You might think that more than a year after its release, Baldur’s Gate 3 would finally have stopped winning awards. But that would be wrong. To all the gold that Larian has won with its epic RPG in the last 12 months, it has now added a Hugo Award, the most prestigious award in science fiction and fantasy literature, for the best game or interactive work.
First awarded in 1953, the Hugo Awards are presented by the World Science Fiction Convention and recognize excellence in a number of categories, including Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Short Story, and many others.
In 2021, a special video game category was added to recognize the increased influence of video games in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, but that was a one-time thing: no gaming-related Hugo was awarded in 2022 or 2023.
In 2023, however, Worldcon decided to make the Best Game or Interactive Work category a permanent one for 2024—who knew, just in time for the behemoth of Baldur’s Gate 3 to crash through the walls like the Kool-Aid man and run away with it. BG3 beat out Alan Wake 2 (again), Chants of Senaar, Dredge, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for the top prize.
“The Hugo nominations and awards have always dominated my reading list, so it is a great honor to be standing here,” said Larian CEO Swen Vincke during his acceptance speech (via Polygon).
“Video game writing is often underestimated. It’s very, very, very hard work. For Baldur’s Gate 3, we had to create over 174 hours of footage just to be able to respect the choices of the players and make sure that every single one of them has an emotional story that reflects their choices and their agency. It takes a very long time, it takes a very big team… It takes a lot of perseverance and a lot of talent. So I’m very happy for all of them and for the whole team back home that we can do this and very grateful to the fan community.”
The words “Hugo nominated” have dominated my reading list since I was a child. I am very grateful for that. Thank you Worldcon and all the fans – it was great to meet you all!!! https://t.co/HHhzo37YHP12 August 2024
Vincke is serious when he says that Larian wanted to make sure Baldur’s Gate 3 was as responsive to player choices as possible: The studio recently revealed that the game’s rarest ending was only unlocked by 34 players – and keep in mind that this game has sold well over 10 million copies. (To put that in perspective, 1.9 million Baldur’s Gate 3 players were turned into a wheel of cheese. Which is actually fine: Nobody has as many friends as the man with many types of cheese.)
I wouldn’t dare make any predictions at this point, but I have a feeling Baldur’s Gate 3 won’t be winning any awards any time soon, right? Surely we’re reaching the point where someone, somewhere, will say: Look, we need to start giving other people trophies. Maybe not, but I don’t think Vincke would mind: he said in July that the number of awards Baldur’s Gate 3 has won has actually become quite a problem, so much so that the studio has started sending “rotating teams” to the ceremonies so as not to disrupt ongoing development.
Despite this (admittedly enviable) annoyance, the studio never considered cancelling any of the events: “Because they are important,” Vincke said, “and we really appreciate that.”
