The tentative name for various gaming accolades achieved by accomplishing certain tasks in various video games, especially shooter video games. Game awards go by various names from game to game. They are called medals in Call of Duty, Halo, and Destiny, accolades in SMITE.

An example of a game award is a sprite, decal, or overlay that appears after a player obtains a kill streak, or gets a revenge kill. It could be any arbitrary goal.

Awards are similar to achievements, and differ mainly in that achievements are obtained only once, and are sometimes a part of the game operating software rather than the game itself. Awards can be achieved multiple times, and are usually integrated within the game itself. Achieving a specific number of awards can be a condition for an achievement.

A similar concept to both achievements and accolades, are bonuses. A bonus is awarded to the player at the end of a mission, level, or section of a game usually in the form of a score bonus. Some bonuses are awarded at the time of achievement, and others are tallied up at the end. Games that incorporate bonuses include classic Mario Bros games, and early Super Smash Bros games. Achievements may also award bonuses, and the concepts differ in that bonuses can impact a player's overall performance statistics; give the player game items such as powerups, or weapons; enhance or restore certain abilities, gameplay related statistics such as health, magic, attack, defense stats etc; give extra lives or continues; and more. An achievement is a record of an accomplishment, a bonus is what you get for it.

While most awards, and bonuses are positive, negative bonuses do exist that have the opposite effect of positive bonuses. A negative bonus punishes the player by reducing the player's game stats, score etc.

See also

• gameplay_mechanics
• playing_videogame
• video_games