The annual Hugo Awards has issued its nominations for the past year's best science fiction and fantasy across literature, media, and fandom. As promised, this year's Hugo Awards also include the first annual category for Best Video Game. The list of six nominees features many familiar games from 2020's largest award shows, but also some impressive surprises. Voting for nominees is opening in April, and will remain open all the way through November 19, 2021. In other words, a winner won't be decided for quite some time.
The first annual Best Video Game nominees for the Hugo Awards include the following games: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Blaseball, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Hades, The Last of Us: Part 2, and Spiritfarer. The heavy favorites from the list are likely to be Hades, which has brought in dozens of Game of the Year awards; and The Last of Us 2, which has also been very well received. Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Final Fantasy 7 Remake are both common nominees for Game of the Year awards, as well.
The two surprises of the Hugo Awards Best Video Game nominees are Blaseball and Spiritfarer. Blaseball is a curious browser game based on an automated sort-of-baseball simulator, where players bet on matches, vote on rules between seasons, and help write the universe in which Blaseball takes place. Spiritfarer is a 2D adventure game in which the player helps charming NPCs pass on to the afterlife. Both games are dark horses for the award, but it goes to show that the Hugo Awards have a unique perspective on the gaming industry.
Why the Hugo Awards decided to include a category for video games this year isn't clear, given the award's focus on literature. That said, the Hugo Awards' expansion into covering fantasy and sci-fi graphic novels, movies, and even fanfics show that a video category fits in perfectly. As noted, don't expect the Hugo Awards to complete anytime soon, as voting will remain open all the way through November.