60 Fun Facts About 2023 Video Game

Which game won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023, the first to sweep the top prize at all five major ceremonies?

It led the show with nine nominations and six wins. Its Windows release had been moved forward four weeks to get out of the way of Starfield.

Which Belgian studio developed 2023's Game of the Year, adapting the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons?

Wizards of the Coast turned down the studio's first pitch after Divinity: Original Sin, then said yes after seeing its sequel. The first act spent three years in early access from August 2020.

Neil Newbon won Best Performance at The Game Awards 2023 for voicing which vampire-spawn rogue companion?

The hedonistic high elf was written by Stephen Rooney. Newbon was famously cut off by the play-off music during his acceptance speech.

Which die decides most combat and dialogue outcomes in Baldur's Gate 3?

The d20 is the heart of tabletop D&D too. The game's setting, the Forgotten Realms, comes straight from the tabletop as well.

Which 2023 Remedy Entertainment horror sequel won Best Narrative and Best Art Direction at The Game Awards?

Its writer hero has been trapped in an alternate dimension for 13 years. At a reported 70 million euros, it was one of the most expensive cultural products ever made in Finland.

Which company published Remedy Entertainment's 2023 horror sequel under a 2021 two-game deal?

Remedy had bought the Alan Wake rights back from Microsoft in 2019. Alan Wake Remastered was the first game under the Epic partnership.

Which FBI agent, whose 'Mind Place' is a 3D case board, co-leads Alan Wake 2?

The two campaigns can be played in any order. Alan's equivalent is the 'Writer's Room', where changing the plot outline reshapes the space around him.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold how many million copies in its first three days in 2023?

That made it the fastest-selling Zelda ever and the fastest-selling Nintendo game in the Americas. It went on to become one of the Switch's best-sellers.

Tears of the Kingdom added islands in the sky and a vast underground region beneath Hyrule called what?

The dark region needs light sources to explore and is full of 'gloom', a substance that temporarily cuts Link's maximum hearts.

Which Tears of the Kingdom ability lets Link stick objects together to build vehicles?

The building mechanics grew out of Breath of the Wild DLC ideas that got too big, and were inspired by the experiments players posted on social media.

Tears of the Kingdom was the first Nintendo-developed game to carry which U.S. launch price?

Sony and Microsoft had already moved their big first-party titles to that price on the newer consoles; Nintendo held out on the Switch until this release.

Which studio developed Hogwarts Legacy, its first non-Disney project since 2005?

Warner Bros. bought the studio in 2017. Before that it was best known for Disney Infinity, and the wizarding game reportedly cost about $150 million to make.

Hogwarts Legacy is set how long before the events of the Harry Potter novels?

The 1800s setting was chosen so players could build their own story away from established characters. Its early-access period made it Twitch's most-watched single-player game ever.

How many million copies did Hogwarts Legacy sell in its first two weeks, generating $850M in revenue?

It went on to pass 40 million copies and $1 billion in revenue, all while facing boycott calls over J. K. Rowling's views on transgender people.

Todd Howard described Starfield, Bethesda's first new IP in 25 years, with which three-word phrase?

Active development began after Fallout 4 in 2015, on a heavily modified Creation Engine built to handle procedural planets.

Starfield lets players land on more than how many planets?

Most of the landscapes are procedurally generated around handcrafted points of interest. New Atlantis is the largest fictional city Bethesda has ever built.

Starfield launched on September 6, 2023, for Windows and which console family only?

Microsoft had bought Bethesda's parent ZeniMax in 2021, so the space RPG skipped PlayStation at launch. A PS5 version did not arrive until April 2026.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 pits Peter Parker and Miles Morales against Kraven and which alien symbiote?

The symbiote bonds with Peter and gives him the black suit and new powers, at the cost of his personal relationships. Tony Todd voiced it.

How many million copies did Marvel's Spider-Man 2 sell in its first 24 hours, a PlayStation Studios record?

It passed five million within 11 days. Insomniac's PS5 exclusive later came to Windows in 2025 via porting house Nixxes.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder takes place in a new land that Bowser fuses himself with. What is it called?

It was the first side-scrolling Super Mario since New Super Mario Bros. U in 2012, and became the fastest-selling Super Mario game ever.

A new fruit power-up in Super Mario Bros. Wonder transforms Mario into which animal?

The other new power-ups are a bubble flower and a drill mushroom. Wonder Flowers trigger effects like pipes coming to life mid-level.

Who voiced Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, released in April 2023?

Chris Pratt voiced Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy was Peach and Seth Rogen played Donkey Kong. The film was produced by Illumination with Nintendo.

Roughly how much did The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the first billion-dollar video game film, gross worldwide?

Nintendo had avoided film deals for decades after the 1993 live-action flop. Shigeru Miyamoto met Illumination's boss through the Super Nintendo World theme-park work.

Which publisher did Microsoft finish acquiring in October 2023, the biggest video game deal ever?

The deal was announced at $68.7 billion in January 2022 and ended up costing $75.4 billion. It brought Call of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch and Candy Crush under Xbox.

Which company got ten years of cloud-streaming rights for Activision games to satisfy the UK regulator?

The CMA had blocked the deal in April 2023 over cloud gaming concerns. The U.S. FTC had also tried, and failed, to get a court to stop the merger.

To calm Sony's fears, Microsoft committed to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation through which year?

Sony's chief worry was that the series would become an Xbox exclusive. Microsoft also signed a ten-year deal to bring the games to Nintendo platforms.

What is the Florida-based fictional state revealed in the first Grand Theft Auto VI trailer called?

It contains a Miami-inspired Vice City, the Everglades-like Grassrivers and the Leonida Keys. Rockstar dropped the trailer to mark its 25th anniversary.

How many million views did the GTA VI trailer reach in 24 hours, YouTube's third-most ever for that span?

It set the record for first-day views on a non-music video within 12 hours and passed the lifetime views of GTA V's 2011 reveal trailer inside two days.

Street Fighter 6's main new mechanic, a meter that can be spent on five different techniques, is called what?

Most of its techniques update older systems such as parries and focus attacks. The game also added a real-time commentary option to mimic tournament broadcasts.

In the 2023 Resident Evil 4 remake, Leon rescues the president's daughter from a cult in which country?

The remake expanded Ashley Graham's characterisation and shipped side content in which players control Ada Wong. It became the fastest-selling Resident Evil at the time.

How many million dollars did Diablo IV generate in its first five days, a Blizzard record?

The devilish figure was surely a coincidence. The game reached 12 million players by August 2023 and passed $1 billion in total revenue the following year.

Who is the protagonist of Final Fantasy XVI, guardian to his younger brother Joshua?

The game's summons are called Eikons, and its battle designer was Ryota Suzuki, a Capcom veteran of Devil May Cry 5.

Which composer won Best Score and Music at The Game Awards 2023 for Final Fantasy XVI?

He was already known for Final Fantasy XIV's soundtrack, working under the same producer, Naoki Yoshida.

Pikmin 4 introduced which two new Pikmin species?

It also added Night Expeditions and a customisable player character. The game won Best Sim/Strategy at The Game Awards and became the series' best-seller.

Hi-Fi Rush was announced and released on the same day, January 25, 2023. Which studio made it?

The rhythm-action game's hero, Chai, has a music player embedded in his chest so the whole world moves to the beat. It won Best Audio Design at The Game Awards.

In Dave the Diver, what does Dave do in the evenings after gathering ingredients on his daytime dives?

The pixel-art hit was made by Mintrocket, a subsidiary of Nexon, which is why its Best Independent Game nomination at The Game Awards raised eyebrows.

The 2023 Soulslike Lies of P is loosely based on which 19th-century novel?

It is dedicated to author Carlo Collodi and set in the Belle Époque-inspired city of Krat, where the puppets have turned homicidal.

Which Dark Souls and Elden Ring studio revived its mech series with Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon?

The war on Rubicon 3 is fought over Coral, a powerful energy source. It became the best-selling entry in the series and won Best Action Game at The Game Awards.

Redfall, Arkane Austin's poorly received 2023 shooter, pitted four survivors against what?

The monsters had cut the fictional Massachusetts island town off from the outside world. Its technical problems became a black mark on Xbox's year.

How long after its December 2023 launch was the suspected-scam zombie shooter The Day Before pulled from sale?

Developer Fntastic shut down at the same time. Servers stayed on until the following month, and former staff later accused the founders of severe mismanagement.

In 2023, Unity sparked a developer revolt by announcing a per-installation charge it called what?

Ten days later Unity walked much of it back, raising the free threshold to $200,000 and capping charges at 2.5 per cent of revenue.

What happened to E3 2023, which had been planned as the show's first full in-person return since 2019?

The trade show never came back; the ESA formally ended E3 for good in December 2023.

Which November 2023 Sony accessory streams PS5 games to a handheld screen but cannot run games itself?

It has an 8-inch LCD and DualSense-style controls, runs a modified Android 13, and relies on Remote Play over Wi-Fi.

Valve refreshed the Steam Deck in November 2023 with a model featuring what kind of screen?

The handheld PC had launched in February 2022 running SteamOS, a Linux system that plays Windows games through the Proton compatibility layer.

Cocoon director Jeppe Carlsen previously designed which two atmospheric puzzle-platformers?

Carlsen left Playdead in 2016 to found Geometric Interactive. The player is a beetle who hops between worlds carried in orbs.

HBO's The Last of Us, which won Best Adaptation at The Game Awards 2023, stars which actor as Joel?

Bella Ramsey plays Ellie. The series premiered January 15, 2023, and became HBO's most-watched debut season.

Cyberpunk 2077's 2023 expansion Phantom Liberty added which lawless new district to Night City?

The story has V rescuing the president of the New United States after her aircraft crashes there. Idris Elba plays agent Solomon Reed, and the expansion sold over 10 million.

Assassin's Creed Mirage, a return to stealth roots, is set in the 9th century in which city?

It began life as an expansion for Valhalla and stars Basim Ibn Ishaq. It was the first game led by the publisher's Bordeaux studio, previously a support team.

Which actor plays Jedi Knight Cal Kestis in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, set five years after Fallen Order?

It was the last game EA released under its ten-year exclusive Star Wars licence with Lucasfilm. Director Stig Asmussen returned from the first game.

Which EA team developed the January 2023 remake of Dead Space, the series' first release in a decade?

Rebuilt in Frostbite, it kept Isaac Clarke aboard the USG Ishimura but removed all loading screens between levels. EA deliberately left microtransactions out.

Sea of Stars' Solstice Warriors Valere and Zale wield the power of what?

Sabotage Studio's pixel-art RPG is modelled on SNES-era classics like Chrono Trigger. The studio's previous game was The Messenger.

Which celebrity's Game of the Year presentation at The Game Awards 2023 drew criticism?

Winners got thirty seconds before the music started, and speeches added up to under 11 minutes across the show. It was still the most-watched Game Awards ever, at 118 million streams.

Roughly how many video game industry jobs were lost to layoffs in 2023?

Embracer Group's collapse after a $2 billion deal fell through drove many of the cuts. Critics blasted The Game Awards for not mentioning the layoffs at all.

By October 2023, 25 games had scored 90+ on Metacritic, making it the best year for acclaimed releases since when?

One theory: many of the year's biggest games had been delayed by pandemic lockdowns and arrived more polished, on consoles developers finally understood.

Which HoYoverse title won Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2023?

The turn-based space-fantasy RPG launched in April 2023 and later came to PS5. Its stablemate Genshin Impact had won the same award in 2021.

Which racing game won Best Sports/Racing and Innovation in Accessibility at The Game Awards 2023?

Turn 10's reboot included a Blind Driving Assists mode with audio cues so blind and low-vision players could race.

Counter-Strike 2, released in September 2023, moved the series onto which game engine?

It replaced Global Offensive on Steam, added a 'sub-tick' server architecture and dropped macOS support.

In Zeekerss's 2023 co-op horror hit about selling scrap from abandoned moons, who employs the players?

Up to four employees scour abandoned exomoons, racing to get back to the ship before midnight when the autopilot leaves.

Pizza Tower's Peppino Spaghetti was designed as a spiritual successor to which dormant Nintendo series?

Wario Land 4 was the template for its gameplay, and the 20-level platformer has no health or lives at all.

Metroid Prime Remastered was shadow-dropped digitally on the Switch on which date in 2023?

Retro Studios led the remaster with help from Iron Galaxy, adding dual-stick controls; a physical edition followed weeks later.