Jeff Keighley hosted The Game Awards with his tenth anniversary show. It was an evening full of memorable moments, new game trailers and well-deserved awards.
I spent over three hours at the Peacock Theater on Thursday night to witness it all. We kept to ourselves GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games event happened on the same day, but I was able to release 17 events on the day of the game's biggest holiday.
And Keighley made up for last year's criticism, in which he was taken to task for failing to acknowledge the games industry's layoffs, drumming up award winners offstage after a short time and failing to properly secure the stage.
There was plenty of stage security to stop stage rushers this year, and plenty of time for speakers like Sven Vink, who presented the Game of the Year award after winning (and cutting) that title for Baldur's Gate III last year. Wink predicts that the best games of 2025 will be made by leaders who "don't treat developers like numbers on a spreadsheet."
And this time, Keighley acknowledged that 34,000 industrial jobs have been lost in the past 2.5 years, and it has given out its first Game Changer award. Aamir Satwatis the only one that allows so many developers to find work.
Satwat has helped more than 3,000 people find work by creating an easily accessible job resource that aggregates all open jobs in the gaming industry. An emotional Satwat said that he cannot make great games without great people, and that his parents taught him that his value lies in the way he treats other people. He took these concepts to heart as he created spreadsheets and more to serve up jobs for developers.
Another great thing about Keighley's show was that he brought games. Of course, the alleged Half-Life 3 wasn't there, and Rockstar Games didn't appear with Grand Theft Auto VI. Nintendo didn't reveal its Switch 2 game.
But Keighley's stage was where Balatro's solo developer won a trio of awards, with Black Myth: Wukong winning several awards that showcase China's development prowess and a place on the world stage for Chinese culture. And where the Asobi team has shown that it is a simple 3D platformer, Astro BotCould win game of the year. As a huge Senua fan, I was delighted to see Senua's Saga: Hellblade II win for Best Audio Design and Melina Jurgens for Best Performance (for the second time ever).
Naughty Dog debuted its first new intellectual property since 2013's The Last of Us 11 years ago. Intergalactic: Heretic Prophetwas a sci-fi game featuring a bald woman who some weaklings call "woke".
The graphics were incredibly realistic, but there was some weird product placement like the word "Porsche" on the back of the spaceship. With titles like Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Uncharted and The Last of Us, Naughty Dog has a reputation for triple-A greatness.
But Intergalactic wasn't the best trailer for a new game at the show, perhaps because it spent a little too much time showing a woman getting a haircut.
The Witcher 4its trailer showed how. It told a moving, graphic, and cinematic story in such a short amount of time that it emphasized the female Witcher Ciri of Sintra instead of the male protagonist Geralt of Rivia. Reminding that cinematography is an art in itself, the trailer depicts a scene where the townspeople sacrifice a young girl to a "god" who is actually a monster. In an attempt to save the woman, Kiri engages in an epic battle with a spider-like monster. It was not good. The comment at the end was so true: "There are no gods here, only monsters."
From Software at Elden Ring is back with the creators Elden Ring: NightreignA new co-op game set in the night world of Elden Ring, for those like me who can't complete games on their own.
I was also delighted to see celebrity appearances such as Harrison Ford, who played the lead role in the amazing Indiana Jones and the Great Quarter, cracking jokes alongside voice actor Troy Baker. ).
Because of our Hollywood and Games event, it was great to see so many collaborations between industries. Started by the Russo brothers who made The Avengers, AGBO worked with Neople to produce Nexon's upcoming Berserker: Khazan, which was violent enough for gamers.
There was Snoop Dogg singing a song from his new album that same night. This is another example of how getting your entertainment in front of gamers is a great way to sell your product, whether it's from the Fallout TV show or Snoop Dogg's new work. Unfortunately, Snoop didn't show a new game.
But there were superstars of the game there too. And Joseph Fares, founder of Hazelight and creator of 2021's Game of the Year, is back with another co-op, split-screen buddy title, It Takes Two. Split Fiction. He says the team is "teasing things out, not torturing them," and that development philosophy has led to a game where players jump in and out of sci-fi and fantasy worlds to solve puzzles. The part about the sick pigs made me laugh.
Fares famously said: ""Oscar" award” at The Game Awards 2017. But the funny thing is, with the wonderful marriage between the industries seen in shows like Fallout (winner for best game adaptation), we're in a golden age of Hollywood and gaming collaborations.
Randy PitchfordThe CEO of Gearbox Software has revealed Borderlands 4 for the first time and is hoping to buy the brand after this summer's disastrous Borderlands. It looked amazing and even came to life with familiar comic book style graphics.
Mafia: The Old Countrythe creator of Hangar 13, has released a trailer that follows the origin of the man "made" in Sicily in the early 1900s and the rise of the mafia. It was a compelling scene with interesting characters and brutally choreographed violence. I really enjoyed Mafia III's story and action-adventure combination, and I expect this game to continue that tradition.
I really enjoyed seeing veteran game developer Warren Spector and his studio OtherSide Entertainment drop a trailer. Thick as thievesit takes Thief's innovative stealth gameplay (pioneered by Spector and crew in the late 1990s and early 2000s) to the next level with four-person emergent gameplay pitted against each other in competitive multiplayer.
Finally, it was liberating to see Wargaming, which owns live-action titles like World of Tanks and World of Warships, own the original intellectual property. Steel HuntersA sci-fi mechanic game. This shows that the industry can still implement new game projects without being limited by the Innovator's Dilemma.
It was also great that Netflix released the mobile game (December 17th) Squid Game Unleashed in conjunction with the December 26th launch of Season 2 of the most popular Netflix show, Squid Game.
The same is being done with Game of Thrones Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Netmarble and Warner Bros. Pocket Pair's Palworldsold 25 million copies in one month, expands on December 23.
Okami 2 also comes from the new Capcom studio. Original director Hideki Kamiya returns to helm the sequel as Clovers studio head. Other studios contributing to the game are M-Two and Machine Head Works.
It was a great day for the games industry, which still needs to catch its breath after many studio closures and layoffs over the past 2.5 years. Let's hope one good day leads to another, and one good Game Awards show leads to many more.
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