The Game Awards took place on December 6th this year yet again at the Microsoft Centre and hosted as usual by Geoff Keighley in this fifth instalment. As usual, a lot of AAA titles were on display, however, the real perk was the vast amount of trailers showcase to carry us into 2019 with a lot of anticipated titles hanging in the air. The Game Awards have grown into quite a huge event with Steam streaming as well since last year with their own giveaways and a lot of the nominees also having sales in both PC and consoles after The Game Awards.
Kicking off the show and picking up on the idea of community and healthy competition between the platforms we saw at E3 this year the show started in style with the three heads of state Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aimé, Playstation Shawn Layden and Xbox’s Phil Spencer all coming on stage to talk about common love for game and united together to celebrate creativity and the role video games play in everyday life to welcome all players together. After their speech, it follows quickly with a musical performance celebrating the nominees with Hans Zimmer taking the lead.
The Game Awards of course can’t be mentioned without looking at the many awards given out. Here is the list of the winners in each category:
Game of the Year: God of War (SIE Santa Monica Studio)
Best Ongoing Game: Fortnite (Epic Games)
Best Game Direction: God of War (SIE Santa Monica Studio)
Best Narrative: Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)
Best Art Direction: Return of the Obra Dinn (3909 LLC)
Best Score/Music: Red Dead Redemption 2 (Woody Jackson/Daniel Lanois)
Best Audio Design: Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)
Best Performance: Roger Clark – Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2)
Games For Impact: Celeste (Matt Makes Games)
Best Independent Game: Celeste (Matt Makes Games)
Best Mobile Game: Florence (Mountains)
Best AR/VR Game: ASTRO BOT Rescue Mission
Best Action Game: Dead Cells (Motion Twin)
Best Action/Adventure Game: God of War
Best Role Playing Game: Monster Hunter: World (Capcom)
Best Fighting Game: Dragon Ball FighterZ (Arc System Works)
Best Family Game: Overcooked 2 (Ghost Town Games)
Best Strategy Game: Into the Breach (Subset Games)
Best Sports/Racing Game: Forza Horizon 4 (Playground Games)
Best Multiplayer Game: Fortnite (Epic Games)
Best Student Game: Combat 2018 (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences)
Best Debut Indie Game: The Messenger (Sabotage Games)
Best Esports Game: Overwatch (Blizzard) (surprised it wasn’t Fortnite)
Best Esports Player: Dominique “Sonic Fox” Maclean (EchoFox)
Best Esports Team: Cloud9 (LOL)
Best Esports Coach: Bok “Reaper” Han-gyu (Cloud9)
Best Esports Event: League of Legends World Championship
Best Esports Host: Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere
Best Esports Moment: C9 Comeback Win in Triple OT vs. FAZE (ELEAGUE)
Content Creator of the Year: Ninja (Tyler Blevins)
Industry Icon: Greg Thomas (Visual Concepts)
Trailer Reveals
World Premiere: Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo)
Not a lot was shown for Sayonara Wild Hearts, developed by Simogo, previously known primarily for their mobile games. One of the more known titles could be Year Walk which shows a storytelling depth in this studio’s game design and narrative abilities. Sayonara Wild Hearts is shown as “A Pop Album Video Game”. This definitely hints a heavy focus on music. Whether it is rhythm or not is still left to be seen, although at one part it looks a bit like mobile rhythm game, Lost in Harmony. Not a whole lot could be derived from the trailer itself but it will be launched first on Nintendo Switch.
World Premiere: Journey to the Savage Planet (Typhoon Studios)
Showing off a short teaser trailer this upcoming adventure game by Montreal independent studio, Typhoon Studios which sets its game where the player is dropped off on a strange alien world by Kindred Aerospace and left with no abilities but high hopes to solve the mysteries of this savage planet. There isn’t any gameplay to show yet as its still early in development but Typhoon expects to have more to show in 2019 in terms of gameplay.
World Premiere: The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (Crows Crows Crows)
The Stanley Parable trailer breaks the fourth wall in this hilarious trailer as it pokes fun at its sensational nominations in 2013 but zero wins as it gets dominated by The Last of Us that year in The Game Awards. Ultra Deluxe is the console port packaged with not only the game from 2013 but added on with new content and new choices and endings to further the fun. Nothing like a good laugh in the preshow to get into the spirit of things.
World Premiere: Among Trees (FJRD Interactive)
Independent games and their teaser trailers are always so very vague. Looking a lot like Fe in terms of color scheme and Shape of the World in terms of the wilderness aspect comes this short trailer called Among Trees, developed by FJRD Interactive. Its visually very attractive but there is still a lot of unanswered questions, mainly what the game actually is about. It is heading to Steam Early Access in 2019 so hopefully the wait won’t be too long for more details to be revealed. Consider us intrigued.
World Premiere: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (Team Ninja)
Exclusive on Nintendo Switch 2019
Rocket League DLC: McLaren570S Car Pack
There’s always some fun goodies to announce for this title which continues to hold the attention of both gamers and esport fans alike. This new DLC pack for McLaren 570S Car Pack is available now adding to an already stacked selection of content which has been pushed out since the games release.
World Premiere: Far Cry New Dawn (Ubisoft Montreal)
Far Cry 5 was released in February earlier this year and had some pretty positive reviews. However If you haven’t played it yet, this announcement is bound to spoil the ending of the game as they talked about the ending of Far Cry 5 which leads into this post-apocalypse world setting for the next installment called Far Cry: New Dawn. If you haven’t caught up yet you still have time over the festive period with Far Cry New Dawn is set for release on February 15, 2019.
World Premiere: Hades (Supergiant Games)
From the developers of Bastion & Transister, Supergiant Games announces their next project which stays true to their style but still looking like a ton of fun especially when its tagline is “There is no escape”. Hades looks humorous and packed with lots of fighting. Best part is that it is now available on Early Access on Epic Games Store which also gave us a bombardment of titles currently set to be added to the store in the new year
World Premiere: Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey (Panache Digital Games)
The trend of AAA developers moving to their own independent projects is still quite the highlight of this year as we see Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey pop up developed by Panache Digital Games. Ancestors is a single player open world exploration survival game set in Africa ten million years ago and you play as apes as you move through the millions of years. The game is expected to release in 2019.
World Premiere: Scavengers (Midwinter)
Scavengers is a debut game developed by Midwinter, a Seattle-based studio. The story trailer showed off the space setting with this co-op survival shooter also coming competitive element to it.
The game will be heading into playtests in 2019 which you can sign up for via ScavengersGame.com for the playtests.
Dead By Daylight (Behavior Interactive)
Dead by Daylight has been releasing new chapters with a lot of iconic killers added to their rosters. Behavior Interactive expresses the desire to at least keep it alive for the next five years with consistent new content. This time’s world premiere shows off their newest chapter called Darkness Among Us which sees the game finally landing creepypasta Jeff the Killer.
World Premiere: Anthem (Bioware)
Anthem is EA’s new IP announced already two E3 conferences ago. Up to this point, Anthem has only released a lot of multiplayer gameplay trailers. This time though they finally premiered a story trailer to highlight their world and not only as they word very nicely, “an armored superhero in a fantasy world”.
Currently Bioware are aiming for a February release.
World Premiere: Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled
After the massive success of the remastered Trilogy which sparked the current wave of remastered classics (Wipeout, Spyro) and which see the Mario Kart esq racer getting a second lease of life after it fell under the radar of most gamers on it’s original release building a strong cult following since then, so it’s great to see it getting a second lease of life when it’s released June 2019.
World Premiere: The Outer Worlds (Obsidian)
Developed by the original creators of Fallout teaming up again is a new world by Obsidian called The Outer Worlds. This game is a single player role-playing game set in the edge of the galaxy at the frontier of space where the corporation has bought and sold at inflated price. A setting that looks set to create an interesting world with a tone somewhere between Fallout and Borderlands making it certainly one to look out for.
The Outer Worlds is expected to release in 2019.
Dauntless (Phoenix Labs)
Coming soon – April 2019 this game which looked like Monster Hunter World reskinned to look like Fortnite as players will team up to hunt the monster-like Behemoths in hunts which the developer has stated can take up to 20 minutess to complete while promising a combo system to add to what promises to be some giant monster action reminiscent of Evolve.
Frostfall expansion – playdauntless.com
World Premiere: The Last Campfire (Hello Games)
Cute and imaginative, The Last Campfire is a game that has some little adorable creatures looking a little like a mini Yarny wearing a shirt. The trailer itself doesn’t really show much of what the game style is but the game visuals are so captivating and its heart to not have our hearts stolen and really intrigued to see more news on this upcoming title.
World Premiere: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds finally gets a Playstation 4 launch on December 7th coming with exclusives of their own like parachutes, and Nathan Drake outfits and The Last of Us Ellie’s backpack. However the most exciting thing about this world premiere for the show was for their new snow map which is now available to play for PC gamers.
This new map is 6 by 6 and the element of snow makes it hard to cover your tracks and will feature new weapons as well as a snowmobile.
Console gamers meanwhile will have to wait until January 2019 or maybe hope Santa brings them a gaming PC.
World Premiere: Atlas (Studio Wildcard)
The latest title for Ark Survival Evolved creators is Atlas, a massive open world survival MMO which visually looks like a fantasy version of Sea of Thieves only with a lot more depth it seems with the developer promising that the game will host 40,000 players and were other than global domination players can participate in tasks like building armadas, claiming territories, forming empires. The map is unquestionably huge with different regions featuring their own ecology creatures including mystical ones to discover. Continuing the Xbox revolution this title will also be landing there first.
Ashen (Annapurna Internative)
Set in a sunless world and tells the story of a character seeking a home, Ashen combines open-world exploration with co-operation and competition with other players as you combat the numerous in-world monsters, while character growth is controlled more by equipment than stats with Talisman’s found in game being used to upgrade powers and abilities. One certainly for fans of King’s Quest or DayZ
Crackdown 3
It’s always a hilarious time when we see any promo for Crackdown 3 while at the time leaving us all the more surprised we haven’t had a release yet. Terry Crews heads this newest trailer. Perhaps nothing very relevant to the game itself but two things came out of it. The first is that Crackdown 3 will be included from Day 1 of launch on Xbox Game Pass and second the release date is February 15, 2019.
World Premiere: Dragon Age: The Dread Wolf Rises (BioWare)
Nothing much to report from this trailer but after all the development issues its exciting for fans of the series to know they will finally be seeing a fourth game in the franchise.
World Premiere: The Pathless (Annapurna Interactive/Giant Squid)
Giant Squid has a beautiful team put together and after their success with Abzu there is a lot of intrigue in what they have to offer for their next project. Suffice to say that it’s exciting to see that they have stuck close to the veins of their previous game. The Pathless’s trailer shows off a lot of great elements such as the ninja styled main protagonist having an eagle companion and the prospect of large wooded areas and flying sections combined with fantastical creatures and a stunning sound The Pathless is one to look out for when it gets a release in 2019
Survived by (Humanhead Studios)
Survived by is currently free and available on Steam Early Access now.
World Premiere: Stranger Things 3: The Game
Stranger Things has had a lot of love on Netflix and despite a slight stumble with their second season, the third season is still highly anticipated. This upcoming game for developed by BonusXP who made the first mobile game for show with this latest title set tie into the third season and of the show which keeping in the tone will be 16-bit style co-op and goes some way to make up for the now cancelled Telltale Game.
World Premiere: Mortal Kombat 11
Ed Boone bamboozled us when he was there to present the award for Best Sport/Racing Game but before the nominees, it cued in the trailer for a new Mortal Kombat game trailer. While it might not have given us any gameplay it’s safe to say that the general tone of the trailer certainly gave the impression that this title won’t be toning down any of the trademark violence or gore of the series as longtime as showcased with this showdown between Raiden and Scorpion.
While details are still limited it has been promised that like Injustice 2 characters will have customisable elements enabling players to make characters their own like never before.
Fans can in the meantime look forward to a community reveal event on January 17th with the global launch set for April 23rd.
World Premiere: Psychonauts 2(Double Fine Productions/Starbreeze Studios)
Despite being delayed till 2019, there is still a lot of excitement for this sequel to the cult favourite which after a 13 year wait it’s great to see that the fan backed sequel still has a lot of the original game charm, quirky humor and colourful characters as players travel to the Motherlobe, a secret fortress of mind secrets.
Devil May Cry 5
Showcasing the now trademark fast paced action of the series, this latest entry in the series looks set to harness the full power of the current gen consoles with Dante and Neo, this time being joined by a third new character known only a V. Subtly be damned if this already doesn’t look like another fun hack N’ slash.
Xbox fans meanwhile can enjoy a demo now.
Fortnite
It’s funny to think that the game has only been out for year for how ingrained it’s become in the gaming community with this 7th season set to introduce a new festive theme
For you creative types the introduction of the new Block Creative Mode will allow players to experiment even more with the game while also getting to harness their inner game designer as the development team continue to harness the community spirit which has unquestionably made the game so popular.
Rage 2 (Bethesda)
The more we see of this game the more excited we get and with this latest frenzied trailer consider that that excitement to be at an all time high with Bethesda serving up a delicious gameplay stew with Vehicle combat like we saw in Mad Max aswell as first person action and humour akin to Borderlands and Bulletstorm. Unquestionably this is one to look out for!!
World Premiere: Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Opening to a preview of Challenger Pack whose first release will be Joker from Persona 5 furthering the selling point that this really is the biggest Smash Bros ever but also featuring more crossovers than ever before. Each of these additional fighters coming with their own themed stages as well as music while of course making is all the more keen to see who else is waiting to be revealed. While there was no new trailer for the which has now finally been released we did get to see a nice montage of gameplay footage soundtracked by the Game Awards orchestra providing a fitting close to the awards.
An entertaining if overblown runtime, but with the huge selection of trailers on show it made it still an event worth tuning in for, so perhaps like the Superbowl some of us are more interested in what trailers are being shown than who winning. Needless to say 2019 is not only like an exciting year for gaming but looking at the list of titles we personally want to play its also looking like an expensive one.