Last night’s show was fun. It had a slow start with Christopher Judge’s acceptance speech for best performance.1 Geoff then popped off with two of the best reveals of the night; perhaps he led too strong.
I did nail all three awards-focused predictions, although I was worried God of War: Ragnarök would actually pull of the clean sweep at one point. My reveal related predictions on the other hand were total misses. I guess Naughty Dog did technically show off something with the release date for The Last of Us Part I on PC.2 The biggest surprise (which I suppose shouldn’t have been considering their history at the event), was that Microsoft had nothing to show except a new marketing abbreviation—GLHF3. I guess you can’t have fun at The Game Awards when you are being sued by the FTC.
Here are the reveals from the show that I loved the most:
Hades II
Watching this trailer I thought, "Wow, Supergiant’s next game sure does look and sound a lot like Hades. Kind of a downer that they aren’t deviating structurally for their next IP. Maybe it’s a fighting game?" Then the Hades guitar riff came in followed by the gnarly line of "Death to Cronus." Hades may not have given me the Platinum trophy (yet), but color me stoked for the sequel.
Judas
Finally. Ken Levine and the team have been toiling away on something for almost a decade. Glad to see their project in the light. Great one-two combo with Hades II to kick off the premieres for the night.
Death Stranding 2 (DS2)
There is no trailer like a Kojima trailer. Death Stranding is phenomenal and I cannot wait to go back.
I am a bit surprised we didn’t see Kojima’s other game, rumored to be called OVERDOSE. A solid chunk of gameplay leaked not long ago and looks spooky. This game is likely his project with Xbox, and given they were essentially a no show last night, I suppose that explains why we didn’t see it too.
Also, the fact Kojima rewrote the entire game after experiencing the pandemic just so he wouldn’t "predict the future" again is so Kojima.
Earthblade
Nice to see the Celeste team finally show off Earthblade. A release of 2024 actually feels realistic, like they internally delayed the game out of 2023 just to avoid disappointing fans later in the year. Lots of mechanics shown off in the sprawling one-shot of the game world. Neat way to communicate the open design. I’m getting major Kirby and the Amazing Mirror vibes from those portals.
Suicide Squad – Kevin Conroy is Batman
This is a wonderful surprise after the news that Kevin Conroy passed away a few weeks ago. It’s fitting his final performance as Batman is in Rocksteady’s Arkham universe where, I think, he gives his best Batman work ever. I’ll pick up this game just for that.4
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Clip
Soundtrack when? The more Illumination and Nintendo reveal of this movie, the better and better it looks.
1. Poor Al Pacino…
2. Time to build a PC.
3. "Good Luck. Have Fun." All my brain sees is Glyph and GTFO.
4. Although, I wish we’d see a solid chunk of gameplay though. Now that launch is only five months away, I can only hope it isn’t the generic, forced co-op shooter it seems to be shaping up to be.