the most prestigious award in the science fiction and fantasy literary world.
First announced in 1953, the Hugo Awards are voted on by the World Science Fiction Convention and recognize excellence in a variety of categories, including Best Novel, Best Novel, and Best Short Story.
In 2021, a special video game category was added to recognize the growing influence of video games in the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic, but this was a one-off and no game-related Hugo awards were given in 2022 and 2023.
In 2023, however, Worldcon voted to make the Best Game or Interactive Work category a permanent category for 2024; the BG3 was awarded to Alan Wake 2 (again), Chants of Senaar, Dredge, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” and ‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’ to take the grand prize.
“The Hugo nominations and awards have long determined my reading list, so I am very honored to be here,” said Larian boss Sven Vinke in his acceptance speech (via Polygon).
“Video game writing is often underrated. It's very, very hard work, and with Baldur's Gate 3, we had to create over 174 hours of cinematics just to make sure that each and every player could enjoy an emotional story that respected their choices and reflected their agency. It took a very long time and a large team. ...... It took a lot of patience and talent. So I am very happy to get this for all of them and for all the teams back home and I am very grateful to the fandom”
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Larian is not kidding when he says that he wanted “Baldur's Gate 3” to be as responsive to player choice as possible: the studio recently revealed that the game's rarest ending was unlocked by only 34 players. (To add a bit of context, the 1.9 million players of “Baldur's Gate 3” turned into a cheese wheel. That's fine: no one has more friends than a man with many cheeses.)
I dare not make any predictions at this point, but I have a feeling that “Baldur's Gate 3” will have to stop winning awards soon. Maybe not, but I don't think Finke cares: he said in July that the number of awards “Baldur's Gate 3” has won has actually become a bit of a headache, so much so that the studio has started sending a “rotating team” to the awards ceremony to keep ongoing development from being interrupted.
Despite that (admittedly enviable) headache, one thing the studio did not consider was to ditch any of the events: “because they are important and we really appreciate them,” Vincke said.
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