The Steam Awards 2018 Nominees have been announced by Valve a couple of days before voting. Additionally, the start date for the 2018 Steam Winter Sale has been announced on the same day that voting commences.

For the last few years, Valve has run their own sort of awards event on the Steam client. This year will be no different and we've just received the list of nominees for the Steam Awards 2018. There will be eight categories in this year's awards with some mild changes to last year's format. Here are your nominees:

Steam Awards 2018 Game of the Year PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS

MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

HITMAN™ 2

Assassin's Creed Odyssey VR Game of the Year The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR

VRChat

Beat Saber

Fallout 4 VR

SUPERHOT VR Labor of Love Dota 2

GTA V

No Man's Sky

Path of Exile

Stardew Valley Best Environment The Witcher® 3: Wild Hunt

Subnautica

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Far Cry 5

DARK SOULS™ III Better with Friends Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Siege

PAYDAY 2

Dead by Daylight

Overcooked! 2 Best Alternate History Wolfeinstein II: The New Colossus

Assassin's Creed® Odyssey

Hearts of Iron IV

Sid Meier's Civilization® VI

Fallout 4 Most Fun with a Machine Euro Truck Simulator 2

Rocket League

NieR: Automata

Factorio

Space Engineers Best Developer CD PROJEKT RED

Ubisoft

Bethesda

Rockstar Games

Digital Extremes Ltd.

Square Enix

Capcom

Paradox Interactive

BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment

Klei

According to the Steam news post on the matter, voting for the Steam Awards 2018 will commence on December 20, 2018. This date also happens to be the start date of this year's Steam Winter Sale.

One key change has been made for this year's awards - Valve has excluded themselves from the "Best Developer" category. Ironically, this is one of the rare instances in recent memory when they've actually released a game - Artifact, to be precise - and they certainly would have qualified as a game developer for once. It turned out to be a pretty good game, even if it's a little bit pay-to-win. However, Valve has decided that it would be better to highlight some of the other fine creators on their platform and have decided to exclude them entirely as a result.

The Steam Awards 2018 will conclude its voting period on January 3, 2019. It isn't explicitly stated as such, but odds are that this is also the date that the Steam Winter Sale ends. Winners will be announced in February 2019. Voting for the Steam Awards 2018 and the Steam Winter Sale will both begin on December 20, 2018.

What do you think of the nominees in the Steam Awards 2018? Are you excited about this year's Steam Winter Sale? What are you going to buy this year? Let us know in the comments below!