The official winners of the GDC Awards 2023 were announced at a ceremony held in San Francisco, at the Moscone Center, with Elden Ring once again winning the Game of the Year award after doing so at The Game Awards, here on Wccftech, at the New York Game Awards, the D.I.C.E. Awards, and countless other outlets. At the GDC Awards 2023 ceremony, the game developed by FromSoftware with writing and worldbuilding help from A Song of Ice and Fire author G. R. R. Martin also won two other prizes for Best Visual Art and Best Design.
Sony Santa Monica's God of War Ragnarök won three awards, too, including the Audience one (the only one to be selected through a public vote), Best Audio, and Best Technology. The rest of the winners include other popular titles from last year, such as Stray, Pentiment, and Immortality.
This year, industry legend John Romero also received the Lifetime Achievement Award, while Mabel Addis, the first American female game designer, got the Pioneer Award. As usual, the winners were picked by the International Choice Awards Network, an invitation-only organization of game creators.
Best Debut
Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive)
Best Visual Art
Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
Best Audio
God of War Ragnarök (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Best Narrative
Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
Social Impact Award
Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over The Age/Fellow Traveller)
Innovation Award
IMMORTALITY (Half Mermaid Productions)
Best Technology
God of War Ragnarök (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Best Design
Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
Audience Award
God of War Ragnarök (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Game of the Year
Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
FromSoftware's Elden Ring enjoyed enormous success, becoming the studio's best-selling game ever with 20 million copies sold in the first year since its release. Publisher Bandai Namco recently released some impressive data on how gamers interacted with the world of Elden Ring during the past year. For example, there were over 9 billion deaths, over 5.9 billion boss attempts, and over one billion summons.
The game's first expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, is in production, though it may not release until after FromSoftware's next game, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, which is rumored to launch in September. Elden Ring fans are also still waiting for the ray tracing patch coming to PC and current-generation consoles; a recent update hinted that work is being done on that very front.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
