Elden Ring deservedly wins Game Of The Year at the 2023 GDC Awards

It also won like, every other GOTY award

Elden Ring, our own Destructoid 2022 Game of the Year, is still cleaning up at various award ceremonies. Just this week it managed to snag another overall GOTY win out of GDC, which announced their full list of winners last night. While God of War Ragnarok ended up taking the “audience award,” Elden Ring beat it out for the top prize.

For context, this is the full list of GDC best overall nominees that Elden Ring had to compete with

• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Immortality
• Pentiment
• Stray
• Tunic

Elden Ring also won the best visual art award, but God of War won the most awards overall with three (best audio, audience award, best technology). It’s a fairly well-rounded list, packed with 2022 favorites and several indie releases. While indies can win out in any given year, it was a tough bout with Elden Ring and God of War in the mix; and in the end, both took two of the best overall categories. Stray still won for “best debut,” and was one of the most-nominated games of the bunch though, and Pentiment cleaned up with “best narrative,” with Immortality taking the “innovation award.” In the end everything but Tunic won some sort of prize.

Here’s a full list of all the winners at the GDC (Game Developers Choice) Awards:

• Best Debut – Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive)
• Best Visual Art – Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Best Audio – God of War Ragnarok (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 Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Design – Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Audience Award – God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Game of the Year – Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Pioneer Award – Mabel Addis
• Lifetime Achievement Award – John Romero

Chris Carter

EIC, Reviews Director – Chris has been enjoying Destructoid avidly since 2008. He finally decided to take the next step in January of 2009 blogging on the site. Now, he’s staff!