2024 marked the 10th anniversary of The Game Awards, and this year’s ceremony was rife with surprise announcements and performances to celebrate. While the list of nominees wasn’t quite as stacked as 2023’s, it was still a memorable awards show. Team ASOBI’s Astro Bot won the night with 4 awards, and Balatro and Metaphor: ReFantazio weren’t far behind with 3 awards each.
This year’s TGA improved upon some of its mistakes from last year and even clowned on themselves for the ridiculous time gatekeeping that hurt 2023’s show and its winners. Plus, they created a brand new award, the Game Changer Award, to acknowledge those doing good for the gaming community and shed some light on the layoff issues currently plaguing the industry.
If you couldn’t make it to the event, don’t worry—I sat through all 3 and half hours of it so you didn’t have to. Here’s everything that happened at this year’s Game Awards.
The Winners
Game of the Year
Astro Bot, Team ASOBI and Playstation’s adorable and creative robot platformer, took home the grand prize of Game of the Year, beating out Black Myth: Wukong, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Balatro, and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
It was certainly refreshing to see that an actual game won the award, as opposed to a DLC, and to have a game developer (especially Larian Studios’ wonderful Swen Vincke) hand out the award instead of a random celebrity.
All Categories
The remaining categories saw some big wins, including Melina Juergens being the first person to win Best Performance twice (she won back in 2017 for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice), yet another win for Baldur’s Gate 3 who swept the 2023 Game Awards, and a number of wins for indie titles including Balatro. It’s a solid list, even if Arcane was robbed of Best Adaptation.
- Best Fighting Game: Tekken 8
- Best VR/AR Game: Batman: Arkham Shadow
- Best Esports Game: League of Legends
- Best Esports Athlete: Faker
- Best Esports Team: T1
- Games for Impact: Neva
- Innovation in Accessibility: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
- Best Family Game: Astro Bot
- Best Performance: Melina Juergens (Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II)
- Best Action Game: Black Myth: Wukong
- Most Anticipated Game: Grand Theft Auto VI
- Best Multiplayer Game: Helldivers II
- Best Community Support: Baldur’s Gate 3
- Best Art Direction: Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Best Game Direction: Astro Bot
- Best Debut Indie Game: Balatro
- Best Action Adventure Game: Astro Bot
- Best RPG: Metaphor: ReFantazio
- Content Creator of the Year: CaseOh
- Best Sports Racing Game: EA Sports FC 25
- Best Sim/Strategy Game: Frostpunk 2
- Best Ongoing Game: Helldivers II
- Best Adaptation: Fallout
- Best Score: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Best Indie Game: Balatro
- Best Mobile Game: Balatro
- Best Audio Design: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
- Players’ Voice: Black Myth: Wukong
- Best Narrative: Metaphor: ReFantazio
The World Premieres
Of course, it simply wouldn’t be The Game Awards without a number of game announcements and teasers, and boy they were not playing around with trailers this year.
Pre-Show Announcements
The Game Awards’ pre-show actually had a number of big drops, starting off with the announcement of a brand new Ninja Gaiden title, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, which will be the first new Ninja Gaiden game since 2014. The pre-show also gave us a first look at Slay the Spire 2, a sequel to the well-received Slay the Spire, and DLC for the popular oceanic game Dave the Diver titled In the Jungle.
Other announcements included One Move Away, Thick as Thieves, Shadow Labyrinth, Steel Paws, Kyora, Rematch, Midnight Murder Club, and Solasta 2.
Main Show Reveals
The pre-show did not disappoint, yet somehow it was just an appetizer to an absolutely stacked night of game announcements. The first world premiere they showed off was a lengthy look at The Witcher 4, which, surprise!, will feature Ciri as the main character.
They then doubled down by announcing Elden Ring: Nightreign, a co-op game set in the Elden Ring universe. We also got a fresh look at Borderlands 4, which looked a whole lot better than the movie did, and an amusing and striking trailer showcasing The Outer Worlds 2. All of which are slated for a 2025 release. So if you had plans for 2025, clear them, because you have a lot of video games to play.
We got an entertaining presentation from the director of It Takes Two (the 2021 GOTY winner), Josef Fares, on his studio Hazelight’s next game, Split Fiction. The game will follow 2 authors who get trapped in their fantasy and sci-fi books and have to work together to return to reality.
Capcom also came to play at The Game Awards this year, announcing huge projects including a new Onimusha game, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and an original sequel to Okami. We only got the briefest tease of Okami’s sequel, but we did get to see scenery and combat from Way of the Sword.
Lastly, Keighley pulled Nintendo’s signature “one more thing” move to reveal a brand new sci-fi IP from Naughty Dog titled Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
Other Reveals, Announcements, and Teasers:
- Fumito Ueda’s mysterious new game
- Catly
- Fragpunk
- Killing Floor 3
- Steel Hunters
- The Long Dark 2: Blackfrost
- Virtua Fighter
- Clive Rosfield coming to Tekken 8
- Project Century
- Turok: Origins
- Helldivers II and Palworld updates
- Warframe 1999
- The First Berzerker: Khazan
- Dungeon Fighter: Arad
- Dying Light: The Beast
- Squid Game Unleashed
- Screamer
- Stage Fright
- Game of Thrones: Kingsroad
- TLOU Part 2 Remastered and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth coming to PC
- Mafia: The Old Country
- Sonic Racing: Crossworlds
- Den of Wolves
- Dispatch
What Else Happened at The Game Awards?
- The first ever Game Changer award was given to Amir Satvat, honoring his work to get almost 3000 laid off game developers back into gaming jobs via his website Amir Satvat’s Games Community.
- A fantastic, relevant, performance of songs from Arcane Season 2, featuring artists Royal & the Serpent, d4vd, and Twenty One Pilots.
- Some not so great celebrity appearances, including Harrison Ford who ignored the prompter and pronounced the Best Performance Winner’s name wrong.
- The muppets kept it real by making fun of the show’s faults, including the “Please wrap it up” 30 second winner speech limit from last year and the fact that a DLC was nominated for GOTY (they also let us know 100 million people were watching!).
- TGA’s orchestra killed as usual with the GOTY nominees performance, as well as a performance of Okami’s “Sunflower”.
Final Thoughts on The Game Awards 2024
Was The Game Awards 2024 perfect? No. But Geoff Keighley seemed to take criticism from last year’s show seriously, as it appeared winners had much more time to give their acceptance speeches and more gaming people, from developers to voice actors, were involved in the show (as opposed to random Hollywood celebrities, though there still were a few). Laura Bailey summed up that issue pretty nicely when joking with her celebrity co-announcer Aaron Paul saying, “That’s TV. And this is video games, OK? This is art.”
There are still issues that need to be addressed in the coming years, especially surrounding the issue of a DLC being nominated as GOTY. The eligibility for GOTY needs to be reassessed and new categories for DLC and remakes/remasters should be added. As well, the show needs to find a better balance of awards and announcements, as the announcements overwhelm the awards portion and don’t allow for the full honoring of members of the community.
Still, The Game Awards is a great opportunity for gamers to come together and see their favorite games and studios be honored on a huge stage. Hopefully the next 10 years will see TGA continue to take feedback and grow into the show that gamers want it to be.
Want to watch the whole show? You can find it on The Game Awards’ Youtube Channel.
