Supergiant’s roguelike action dungeon crawler Hades was awarded the Hugo Award for best video game Saturday night.
The other nominees included Animal Crossing: New Horizon, Blaseball, Final Fantasy VII Remake, The Last of Us: Part II and Spiritfarer.
The publisher/developer stated: “This is an immense honor for our team. Not only are the #hugoawards a true legend in fantasy and science fiction, this is the first year that the awards are recognizing the video game category.”
Supergiant creative director Greg Kasavin added: “Wish I could have attended the #HugoAwards in person. I wasn’t able to make an acceptance speech there on behalf of the team though did have a few words here. I’m grateful that the awards are recognizing work in this category, much less the work we did!”
Hades also took home Best Game Writing honors at this summer’s Nebula Awards.
Martha Wells’ Network Effect won the Hugo for Best Novel; she also was honored for Best Series for her Murderbot Diaries. Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana was named Best Related Work.
The Hugo Award nominations for 2021 included a special category recognizing Best Video Game, as the pandemic led to a surge in gaming’s popularity. It’s a first that the World Science Fiction Society stressed won’t necessarily be repeated.
“Since early 2020, many of us have spent more time gaming than we ever expected. This award will offer fans an opportunity to celebrate the games that have been meaningful, joyful, and exceptional over this past year,” DisCon III co-chair Colette Fozard said in the spring announcement of the category’s addition. “Video games draw from the same deeply creative well that has fed science fiction and fantasy writing and art for so many years. This innovative and interactive genre has brought us new ways of story-telling as well as new stories to tell and we are glad to honor them.
“There is no permanent Hugo Award category to recognize this interactive form of storytelling with which so many fans of the genre create and engage. A trial Best Interactive Video Game Hugo Award was attempted in 2006. Since that time, science fiction and fantasy video games have continued to evolve and generate intense interest from both reviewers and the wider fan community.”
The Hugo Awards honor sci-fi genre writing in most of its varied forms. DisCon III, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention or Worldcon, where the awards were presented, was Dec. 15-19 in Washington, D.C.
https://nerdvana.co/sci-fi-fantasy/2021-hugo-award-nominations/151426/
