before you start scolding Steam for its very strange choices, let us remind you that these games, as well as the finalists, were chosen by Steam users themselves. And one could say that only Russians voted for Atomic Heart, but this is not true, many Western players were happy to consume this Soviet-Russian crap, and some Ukrainian players who “don’t care, it’s just a game” bought and supported this garbage.