D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction

The D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction is an award presented annually by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences during the D.I.C.E. Awards. This award is "presented to the individual or team whose work represents the highest level of achievement in designing a unified graphic look for an interactive title". Creative/technical Academy members with expertise as an artist, animator or programmer are qualified to vote for this award.

The award's most recent winner is Alan Wake 2, developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games.

Art Direction & Animation
The Academy originally offered the Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics at the first two annual awards ceremonies. This would be separated into the categories of Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction and Outstanding Achievement in Animation at the third annual awards ceremony. Since the categories separated, roughly half of the finalists and winners for "Art Direction" and "Animation" were the same game within its respective release year. The games that had won both awards for "Art Direction" and "Animation" were:
 * Final Fantasy VIII
 * Final Fantasy IX
 * Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
 * Half-Life 2
 * Gears of War
 * Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
 * Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
 * The Last of Us
 * Ori and the Blind Forest
 * Cuphead
 * Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
 * God of War Ragnarök

The games that won the "Art Direction" award but were not finalists in the "Animation" category were:
 * Ico
 * The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
 * BioShock
 * LittleBigPlanet
 * Journey
 * Monument Valley
 * Control
 * Ghost of Tsushima
 * Alan Wake 2

2022 was the only year that the "Art Direction" and "Animation" categories had the same five finalists and winner.

Developers and Publishers
Sony has published the most nominees and winners in this category; Sony also has published games with multiple back-to-back wins, yet with different developers. The only other publisher with back-to-back wins has been Square Electronic Arts. Nintendo and Microsoft have also published multiple nominees, with two wins each. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Square Enix Europe have the distinction of publishing multiple nominees within the same year. Ubisoft is the most nominated publisher without a win in this category (12 nominations, 0 wins).

Several of Sony's developing subsidiaries have developed multiple nominees and winners. Insomniac Games has developed the most nominees, but only one of its nominated games has won (Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart). Sony subsidiary Naughty Dog is the studio who has developed the most winners in this category. Sony's second party studios Sucker Punch Productions and Santa Monica Studio, as well as Sony's in-house Japan Studio, have all won this award category twice. The only developer with back-to-back wins has been SquareSoft. Ubisoft Montreal is the most nominated developer without a single win in this category (8 nominations, 0 wins).

Franchises
The most nominated franchises have been Call of Duty (six nominations) and Final Fantasy (five nominations). Final Fantasy, God of War, and Uncharted have been the only franchises to have won more than once. The Call of Duty franchise has not won any award in this category despite receiving the most nominations.