Cyberpunk 2077 just won another award this week, and while some of its players say the game and its developer CD Projekt Red deserved the win, others aren’t quite able to get their heads around it. The award in question was the Labor of Love honor given out as part of the 2022 Steam Awards, an award which essentially is meant to be given to the game that’s received continued support and improvements after its release. That’s not to say that Cyberpunk 2077 hasn’t gotten exactly that since it has gotten several updates since launch, but when looking at the other games that were in contention for the award, many aren’t quite sure how Cyberpunk 2077 won.
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The results of the Steam Awards went live this week and confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 had, in fact, won the Labor of Love award. In a blurb explaining why the game had won (aside from the fact that it got the majority of the user votes for the category), the Steam Awards page said the game’s creators “continue to nurture and support their creation” with new content still being worked on now.
That’s true given that the game’s first and only DLC called Phantom Liberty is scheduled to be released in 2023, but the same praise could be attributed to any of the other games that were up for the award. Those include Dota 2, Project Zomboid, No Man’s Sky, and Deep Rock Galactic.
Cyberpunk 2077 is the newest of these games since it released in 2020 just a couple of months after Deep Rock Galactic, and it’s also the most high-profile of them all except for maybe Dota 2, so some fans have attributed the game’s win to the newness and visibility of Cyberpunk 2077. Others have said sure, why not give Cyberpunk 2077 the award given that the creators have “turned this game around” since its rocky launch.
But many aren’t as convinced. A thread in the main Cyberpunk 2077 subreddit discussing the award situation was filled with skeptical players who felt other games like No Man’s Sky, Project Zomboid, and Deep Rock Galactic should’ve won instead. Those more critical of the win said it sets a “bad precedent” that a game can release like Cyberpunk 2077 did and win an award by becoming what people were expecting in the first place while others criticized CD Projekt Red for “patching their game up just enough to sell upcoming DLC for it.”
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC does not yet have a release date. A sequel for the game is also in the works.
