Red Dead Redemption 2 wins Steam's 2023 post-launch support award, somehow

It’s fair to say that 2023 was a great year for video games and one of the best in recent memory offering a plethora of amazing titles that gamers will still be talking about for years to come.

2023 saw the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Red Dead Redemption 2 and much more. Wait, what? Why was Red Dead Redemption 2 mentioned? Sure, this is one of the greatest video games of all time, but this Rockstar Games western classic was released in 2018.

Check out the Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer below!

One of the most exciting aspects of a year coming to a close is celebrating all the best TV and movies, and of course, video games during that time. In fact, GAMINGbible also celebrated the ‘10 Greatest Video Games of 2023’. Many outlets have their own end-of-the-year accolades and the Steam platform is no exception.

However, one inclusion that has raised some eyebrows in the 2023 Steam Awards is Red Dead Redemption 2, on two fronts. Not only is it surprising to see a 2018 game included in the end-of-year awards but it also claimed the accolade of ‘Labor of Love’. Red Dead Redemption 2 beat Dota 2, Rust, Deep Rock Galactic and Apex Legends. I know that all of the aforementioned games were released before 2023, but they are ongoing live-service titles that are regularly supported.

“This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the debut of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years,” reads the description of the award category.

We could say that Red Dead Redemption 2 picked up this gong for Red Dead Online, but this online game has been heavily criticised for its lack of content support, especially when compared to GTA Online. What’s more, even Rockstar Games has seemingly given up on giving Red Dead Online meaningful content support, so how on earth did RDR2 pick up this award? In saying that, this is the same ceremony that had given the award of ‘Most Innovative Gameplay’ to Starfield.

It’s perhaps worth keeping in mind that fans can not only vote for the winners in the Steam Awards but nominate too. So could Red Dead Redemption 2 winning this accolade be some sort of troll as an act of defiance for Rockstar Games' apparent lack of meaningful support?

“Did you guys really nominate Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that hasn't been updated since 2020, for the Labor of Love award in the Steam Awards 2023?” tweeted PC Gamer.

“It's baffling to see that Red Dead Redemption 2 won the Labor of Love award in the Steam Awards,” exclaimed BaileyPoints. “This has only won this award because it had its highest player count on Steam recently, but this game has not been updated with new content or properly supported in years.”

“The things I dislike about the Steam Awards this year is that not only did Pizza Tower not win Best Soundtrack, but Red Dead Redemption 2 won Labor of Love even though Rockstar's only keeping RDRO's servers on and the game's been abandoned for a year,” said Pyromaildragon.

It will be interesting to see what games pick up questionable awards in the Steam Awards 2024. Perhaps this might finally be GTA Online’s time to shine. We’ll be rooting for that underdog. You got this Grand Theft Auto!

Red Dead Redemption 2 is out now on PC, PlayStation and Xbox.