The 2026 D.I.C.E. Awards recognized games through the people who make them
Clair Obscur won Game of the Year in Las Vegas. Peer panels and specialist voting explain the awards’ focus on development craft.
- Event / announcement date
- 2026-02-12
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won five honors at the 2026 D.I.C.E. Awards, including Game of the Year, game direction, story, art direction and role-playing game. Blue Prince won for game design and independent achievement. The results recognize separate parts of making a game, rather than a single popularity table in which one title takes every measure. [1]
The February 12 ceremony at Aria in Las Vegas followed nominations for 64 games released in 2025. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences placed five titles in the Game of the Year field: Arc Raiders, Blue Prince, Clair Obscur, Dispatch and Ghost of Yōtei. A place on that finalist list was a nomination; the later winner record is needed to establish which award a game actually received. [2]
The 29th awards’ rules explain the division of work. Peer panels narrowed the submissions to at most five finalists in each category, after which eligible academy members voted. Creative and technical members could vote in craft categories connected to their expertise. Business and affiliate members participated in the broader categories. The process was designed around professional roles, not an open ballot of all players. [3]
That distinction is especially concrete in sound and visual work. The rules assigned audio designers and musicians categories including audio design and original composition; artists, animators and programmers had access to categories including animation, art direction and technical achievement. These are judgments about particular disciplines. An honor for one of them does not imply the same assessment of every other element of the game. [3]
The winners illustrate the separation. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach received audio design and technical achievement, while Hotel Infinity won immersive-reality technical achievement and Ghost Town won immersive-reality game. Readers interested in how games sound, how systems work or how virtual environments are designed can follow those categories to different projects, instead of stopping at the overall winner. [4]
The academy’s finalist announcement names the studios and individual contributors associated with the nominated work, including artists, writers, composers and performers. That record offers a way to trace a craft interest back to people and teams. It also makes clear why a game’s many nominations should not be turned into an equal number of wins when recounting the February results. [2]
The source
- Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: 29th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards Winners Revealed ↗
Source date 2026-02-12 · reviewed October 28, 2026 · The announcement says the Academy recognized winners today and explicitly dates that ceremony February 12, 2026; date is inferred from those statements in the same primary announcement, not separate page metadata. - Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: 29th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards Finalists Revealed ↗
Undated reference · reviewed October 28, 2026 · No publication date is given on this context reference. Product release dates, event dates and retrieval dates are not substituted for publication dates. - Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: 29th D.I.C.E. Awards rules and procedures ↗
Undated reference · reviewed October 28, 2026 · No publication date is given on this context reference. Product release dates, event dates and retrieval dates are not substituted for publication dates. - Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences: 2026 - 29th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards Winners ↗
Undated reference · reviewed October 28, 2026 · No publication date is given on this context reference. Product release dates, event dates and retrieval dates are not substituted for publication dates.
About this item: Retrospective report. No first-hand reporting or independent testing is claimed. Corrections policy.
