It’s that time of the year. The Game Awards 2024 starts December 12th at 7:30 PM ET / 4:30 PM PT on Twitch and YouTube. This year marks the awards’ tenth anniversary so expect some big surprises to celebrate the occasion. We already know Borderlands 4 will make an appearance as well as the next game from Hazelight Studios, the developers behind Game of the Year 2021 It Takes Two.
Technology
The Game Awards 2024: all of the biggest trailers and announcements
The Game Awards 2024 will mark the show’s tenth anniversary and feature announcements for Borderlands 4, Hazelight Studios, and more.
Keighley’s BFF Hideo Kojima will probably show up to show off more of Death Stranding 2 or maybe even his new game / movie hybrid project OD. And with 2025 mere weeks away, the GTA VI hype season will officially start, likely with a new, potentially record busting trailer. Here are all the news, trailers, and surprises for this years Game Awards.
As for me, the only thing I’m excited about for TGAs 2024 is the possibility of Flute Guy and Metaphor: ReFantanzio Monk Guy sharing the same stage.
Highlights
Dec 13
Jay Peters
Balatro + keytar??
Brilliant decision by The Game Awards Orchestra. The rest of the music in the annual GOTY nominees medley was awesome, too. And yes, Flute Guy was there.
Dec 13
Jay Peters
Astro Bot is the 2024 Game of the Year.
Very well deserved — the game is fantastic.
Here’s the acceptance speech from Nicolas Doucet, studio director of Astro Bot developer Team Asobi.
Dec 13
Ash Parrish
Naughty Dog reveals sci-fi game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet
The Game Awards’ final world premiere was Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Developed by Naughty Dog, Intergalactic is a futuristic space opera with the kind of futurepunk vibes that remind me of Cowboy Bebop. That comparison is apt as Intergalactic game director and Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann mentioned on the game’s website that it stars a space bounty hunter. Indeed, the trailer even featured an anime playing in the background reminiscent of Dirty Pair.
Here’s Naughty Dog’s description of the game, from the YouTube trailer:
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Okami is getting a sequel
Capcom had quite the surprise in store at The Game Awards. The developer announced a sequel to Okami, a beautiful and beloved action-adventure game that originally launched back in 2006.
The sequel — which doesn’t currently have a name — was revealed in dramatic fashion with a musical performance. Original director Hideki Kamiya is returning for the game, which will be developed by his new studio Clovers. It’s still very early though; during the reveal TGA host Geoff Keighley said that “production is about to begin.†Capcom, meanwhile, says only that “a new adventure in the same vein as Okami has been set in motion.â€
Dec 13
Ash Parrish
If Paulie Walnuts was a gamer, do you think he’d play Mafia?
During The Game Awards 2024, Mafia: The Old Country, debuted a new trailer. The game, launching in summer 2025, will get into one family’s struggle in La Cosa Nostra in 1900s Sicily to the delight (or potential dismay) of mobsters everywhere. RIP Paulie Walnuts, maybe this would have been a better “Old Country†experience than the one you had.
Dec 13
Jay Peters
Gotta go fast.
Sega spent less than thirty seconds on a trailer for a new Sonic racing game, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. At least Shadow is in it!
Dec 13
Jay Peters
The Last of Us Part II comes to PC in April.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered launches on April 3rd, 2025. Maybe season 2 of the show will debut around then?
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
The creators of Overcooked take the stage.
They just announced Stage Fright, another co-op experience that takes things in a spookier direction. (It’ll support both online play and couch co-op when it launches.) The game is also being published by No Man’s Sky maker Hello Games.
Dec 13
Ash Parrish
Here comes a new challenger.
Tekken 8 is getting a new fighter. On December 16th, Clive Rosfield of Final Fantasy XVI will become the second ever Final Fantasy character to enter the King of Iron Fist Tournament. He, along with a FF16-themed stage will join Tekken 8 as a part of its winter update. It’s no Waffle House (or Tifa Lockhart for that matter) but I’ll take it.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Squid Game for everyone.
In a first for Netflix, the streamer has announced that the upcoming mobile game Squid Game Unleashed will be available for anyone to play, not just subscribers. However, it will only be that way for “a limited time†after the game launches on December 17th.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Onimusha is back and very bloody.
Capcom is returning to a favorite, with the next entry in the action series subtitled Way of the Sword. It’s still a while out though — the game doesn’t launch until 2026.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Helldrivers.
The next major update for Helldivers 2 has a big focus on vehicles. It’s also out now.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Virtua Fighter has an interesting new developer.
The next entry in the fighting game series is being developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, the team behind the Yakuza and Like a Dragon franchises. It still sounds early though, as there is no release date, platforms, or even a final name.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Borderlands 4’s first trailer is all out war
We already knew it was in the works, and now we have an idea of how it will look and play. At the Game Awards, Gearbox Software revealed the first proper trailer for Borderlands 4, which is due out in 2025. The trailer starts with a cinematic depicting a large-scale conflict of some sort, before getting into the actual gameplay — which is as colorful and violent as you’d expect from the franchise. The game is playable solo or co-op with up to three other players, and Gearbox says that there are “billions†of weapons to use.
Here’s the basic set-up:
Dec 13
Ash Parrish
Split Fiction is the next co-op game from Hazelight Studios
Josef Fares is back and so is his penchant for cursing. The director of Hazelight Studios has returned to The Game Awards to debut his next game: Split Fiction.
Split Fiction is a game that feels very much in Hazelight’s wheelhouse. Like It Takes Two and A Way Out before it, Split Fiction is a two-person split-screen co-op game. In it, two game developers have been trapped in a world they created and must play together to escape.
Dec 13
Ash Parrish
FromSoftware debuts a new Elden Ring game
FromSoftware, the studio that just this month said it was “not really considering developments such as an Elden Ring 2,†has revealed a game that looks a lot like it could be Elden Ring 2.
Elden Ring Nightreign is the next entry in the Elden Ring series. The trailer, debuting during this year’s The Game Awards, didn’t share much narrative details, but from the game’s official announcement, it doesn’t seem like game director Hidetaka Miyzaki told a fib. Nightreign goes in a completely different gameplay direction from the base game and the Shadows of the Erdtree DLC. Described as an action survival game, Nightreign is a standalone co-op multiplayer game lets up to three players work together to survive a single day in a parallel universe to the Lands Between.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Some Outer Worlds 2 gameplay.
Obsidian showed off a new glimpse at its sci-fi RPG, which is due out at some point in 2025.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Fumito Ueda is back.
The legendary creator of Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian teased a new project that doesn’t currently have a name, but sure looks as gorgeous and melancholy as you’d expect from the designer.
Dec 13
Sean Hollister
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, formerly a PS5 timed exclusive, is coming to PC.
PS5 Pro may not be the best place to play it for long — it’s coming to PC on January 23rd with “Improved lighting, enhanced textures & modeling, DLSS & VRR... and more!â€
Square Enix will also sell a “Twin Pack†which includes Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, the earlier chapter which hit PC in 2022.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Here’s your very first look at The Witcher 4
The 2024 edition of The Game Awards started with a bang — the very first look at the next Witcher game. It’s called The Witcher 4 and was revealed via a lengthy cinematic trailer that starred Ciri in place of Geralt, who led the original trilogy.
There aren’t many details yet, but CD Projekt Red says that in the new game, “Ciri takes center stage as the protagonist, embarking on her own journey to become a professional monster slayer.†It will be a single-player, open-world RPG. The studio says that “the cinematic trailer is pre-rendered in a custom build of Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU.â€
Dec 13
Ash Parrish
Think of it like Rocket League, but without the cars.
Sloclap, the studio behind martial arts action games Sifu and Absolver, has debuted its new game which is very much nothing like either of those. Rematch is an online multiplayer 5v5 soccer game with emphasis on what the developers call, “skill-based gameplay.†Wonder if they’ll include a special “rest of the world†setting to call the game “footballâ€.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Yu Suzuki is making a game for Netflix.
The Sega legend previously made the arcade shooter Air Twister on Apple Arcade, and his next release — called Steel Paws — will be a Netflix exclusive when it launches in 2025. According to Netflix, players will “embark on an adventure alongside Buddy Robots to conquer a mysterious tower that reappears every century.†Here’s the first teaser.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
“Consume darkness.â€
If you can believe it, that’s the tagline for the next Pac-Man game, which is a gritty reboot of the arcade classic. Then again, if you watched Secret Level on Prime Video, it actually makes perfect sense.
Dec 13
Jay Peters
Move over, Balatro.
Mega Crit just showed the official gameplay trailer for Slay the Spire 2 at The Game Awards’ pre-show. I am not joking when I say this might be my most anticipated game of next year. It’s set to launch in early access in 2025.
Dec 13
Andrew Webster
Ninja Gaiden is back — and very pixelated.
The retro experts at Dotemu — the team behind the likes of Shredder’s Revenge and Streets of Rage 4 — is turning its attention to Ninja Gaiden with a side-scrolling action game launching next summer.