[COLUMN] The Game Awards Reveals Were Rad as Hell | by Marty Sliva

The Game Awards are behind us once again, and nobody is complaining. Well, that’s not true – a lot of people are still complaining. Complaining about the fact that Astro Bot won (which it totally deserved to), or that their personal pick for game of the year didn’t come out on top. Complaining that Geoff’s show is still heavy with ads (which is true, because that’s how you keep the lights on), even though the TGAs have shown marked improvement every single year during its decade-long run. Some folks are just built to complain on the internet, and I’m not here to stop them.

And let’s be honest, as much as we might enjoy the genuine reflections on the state of the industry coupled with some funny bits that usually revolve around the Muppets, a majority of folks tune in to this show for the reveals. And I’m here to say that I enjoyed the hell out of this year’s festivities, and part of that was thanks to the alchemic mixture of new games that felt concocted to my precise interests and tastes. And I might be a victim of the moment, but I honestly think that the games on display were some of the best reveals at any of the show’s he’s put on yet.

While there were a dozen or so new games shown that have me excited, four big ones stand at the top, starting off with the surprise return of Okami under the care of Hideki Kamiya and his new Clovers studio. Given the game’s somewhat-cultish status, as well as the dissolution of the original team at Clover, I had never really held my breath for a proper sequel to the 2006 gem that I’ve fondly called the best Zelda game without Zelda in the title. 

And while it’s clear that this is one of those “and we’re going to start working on the game now” reveals, similar to past trailers like Wonder Woman and Quantic Dreams’ Star Wars Eclipse, knowing that we’ll be returning to that world with so much of the original team, now with another two decades of technology and experience under their belts, has me hyped as hell and itching for a replay of the original alongside its odd DS spinoff. Also, Capcom seems committed to revisiting their older franchises, so for the love of god please bring back Mega Man Legends and Breath of Fire.

Sticking with games that don’t have titles yet, Project Robot from Fumito Ueda and his team at GenDesign looks to marry two of my favorite things in life – the thoughtful and melancholic design of Team Ico’s trilogy, alongside a sick-ass mech. I streamed all of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian earlier this year, and it made me appreciate just how singular and bespoke the design sensibilities of that team were compared to just about any other group in the industry. We obviously still don’t really know what this one’s about, but given GenDesign’s pedigree, I’m looking forward to giving myself over completely to whatever they have in store for us.

I might as well round out this first group with another currently untitled game, this one from the Yakuza/Like a Dragon devs at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Revealed alongside the return of Virtua Fighter, Project Century looks like an evolution of the team’s familiar open-world action-RPG formula, but this time set far in the past in 1915 Japan. The action looked slick as hell, as the time shift feels like a wonderful change of pace for the series that releases gems at a shockingly fast speed.

Moving over to something that actually had a concrete name and release date, Split Fiction from Josef Fares’ Hazelight Studios looks like an excellent evolution of the co-op structure they’ve built with A Way Out and It Takes Two. The latter of those provided one of my all-time favorite co-op gaming experiences, and it looks like this new project just builds on that foundation of creativity and experimentation. And the fact that only one person needs to own the game already has me planning just who I want to experience the game with when it releases on March 6th, 2025. 

Just as surprising as any of these announcements was the reveal of Elden Ring: Nightreign, though I’d say I’m more curious about it at this point than I am looking forward to it. The standalone cooperative-focused spinoff to 2022’s GOTY seems to be From Software taking a look at the popularity of co-op PC mods, and putting their own spin on it. I’m generally allergic to anything that touts its procedural generation and roguelike elements, but I know there’s a massive market for this, and it also feels like the kind of weird spinoff that From would’ve done in the past for an Armored Core game, so definitely not completely out of left field. 

Sticking with dark fantasy, The Witcher 4 looked rad as hell, and maybe this will finally be the thing that pushes me over the edge to actually give Witcher 3 a real try. I love everything about CD Projekt’s games except actually playing them, but man oh man do I really want to be a part of the huge group that adores these games. Monsters look rad, bummer of a village looks rad, Ciri looks rad. And hey, even if the gameplay here doesn’t quite click with me, I’ll always have a new Turok game to look forward to.

Side note, Between Witcher and the next game, it’s clear that as we enter the back half of this console generation, we’re going to start seeing some games from iconic developers that really push this hardware to its limit, and I for one am here for it. Think about how good games that were released during the twilight years of the PS4 looked – stuff like The Last of Us Part II, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption 2, Control, God of War, Spider-Man, Gears 5, and Death Stranding. I’m ready to enter that era for this generation. 

And of course, the last trailer to talk about was the final one that was shown off during the evening. I’m not a huge fan of the somewhat-bland subtitle of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but that’s about where my complaints for Naughty Dog’s upcoming game end, because holy moly am I here for everything else about it. Kicking off with a list of the franchises that they’ve been responsible for over the past three decades was the kind of flex that only a team with that historic pedigree could pull off.

I dug the ‘80s-centric retrofuturism on display here, from the product placement to the heavy inspiration of formative anime like Cowboy Bebop and Akira. ND’s top-tier visuals and storytelling seem to be paired with heavier emphasis on melee combat, and one glimpse at our lead’s energy beam complete with what looked like an audio waveform as the blade had me sold. I know it’s become cool to parrot talking points and hate on Naughty Dog, but I’m in the camp that believes The Last of Us Part II was a generational game, and I can’t wait to see what they’ve been working on in this new world.

The quality of this year’s TGA reveals solidifies when you figure that I haven’t even had time to mention games like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Mafia: The Old Country, Shadow Labyrinth, Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, and Stage Fright. They all seem rad in their own right, and I’m looking forward to each one. That leaves us with about a dozen games shown off during these recent festivities that I fully plan on playing upon release, all of which point to a 2025 and beyond that’s going to be bursting with rad games.