All the Most Important News From the Game Awards 2024
With E3 well and truly a thing of the past in a post-pandemic world, Geoff Quigley ‘s The Game Awards are now the biggest source of video game announcements this year, picking up the mantle left by the show that gave us such memorable “my body is ready” moments .
The Keighley Summer Game Festival , like Germany’s Gamescom , also usually throws up a few surprises, but it’s clear that the awards ceremony is where the big guns come to the fore. Despite its name, it’s currently better known as a trailer festival, something the Statler and Waldorf dolls joked about ( yes, really ) during this year’s event.
With that in mind, here are the biggest reveals from last night’s show, including two different returns to fantasy favorites and a new sci-fi game from the creators of The Last of Us .
The Witcher IV puts Ciri in the lead role
Can you believe it’s been just over nine years since The Witcher 3 was released? Since then, the title has received two major expansions and served as partial inspiration for a Netflix show, but it’s finally time to get a proper sequel.
The announcement of the game, simply titled The Witcher IV , was the first big announcement for the series, and while gameplay hasn’t been shown yet, it did feature two big reveals.
The first was the change of the main character. This time, Geralt and his Fabio hair are resting, while his adopted daughter and student Ciri instead takes up dual blades to hunt down the monsters of the Continent.
The second actually had little to do with the game itself and was more of a teaser for tech geeks. At the start of the game’s trailer, a small note at the bottom of the screen stated that it was “pre-rendered in Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU,” confirming that the game developers already have their hands on Nvidia’s next game. generation of video cards. Eager PC builders will likely hear about them soon, perhaps as early as CES next month.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a co-op spin-off.
After almost 60 hours of base game and 30-40 hour expansion, Elden Ring is not finished yet. In a surprise move for developer FromSoftware, the next game in the series will be a co-op, session-based game rather than an RPG set in a persistent world.
You wouldn’t know it from the trailer, which mostly focuses on small groups of players grouping together to fight big bosses Monster Hunter style (it looks kind of gross, to be honest). However, publications like IGN (which is owned by the same parent company as Lifehacker) have already conducted interviews and begun reviewing the preview builds, which is where these details are gleaned.
According to the developers, the game is designed for three players, but will have a single player mode and will take place on a shortened version of the Limgrave map from the first game. Over the course of three in-game days, players will be tasked with surviving and preparing for the main boss fight at the end of the session.
Instead of customizing their own characters, players will also choose between eight presets, although I imagine the same character could look completely different by the end of different sessions.
As a big fan of FromSoftware’s games, but not a big fan of their usually somewhat clunky multiplayer systems, I’m cautiously optimistic that Nightreign might finally be the game that convinces me to try playing with friends.
New game from the developers of Shadow of the Colossus
It’s been eight years since the last game created by legendary developer Fumito Ueda, the main creative mind behind classic games including Ico and Shadow of the Colossus . Since the studio behind these games, Japan Studio, has since been closed and merged with Astro Bot development team Team Asobi (more on them later), it was unclear whether we’d ever see another game in the same vein as and these games.
Luckily, it looks like Ueda and a group of Japan Studio veterans are back with a new game, currently codenamed “Project Robot.” everyone was there as the crowd silently watched as a small figure in mysterious clothing climbed onto a lumbering giant robot to escape the impending disaster.
Like our protagonist at the end of the trailer, the release date is still up in the air, but there’s one surprising detail: Epic Games (yes, the Fortnite people) are helping with production.
Okami is back
Towards the end of the awards show, Geoff Keighley thrilled the crowd with his favorite announcement of the night, going so far as to seemingly tear up a bit and bring in a real-life drummer to set the tone ahead of the trailer. played.
When the host talked about the impossible becoming reality and said, “If you really love video games like me, this is a moment for all of us,” I expected Half-Life 3 to appear on my screen. Instead, I was surprised by the sequel to Okami .
I’m not disappointed! A cult classic on the PS2 and Wii, Okami combined a beautiful art style, Japanese folklore, innovative calligraphy mechanics, and a Legend of Zelda -style approach to gameplay to create a truly impressive combination of mechanics and vision that has never really been seen before. captured since then.
Part of the reason for this? Shortly after its release in 2006, director Hideki Kamiya left Capcom to help found Platinum Games, and his studio Clover closed just a few months later. The game was a critical success, but Capcom appears to be unhappy with sales .
Now, it looks like the publisher is ready to give Kamiya a second chance, not only announcing a sequel to Okami (no official title yet) under his direction, but also actually giving him a new studio called Clover (never change, Kamiya).
This news follows the success of Devil May Cry 5 , a sequel to another Kamiya classic that likely helped change Capcom’s mood. I wouldn’t be surprised if other cult hits like Viewtiful Joe or God Hand ignite next.
New sci-fi game from Naughty Dog.
In the final trailer of the evening , The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog revealed its next big game, and it finally has nothing to do with zombies. Instead , Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is a space adventure that follows a bounty hunter as she attempts to become the first person in over 600 years to leave the orbit of the planet Sempiria.
The actual gameplay was easy (a recurring theme of the evening), although the demo trailer did show our heroine arming herself with a pistol and facing off against a hulking robot with a non-lightsaber. The decision was controversial on my Bluesky channel, but the trailer also played heavily on 80s nostalgia and brand partnerships, which definitely gave it a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe.
However, the overall lighter tone of the announcement should be a fun departure from the darker nature of The Last of Us series, and perhaps bring Naughty Dog closer to its Jak & Daxter roots.
And the winner is…
Finally, you can’t win The Game Awards without announcing Game of the Year. This year’s winner faced stiff competition, with nominees including Balatro , Black Myth: Wukong , Metaphor: ReFantazio , Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth .
In the end, however, Team Asobi’s Astrobot pulled through. This win marked the first time a platformer took home the Game of the Year award: Astro Bot did something that even Mario couldn’t (to be fair, when it was nominated, it was competing against the likes of Link and Geralt).
Still, it’s an impressive achievement for the character’s first proper game—and, as if to celebrate, the game is on sale for about $10 off at most stores right now.