Horizon Call of the Mountain climbs to Best VR game at the Golden Joystick Awards

Horizon Call of the Mountain winning at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023
(Image credit: Sony)

Horizon Call of the Mountain has taken home the gong for Best VR Game at this year's Golden Joystick Awards 2023 powered by Intel. 

The Horizon series has always been a big winner at the Golden Joysticks over the years, so it's wonderful to see that translate to Aloy and co's first foray into virtual reality with a story that launched alongside the PSVR 2 back in February. 

It beat out the likes of C-Smash VRS and Synapse to take home the award but you can see the full list of Golden Joystick Awards 2023 nominees for Best VR game of the year below:

  • C-Smash VRS
  • Horizon Call of the Mountain (winner)
  • Synapse
  • Vertigo 2 VR
  • F1 23 VR
  • The Light Brigade

In our Horizon Call of the Mountain review, we called Firesprite Games and Guerrilla Games' joint venture "a touch of magic" in its ability to translate the Horizon experience into a first-person, incredibly tactile VR game. "It's stunning, captivating, and never loses sight of what made Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West so special."

It hit all the right notes for us on the 12DOVE team offering an excellent, fresh take on Guerrilla's robo-dino series with a completely new protagonist alongside some returning faces. Horizon: Call of the Mountain also did some really fun things to celebrate the features of the PSVR 2 as well - and not just in how dang pretty the game is. 

It's been a pretty huge year for VR, which is why this award has made a comeback for the 2023 Golden Joysticks after a few years on hiatus. With the PSVR 2 launching in February and Meta launching the Quest 3 in the last few months, virtual reality is certainly having a huge moment this year.

Discover the best games of 2023 at the best prices by checking out the Golden Joystick Awards Steam sale page

Sam Loveridge
Brand Director, 12DOVE

Sam Loveridge is the Brand Director and former Global Editor-in-Chief of GamesRadar. She joined the team in August 2017. Sam came to GamesRadar after working at TrustedReviews, Digital Spy, and Fandom, following the completion of an MA in Journalism. In her time, she's also had appearances on The Guardian, BBC, and more. Her experience has seen her cover console and PC games, along with gaming hardware, for a decade, and for GamesRadar, she's in charge of the site's overall direction, managing the team, and making sure it's the best it can be. Her gaming passions lie with weird simulation games, big open-world RPGs, and beautifully crafted indies. She plays across all platforms, and specializes in titles like Pokemon, Assassin's Creed, The Sims, and more. Basically, she loves all games that aren't sports or fighting titles! In her spare time, Sam likes to live like Stardew Valley by cooking and baking, growing vegetables, and enjoying life in the countryside.

Read more
Best Ps5 games
Best PS5 games: The 20 greatest PlayStation 5 games you need to play
The two characters in Split Fiction dressed in fantasy gear each with a dragon on their back
2025's first standout GOTY contenders, Monster Hunter Wilds, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and Split Fiction, are coming to GeForce Now
1000xResist key art, showing Watcher's face merged with those of her other Sisters and the Allmother, emphasising the mix of perspectives
A Balatro crossover, GOTY nods, and near-perfect reviews propelled one of 2024's hidden gems to its highest selling day months after launch
Best games of 2025: images of Split Fiction, Like a Dragon Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and Monster Hunter Wilds.
The best games to play in 2025, so far
A Meta Quest 3 head-to-head image with PSVR 2 on top of a purple GamesRadar background
The best VR headset in 2025: all the latest devices compared
GDC The Game Developers logo
Biggest announcements from the Game Developers Conference 2025
Latest in Adventure
Pokemon Legends: Z-A screenshot
Pokemon Legends: Z-A will allegedly introduce 27 new Mega Evolutions, leakers claim, and we can only hope Flygon gets its chance this time
Minecraft Vibrant Visuals
16 years after Minecraft first released it's getting a modern visual upgrade with a retro lighting trick that Mojang hasn't seen "in any other game"
Minecraft movie image of Jack Black as steve
Don't expect Minecraft to go free-to-play anytime soon, as Mojang says "It doesn't really work with the way we built it"
Putting cigarettes in fish mouths in Thank Goodness You're Here
Thank Goodness You're Here's developer says it was trying to design a game normally before realizing "we're s**t at video game design"
Pokemon TCG Pocket Shiny Cards
How to get Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon TCG Pocket
Pokemon Legends: Z-A screenshot
Pokemon Legends: Z-A's director appears to be a Xenoblade Chronicles fan, and I'm now feeling very validated about a tiny detail I spotted in the upcoming RPG's gameplay trailer
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"