The Hugo Award is an annual literary award given to stellar science fiction and fantasy works, so it’s undoubtedly big news when the one-off ‘Best Video Game’ category was created for this year. Hades, a video game, has proven itself to be of literary merit.
Yes, Supergiant Games is a Hugo Award winner. Greg Kasvin, creative director of Supergiant Games, tweeted his reaction to this historic win. He mentions his gratefulness to the Hugo Award for creating a category to recognise science fiction and fantasy works in video games, which are unquestionably capable of building immersive worlds and deep stories.
Other nominees include Spiritfarer, The Last of Us 2, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Blaseball.
While there aren’t plans to make the video game category a permanent one for the Hugo Awards, given the potential for video games for experimental storytelling and literary expression, it is a medium that will only become increasingly accepted as an artistically robust medium.