Elden Ring wins GOTY at the Steam Awards

Players make the obvious choice

Marco Wutz | Jan 4, 2023

Elden Ring wins GOTY at the Steam Awards /

The annual Steam Awards are done, the results are out, and Elden Ring wins another Game of the Year accolade. Steam users were able to cast their votes in several categories over the last couple of weeks with FromSoftware’s masterpiece beating Dying Light 2, Stray, God of War (2018), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) for the most prestigious award. Not really a surprise, considering the game’s triumphant march through pretty much every other awards show for the year. Elden Ring also taking the crown in the Best Game You Suck At category is pretty much on brand, too.

Cyberpunk 2077 won a big one as well, taking home 2022’s Labor of Love award. This category honors games for their long term community support and confirms that players recognize the RPG’s redemption arc as completed. At launch, the hyped game from CD Projekt RED suffered from technical issues for many users, resulting in harsh criticism. The developer was hard at work polishing the title up since then, winning back many fans who returned to check out the RPG again after watching the animated series Cyberpunk Edgerunners on Netflix, which is based on the game.

Most Innovative Gameplay going to Stray is a bit more controversial: While the platformer did win over many hearts after its launch in the summer of 2022, it is a rather simple title with tried and true mechanics behind it. Perhaps Steam users simply wanted to give it a nod since it was unlikely to prevail in GOTY.

Here are all the Steam Awards 2022 winners:

Game of the Year – Elden Ring
VR Game of the Year – Hitman 3
Labor of Love – Cyberpunk 2077
Better With Friends – Raft
Outstanding Visual Style – Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Most Innovative Gameplay – Stray
Best Game You Suck At – Elden Ring
Best Soundtrack – Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade
Outstanding Story-Rich Game – God of War (2018)
Sit Back and Relax – Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Best Game on the Go – Death Stranding Director’s Cut

To wrap up the awards season, check out our thoughts on the best games of 2022.

Published Jan 4, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg