Hades is the first videogame to win a Hugo Award

(Image credit: Supergiant Games)

During the 79th annual Worldcon, aka DisCon III, the winners of the Hugo Awards were announced. Hades won the Best Video Game award, over other nominees Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Blaseball, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, The Last of Us Part 2, and Spiritfarer. "We hope that the Hugo Awards continue to recognize the amazing work being done in this space," said Greg Kasavin of Supergiant Games in a televised acceptance speech, before thanking the Greek gods "both above and below".

The Hugo Awards have been recognizing the best literary works of science fiction and fantasy since 1953, across an evolving set of categories—the category for Best Graphic Story was only added in 2009. This year's Best Video Game category was included as a one-off.

As DisConIII co-chair Colette Fozard explained, "Since early 2020, many of us have spent more time gaming than we ever expected. This award will offer fans an opportunity to celebrate the games that have been meaningful, joyful, and exceptional over this past year." A permanent Best Game or Interactive Experience category is being considered.

Hades has won plenty of other awards since its release, including GDC Game of the Year and BAFTAs for Best Game, Artistic Achievement, Game Design, Narrative, and Performer in a Supporting Role (Logan Cunningham). We declared it 2020's Best Action Game too.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.