Hades is the first video game to ever win the Hugo Award literary prize
"This award celebrates the games that have been meaningful, joyful, and exceptional over this past year."
Hades is the very first video game to ever win a Hugo award, an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works of the year.
Though there's currently no best video game category, as per the World Science Fiction Convention, a one-off category was created for this year, and a permanent award is under consideration.
Hades beat off competition from The Last of Us 2, Spiritfarer, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Blaseball.
"Wish I could have attended the Hugo Awards in person," tweeted Supergiant Games' creative director, Greg Kasavin (thanks, NME). "I wasn't able to make an acceptance speech there on behalf of the team though did have a few words here. I'm grateful that the awards are recognising work in this category, much less the work we did!"
"Since early 2020, many of us have spent more time gaming than we ever expected," Hugo Awards co-chair Colette Fozard said. "This award will offer fans an opportunity to celebrate the games that have been meaningful, joyful, and exceptional over this past year."
Hades remains the best-rated game for PS5 and Xbox Series X on Metacritic.
Although the indie roguelike was only released for current-gen consoles in August, it's surpassed every single competitor released on the new consoles since they debuted back in 2020, securing a top aggregated Metacritic score of 93 on Xbox Series X and 93 on PS5, too.
Hades previously launched for PC and Nintendo Switch in September last year to a hugely-positive reception, and earning top marks from Eurogamer in our Hades review and ultimately it became our Game of the Year for 2020.