Game Awards 2023 Game of the Year: Baldur’s Gate 3
A new GOTY is crowned.
The Game Awards 2023, gaming’s biggest night of the year, are finally over. After a handful of hours filled with winners and the occasional announcement, the evening’s final award has been given out. That’s right, we have a new Game of the Year winner. While 2022’s GOTY race was decidedly boring, considering most people knew Elden Ring would take home the prize since the game’s release at the beginning of the year, 2023 was a much tighter race. While being a bad year for the industry at large, the games that came out in 2023 were remarkably incredible across the board.
That was reflected in the nominees for Game of the Year, which included the latest Mario and Zelda games, Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and the Resident Evil 4 remake. But the game that went home as the big winner was none other than Baldur’s Gate 3. And they got to receive the award from Timothée Chalamet.
Yes, Larian’s ambitious RPG beat out the competition. To some, this may seem surprising, but the writing has been on the wall since Baldur’s Gate 3’s release. The game has been critically acclaimed and adored by fans. That is because the game itself is just so damn good.
Here’s what we had to say about Baldur’s Gate 3 in our own 10/10 review of the game:
Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 is an exercise in wonder. How could anyone manage to make a game of this scope, execution, and quality? It’s thrilling, it’s emotional, and it’s incredibly wacky, all at the same time. The sense of freedom and reactivity is unlike anything I’ve played for years, maybe even ever. and all of that is only heightened by a world that feels simultaneously whimsical and horrifying. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game we’ll be looking back on for years to come.
Baldur’s Gate 3’s impeccably designed world feels like a true sandbox for players. It’s filled with fascinating characters, the pinnacle of which are the game’s core companions that offer every player someone to get attached to (maybe even romantically).
To top it all off, Larian has continued to engage with the community around Baldur’s Gate 3: Fixing bugs, adding small bits of new content, and getting in on jokes with the fans have endeared the game and the studio to the players in a way few games ever manage. That’s what makes Baldur’s Gate 3’s Game of the Year win so deserved. And judging by the buzz around the industry, it may give us an important hint as to where games are heading next.
If for some reason you haven’t gotten around to exploring Baldur’s Gate 3, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon as the game just launched on Xbox Series consoles in addition to other platforms.
