At The Game Awards 2023, Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) took home several major awards, including Game of the Year, but footage has revealed they were prompted to wrap their speech up while dedicating the massive win to a team member who’d died.
On X, user @javierabegazo posted footage from The Game Awards that showed the countdown that was happening during Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke’s acceptance speech. During the speech, Vincke dedicated the speech to those who’d passed away working on the game, specifically Jim Southworth, the title’s Lead Cinematic Artist. Southworth died of cancer earlier this year. As Vincke gives the dedication, the prompter reads, “Please wrap it up.”
Related: No, Hogwarts Legacy Wasn’t Snubbed By the Game Awards
Award shows are generally a tightly timed affair, and on a fundamental level, everyone understands the need to have a prompter that helps those accepting awards manage their time. However, the footage has gotten a lot of flack online due to the general way The Game Awards 2023 was conduced. I’ve covered it already in this article, but for those who don’t want to read that, many developers who won awards weren’t given the chance to actually accept them, and those that were often got cut short. Meanwhile, the ceremony dedicated a ton of space and time to ads and to segments focusing on games with nothing to really show. There’s something that felt inherently disrespectful about the whole thing.
In total, Baldur’s Gate 3 took home six awards at The Game Awards, including Best Performance (Neil Newbon), Best Community Support, Best RPG, Best Multiplayer, and the Player’s Voice Award, in addition to Game of the Year. It was also nominated for Best Narrative, Best Score and Music, and Best Game Direction. Overall, it was a fantastic night for Larian Studios.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available now, with the game having shadow dropped on Xbox Series X/S last night.
