Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association (@IIDEAssociation), Italy’s video game trade body, has announced the finalists of this year’s prestigious Italian Video Game Awards 2023 (@ItalianVGA).

The award ceremony, which is in its eleventh year, will take place on 6 July 2023 at the innovation hub Nana Bianca in Florence and will be hosted by Irish games host, critic and streamer Aoife Wilson. This will be during First Playable conference, the annual international gaming B2B event in Italy.

Thalita Malagò, General Director at IIDEA said: “It’s such an honor for us to host the Italian Video Game Awards each year and to be a part of putting a spotlight on the excellence within our industry. There is always such a huge amount of talent in the entries and this year was no exception. Our industry is growing and thriving each year and we are delighted to see it continue to flourish.”

Here are the chosen finalists for the Italian Video Game Awards 2023:

Best Italian Game

• Batora: Lost Haven (Stormind Games)
• Freud's Bones - The Game (Axel Fox | Fortuna Imperatore)
• Hell is Others (Strelka Games & Yonder)
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (Ubisoft Milan)
• MotoGP 22 (Milestone)
• Ravenous Devils (Bad Vices Games)
• Redout 2 (34BigThings)
• Saturnalia (Santa Ragione)
• Soulstice (Reply Game Studios)
• tERRORbane (BitNine Studio)
• The Rude Awakening (One O One Games)
• Vajont (Artheria)

Best Italian Debut Game

• Freud's Bones - The Game (Axel Fox | Fortuna Imperatore)
• IMAGO: Beyond the Nightmares (BR-Digital)
  
• tERRORbane (BitNine Studio)
• Vajont (Artheria)
• Venice 2089 (Safe Place Studio)

Best Innovation

• Hell is Others (Strelka Games & Yonder)
• Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (Ubisoft Milan)
• Saturnalia (Santa Ragione)
• tERRORbane (BitNine Studio)
• Vajont (Artheria)

Outstanding Italian Company

• Nacon Studio Milan
• Reply Game Studios
• Ubisoft Milan

Outstanding Individual Contribution

• Antonio Cannata (Stormind Games)
• Valerio Di Donato (34BigThings)
• Cristina Nava (Ubisoft Milan)

IIDEA is delighted to be teaming up this year with media partners GamesIndustry.biz and VGC. The Italian Video Game Awards 2023 ceremony will take place on 6th July at 19.00 BST/20.00 CEST, and will be streamed live to English-speaking audiences by VGC.

The jury for this year’s awards included industry veterans from development and press within the games industry. This year’s judges were: Vikki Blake reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant; Mike Channell, Co-editor for Outside Xbox; Lucy James, Senior Video Producer at GameSpot and Creative Producer at Giant Bomb; Imogen Mellor, Games Journalist and Content Creator; Alexis Trust, Comms Manager at Chucklefish; Jake Tucker, Editor-in-chief of TechRadar Gaming; and Ross Thompson, Content Creator and Consultant & Advisor in Gaming, Esports and Influencer Activation.

You can see all the finalists for this year’s awards, and read about the jury, over at www.firstplayable.it/italian-video-game-awards/. The two-day First Playable event, will be hosted by Nana Bianca in Florence. More information about the event is available on www.firstplayable.it

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