2018 Steam Awards Voting Begins This Week; Here Are The Finalists

By Stefanie Fogel

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Valve revealed the finalists for The 2018 Steam Awards on Wednesday.

The Awards began in 2016 as a way for the community to honor some of the digital distribution platform’s best games. Each year, chooses the categories and lets Steam users vote for the winners. Those categories are usually pretty atypical for an awards show, however, with categories ranging from “Labor of Love” to “The World is Grim Enough Let’s Just All Get Along.” In prior years, Valve also allowed Steam users to submit their own voting category, along with a nomination.

This year, community voting starts on Thursday, Dec. 20 alongside the launch of the 12th Annual Winter Sale. There are eight separate categories. Steam users who cast their ballots will be rewarded with digital trading cards.

The full list of categories and nominees is below. Voting closes on Jan. 3rd. The winners will be announced in early February 2019, Valve said.

Nominees for Game of the Year:

“PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”

“Monster Hunter: World”

“Kingdom Come: Deliverance”

“Hitman 2”

“Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”

Nominees for VR Game of the Year:

“The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR”

“VRChat”

“Beat Saber”

“Fallout 4 VR”

“Superhot VR”

Nominees for Labor of Love:

“Dota 2”

“Grand Theft Auto V”

“No Man’s Sky”

“Path of Exile”

“Stardew Valley”

Nominees for Best Environment:

“The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”

“Subnautica”

“Shadow of the Tomb Raider”

“Far Cry 5”

“Dark Souls III”

Nominees for Better with Friends:

“Counter-Strike: Global Offensive”

“Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege”

“Payday 2”

“Dead by Daylight”

“Overcooked! 2”

Nominees for Best Alternate History:

“Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus”

“Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”

“Hearts of Iron IV”

“Sid Meier’s Civilization VI”

“Fallout 4”

Nominees for Most Fun with a Machine:

“Euro Truck Simulator 2”

“Rocket League”

“NieR: Automata”

“Factorio”

“Space Engineers”

Nominees for Best Developer:

CD Projekt Red

Ubisoft

Bethesda

Rockstar Games

Digital Extremes Ltd.

Square Enix

Capcom

Paradox Interactive

Bandai Namco Entertainment

Klei

The “Best Developer” category was “highly-contested,” Valve said. There were a lot of close calls among the top nominees. That’s why it decided to expand the list to 10. Valve also chose to exclude itself from the category.