Hades Wins the First Ever Hugo Award for Best Video Game

Imagine making a game so good, that it wins a Sci-fi book award. Supergiant Games Hades recently was declared the winner of the Best Video Game category at this years Hugo Awards, an industry first.

For some context, Hugo awards are normally for sci-fi writing. For this year only, the award organization held a new category for Best Video Game. They were planning on having a Best Interactive Video Game award in 2006, but it was removed due to lack of interest at the time. Either way, this years award took a focus on video games released in 2020, with nominations for games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and The Last of Us: Part 2. In the end, Hades was declared the winner, via the WorldCon Twitter account.

An acceptance speech was given by Supergiant Games writer and director Greg Kasavin.

Video game storytelling has come a long way over the years. You can really inhabit these worlds and see how it reacts to your every move, and at Supergiant we've tried to marry the traditions of fantasy and science fiction literature with that unique interactive component to create these worlds that feel as though they're alive.

We're so grateful our work on Hades has stood out in this way, and we hope that the Hugo Awards continue to recognize the amazing work being done in this space.

Hades won the hearts of more than just the Hugo Judges when it came out, having won numerous awards by a handful of gaming outlets and platforms. All in all, its a very fitting choice.

While this is a one-time thing by the Hugo Awards, there remains a chance it will continue. To retain the category for future awards, members of the World Science Fiction Society must vote on it at two consecutive WSFS business meetings. With video games becoming more and more mainstream and incredible stories and experiences being seen by wider audiences, we think it would be a wonderfully worthwhile choice to keep the category around.