The Steam Awards Have Ended: Here Are the Winners in Every Category

Hollow Knight Silksong cropped processed by imagy

Game of the Year Award - Hollow Knight: Silksong

Steam’s biggest trophy is less about critics and more about community heat, because the Steam Awards are nominated and voted on by players – so Game of the Year usually goes to whatever dominated wishlists, chats, and late-night “just one more” sessions. In that context, Hollow Knight: Silksong makes sense as a headline pick: it carries the weight of a beloved indie classic while promising a faster, sharper twist through Hornet’s movement and combat. The award also signals reach, not just quality – how widely a game traveled across different tastes, from hardcore Metroidvania fans to people who normally bounce off tough platforming. Between the eerie insect kingdom vibe, the precision-first fights, and the kind of exploration that turns every detour into a discovery, it’s easy to see why players would rally around it when casting votes. | © Team Cherry

VR Game of the Year Award – The Midnight Walk

VR categories can feel messy because everyone’s setup and tolerance for motion is different, which is exactly why VR Game of the Year matters: it’s a player-picked nod to the experience that most convincingly justifies putting on a headset. The Midnight Walk plays to VR’s strengths by leaning into immersion and atmosphere, selling the idea that you’re physically present inside a surreal, unsettling journey rather than simply “controlling a character.” A win here typically means the game nailed comfort, clarity, and pacing – things VR audiences are ruthless about – while still offering moments people want to describe afterward. Its appeal is the kind that spreads through word-of-mouth: a distinctive mood, tactile-feeling environments, and an adventure structure that keeps curiosity pulling you forward even when the tone gets eerie. | © MoonHood

Outstanding Visual Style Award - Silent Hill f

A visual-style award isn’t a graphics contest – it’s a recognition of taste, cohesion, and a look so deliberate that one frame can tell you exactly what you’re playing. That’s where Silent Hill f shines as an Outstanding Visual Style kind of game: it’s built to unsettle through composition, texture, and imagery that sticks in your memory long after you close the menu. Players tend to vote for the titles that make horror feel curated rather than random, and this one’s identity is hard to ignore – an atmosphere that leans into beauty and rot at the same time, with a setting that gives the series a different cultural flavor than its usual haunted-town DNA. The award also reflects confidence: a studio and publisher willing to make “style” the hook, not an afterthought, so the visuals become part of the storytelling. | © Konami

Best Game on Steam Deck Award - Hades II

Handheld play exposes every flaw – tiny text, fussy menus, sluggish input – so Best Game on Steam Deck is basically the community’s seal of approval for something that stays readable, responsive, and addictive in short bursts. Hades II is a natural fit because its runs are built around quick decisions, clean combat feedback, and that Supergiant rhythm where dying feels like progress, not punishment. The category also rewards games that travel well: a strong loop you can pick up for ten minutes and accidentally keep going for an hour, without needing a desk or a “serious” setup. With Melinoë at the center and a fresh direction for the underworld myth vibe, it has the rare combination of mechanical sharpness and narrative drip-feed that keeps players checking in constantly. On Steam Deck, that translates into effortless replayability – exactly what this award is meant to spotlight. | © Supergiant Games

Best Game You Suck At Award - Hollow Knight: Silksong

Steam’s funniest category is also one of its most honest: Best Game You Suck At celebrates the title that hands players repeated losses – and somehow still earns their love, their votes, and their stubborn determination. The real meaning isn’t “unfair,” it’s “compelling,” and Hollow Knight: Silksong fits that reputation when a game’s challenge comes from precision and pattern learning rather than cheap tricks. Players gravitate to this award when the difficulty becomes a shared language: clips of failed boss attempts, heated advice threads, and the eventual brag of finally pulling off a clean win. It’s also a compliment to design clarity – if people keep coming back despite the pain, the controls feel trustworthy, the rules feel consistent, and improvement feels measurable. In other words, it’s the kind of hard that makes players laugh at themselves while queueing up another attempt. | © Team Cherry

Most Innovative Gameplay Award - Arc Raiders

Innovation on Steam doesn’t mean “we added a new button,” it means players felt a new kind of tension, rhythm, or social friction – and they kept talking about it long after the first weekend. This award is basically a community nod to the game that changes how you move through a match, how you read danger, and how you treat other human beings in the same space. What makes the winner stand out is the way it blends scavenging pressure with constant uncertainty, where the environment is as threatening as the people sharing it. ARC Raiders turns that into its core identity: a lethal, ruined Earth stalked by a mechanized threat, with extra spice coming from unpredictable encounters that can flip from cautious coexistence to panic in seconds. It’s the kind of design that creates stories naturally, which is exactly what players tend to reward here. | © Embark Studios

Best Soundtrack Award - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Some games have good music; others have a score that becomes part of the reason you remember a scene at all, like the melody is doing half the storytelling. That’s what this Steam Awards category celebrates, because a great soundtrack isn’t background noise – it’s mood control, pacing, and emotional glue, especially in long RPGs. Set in a world inspired by Belle Époque France, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leans hard on atmosphere: wonder, dread, melancholy, and the adrenaline spikes of combat all need their own musical language. The premise is suitably operatic – an expedition racing to stop the Paintress from “painting” death into reality – and the music rises to meet that scale, shifting from intimate character moments to big, cinematic surges without feeling like generic wallpaper. It’s also a rare case where players clearly voted for the album as much as the game. | © Sandfall Interactive

Better With Friends Award - Peak

Co-op awards aren’t about having multiplayer; they’re about the specific kind of chaos that only works when you’re laughing with someone else, usually while everything goes wrong. This category tends to crown games that create teamwork by design – where communication matters, mistakes are shareable, and the funniest moments come from real coordination (or the lack of it). The winner thrives on that delicate balance between planning and improvisation, because every climb turns into a tiny group drama: who carries what, who takes the risky route, who just saved the run, and who absolutely did not. The premise is simple and instantly readable – lost scouts, a mysterious island, one mountain that decides whether you’re getting rescued – and the magic is how quickly it turns into a friendship stress test. That’s why PEAK fits the spirit of the award so cleanly. | © Aggro Crab

Labor of Love Award - Baldur’s Gate 3

Long after release week hype fades, this Steam Awards category rewards the studios that keep showing up – patches, fixes, quality-of-life upgrades, and real engagement that makes a game feel alive instead of archived. It’s not just “support,” it’s the sense that the developers still care about how the experience plays today, not how it reviewed back then. That’s exactly the lane Larian has owned, which is why the community rallied behind Baldur’s Gate 3 here: it’s a massive RPG with enough branching paths to keep surprising people months later, so steady refinement actually changes how newcomers and returning players experience it. The award also reflects how social the game became with co-op runs, meme builds, mod culture, and endless “what if I choose this?” conversations that never really stopped. When players vote “Labor of Love,” they’re voting for trust, and Larian has banked plenty of it. | © Larian Studios

Outstanding Story-Rich Game Award - Dispatch

A story-rich win on Steam usually means one thing: players didn’t just finish it, they wanted to talk about it – characters, choices, lines they can’t forget, and that specific ache you get when a narrative game sticks the landing. This category celebrates writing and structure, but also pacing: the way scenes unfold, the way decisions feel personal, and the way dialogue makes you believe a world exists beyond the next objective marker. The clever twist here is the tone, because the game plays like a workplace comedy wearing a superhero costume, with drama that comes as much from personalities as from emergencies. You’re managing a messy team and deciding who gets sent into the chaos while juggling relationships and reputation, which makes every choice feel like it has consequences beyond “good” or “bad.” That mix is why Dispatch hit players as a narrative standout. | © AdHoc Studio

Sit Back and Relax Award - RV There Yet?

“Relax” on Steam doesn’t always mean quiet; sometimes it means low-pressure fun – something you can play with a snack, mess up repeatedly, and still feel like you’re making progress. This award tends to go to games that replace competition with comfort, trading sweaty stakes for a vibe you can settle into, even when the moment-to-moment gets silly. The winner leans into the road-trip fantasy and turns it into a playful, cooperative adventure: you and your friends are trying to get an RV home through a detour that keeps escalating into absurd problems, from rough backcountry routes to survival-style oddities. The appeal is how it turns problem-solving into a hangout, with physics-y obstacles and shared panic that feels more like a party story than a punishment. That’s the sweet spot RV There Yet? lands in, and why players tagged it as their unwind pick. | © Nuggets Entertainment