At IGN's Best of 2017 Awards, the game won the People's Choice Award each for "Best PC Game",[40] "Best Adventure Game" (for which it was also a runner-up),[44] "Best Story",[45] and "Most Innovative".[46] IGN also featured Doki Doki Literature Club! on their list of the "18 Best Horror Games of 2017" and subsequently as the 12th scariest game of this generation.[47][48] Nerd Much? included the game on their 2020 list of the "50 Scariest Horror Games of All Time."[49] The game won the "Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award" and was nominated for "Trending Game of the Year" at the 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards.[41][50] EGMNow ranked the game 16th in their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017.[51]