Best Polish Game of 2023: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Digital Dragons :

Digital Dragons Awards Gala is behind us. We have learned what were the best Polish games of 2023.


Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty from CD PROJEKT RED turned out to be the best in two categories – Best Polish Game and Best Polish Narrative. The other winners were Against the Storm (Best Polish Game Design), Inkulinati (Best Polish Game Visual Art), The Invincible (Best Polish Game Audio), Hero Legacy: Adventure RPG (Best Polish Mobile Game) and Baldur's Gate 3 (Best Foreign Game).


Special Recognition Award went to Marta Fijak (Lead Game Designer, Mechanistry). Krakow Technology Park decided to honour the creator and educator who has made a significant contribution to both independent productions and the most important Polish titles of recent years, which have reached almost two million players and have been nominated for BAFTA awards.


I am very pleased that this year the statuette went to a woman. Marta has long been active in Polish gamedev, educating and inspiring. She is a leading expert in game design and has worked on such hits as Frostpunk.


Anna Krampus-Sepielak, Head of Digital Dragons
Digital Dragons Awards - list of winners:
Best Polish Game: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (CD PROJEKT RED)
Best Polish Narrative: Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (CD PROJEKT RED)
Best Polish Game Design: Against the Storm (Eremite Games)
Best Polish Game Visual Art: Inkulinati (Yaza Games)
Best Polish Game Audio: The Invincible (Starward Industries)
Best Polish Mobile Game: Hero Legacy: Adventure RPG (BoomBit Games)
Best Foreign Game: Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios)
Special Recognition Award: Marta Fijak

 
The winners of Digital Dragons Awards were selected by a jury of journalists, academics and game developers:


Grzegorz Bobrek (To Znowu Oni)
Mariusz Borkowski (GameMusic.pl)
Robert Graczyk (Komputer Świat)
Michał Król (PSX Extreme, Radio Szczecin)
Karol Laska (Magazyn CD-Action)
Szymon „Hed” Liebert (To Znowu Oni)
Remigiusz „Rock" Maciaszek (Rock i Borys)
Krzysztof M. Maj (Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza w Krakowie)
Borys Nieśpielak (Rock i Borys)
Maciej Pawlikowski (GRYOnline.pl)
Natalia Pych (Grajmerki - gry nie tylko kobiecym okiem, Women in Games)
Patryk „Rojo” Rojewski (ROJO)
Agnieszka Rumińska (Superkami, Women in Games)
dr hab. Paweł Węgrzyn (Uniwersytet Jagielloński)
Marcin Wronka (Ustatkowany gracz)
Roger Żochowski (PPE.pl)


This year's Digital Dragons Awards show what a diverse, creative and ambitious market the Polish video games sector is. Among the winners we have a game that advertises Polish gamedev in the West, which is, of course, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, which managed to win two statuettes. But there were also awards for much less mainstream works, such as The Invincible, which gives new life to Stanisław Lem's works, or the amazingly playable Against the Storm, which puts the city-builder genre on its head, which has been a bit dusty until recently. Inkulinati, on the other hand, bases its design on decorative motifs from medieval books. On top of this, of course, there is a thriving mobile games sector in Poland - Hero Legacy: Adventure RPG is a fully localised title that surprises with its scale. All of these games deserve international attention as they all stand out with their originality and the courage to change established patterns. As for the winner of Best Foreign Game, it could not have been any other way - Baldur's Gate 3 reminded us all why we play games at all and why we meet at events such as Digital Dragons.

Maciej Pawlikowski, Editor In Chief GRY-OnLine.pl

The list of nominations - which includes genre- and theme-diverse games - was based on the opinions of the Polish gamedev community through a survey sent out by the organiser.


Each subsequent edition of Digital Dragons Awards is a panoramic view of the rich landscape of Polish gamedev, unique on the map of the whole world. Keeping in mind our idea - that it should be an award "from devs for devs", reflecting the real opinion on quality and prestige in the Polish game industry - we are inviting the whole community to co-create the list of nominees, and to the jury deciding on the winners – we are selecting representatives of the media, independent experts, specialists in various fields. We are proud that every year Polish gamedev confronts the jury with insoluble dilemmas and the curse of abundance - because the competition in each category is always fierce. Certainly, an unobvious but inspiring choice was the recognition of Phantom Liberty project as Best Polish Game, which is technically a DLC to Cyberpunk 2077. This decision signifies the openness of the industry and the jurors to both smaller independent games and large productions with DLC status. What matters most is the value they bring to players.
Łukasz Leszczyński, Coordinator of Digital Dragons Awards


Digital Dragons Awards Gala


The awards were traditionally presented during Digital Dragons Conference 2024, an annual celebration of gamedev (19-21 May).


This year, the gala at Krakow's ICE Congress Centre was honoured by a musical performance by Carolin "Wønder" Mrugala, winner of the GG Awards Artist of the Year title, a creator known for creating original music and cosplaying. Her talent has previously attracted international gamedev giants such as Riot Games and Tencent.


The event was broadcast for the first time, and viewers were able to watch it on the channels of famous game journalist Remigiusz "Rock" Maciaszek (on Twitch and YouTube, where a transcript of the broadcast is available).


It is worth mentioning that the winner of the Best Polish Game category received a valuable prize funded by AMD in the form of a powerful PC equipped with Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7985WX, a 7900XTX graphics card and 256 GB of RAM.


MAIN PARTNER
Województwo Małopolskie is the Main Partner of the event: the regional authorities implementing a range of projects that serve innovation and economic development of Małopolska, and its attractiveness for investors. Małopolska is a perfect location for running business, particularly based on new technologies. Evidence of that is the number of new ventures growing every year, including dynamically developing tech start-ups. Thanks to the massive support given to entrepreneurship and the optimal utilization of EU funds and other public funds, Województwo Małopolskie positively stands out among other voivodships.


MAIN SPONSOR
The Main Sponsor of Digital Dragons Conference 2024 is Activision.
Activision is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and products whose mission is to create the most iconic brands in gaming and entertainment and deliver unrivaled gaming experiences for the world to enjoy, together.