'Baldur's Gate 3,' a video game by Belgian game developer Larian Studios in Ghent, has been named best game of the year at the Game Awards in Los Angeles – dubbed "the Oscars of the gaming sector."
The Belgian game was one of the top favourites and won a total of six awards: Best Performance, Best Role Playing Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best Community Support and notably Game of the Year. 'Baldur's Gate 3' also won the Players' Voice Award, awarded by the audience.
Swen Vincke, CEO of Larian Studios, "wanted to thank more than 2,000 people," but did not have time to mention them all by name. He dedicated the award to all the people Larian Studios has lost during the "six years that the whole team worked heart and soul on the game."
"We are incredibly proud, the team is still full of emotion," Jan Swaelens, Studio Head Ghent, said on Flemish radio on Friday morning. While the game will take home the main prize, Swaelens believes the audience award is at least equally important. "That one comes from the community, that's who we do it for."
The game is based on the popular role-playing game 'Dungeons & Dragons' and is also set in that same fantasy world. Players take on the roles of their characters, and the choices they make are crucial to the game's story.
Expectations were high for the Belgians, especially after 'Baldur's Gate 3' was named best game of 2023 at the Golden Joystick Awards in November – where winners are mainly chosen by the public. Never before has a Belgian game enjoyed such great success on the international stage.
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For Vincke, the game's success comes from listening to the community: "The game was in development for six years, including a couple of years with early access so players could give feedback while we continued to work on the game."
The fact that Larian Studios has gone home with six awards is "out of this world," said Swaelens. "With this, we have proved that we can deliver games of triple A format and we should not feel inferior to the big guys."
