This week, the Electronic Wireless Show podcast remembers the recently deceased E3 games show. Unfortunately, all that we can really recall is the occasional watch party, and maybe Keanu Reeves was there at one point? Was mostly just trailers, let’s be honest. Thus we also consider the events that replace it (with a side-chat on this year’s Game Awards), and how we’d design our own glittering showcase o' games.
]]>Last night, Geoff Keighley revealed dozens of trailers for upcoming video games, and interviewed some of his favourite celebrites and best palss from the games industry on stage. He also happened to hand out some awards to game developers. At his awards show. Titled The Game Awards.
]]>This morning, in the cold, post-Game Awards light of day, it became apparent to me that, incredible as it seems, some of you out there have taken Geoff Keighley at his word that The Game Awards is something more meaningful than a flashy ad show to make money. I can't really blame you for being an open-hearted optimist, but must ask: have you never watched The Game Awards before? I have, and this year, despite not having had to stay up until 5am covering it, I'm grumpy enough to point out that we don't actually have to be nice about the great, clomping shiny trainer of marketing in 2023, the year everyone was laid off.
]]>Gawd, it's like hyping yourself up before diving into a freezing cold ice lake. Okay, okay, okay. Brave face. Hey, it's time for The Game Awards 2023, everybody! Towards the end of every year, we all get to enjoy (or in our case, give up our evenings and ruin our fingers to the tune of) one of the gaming industry's biggest events. The Game Awards is not only an awards ceremony - it's a lavish smorgasbord of video game announcements, trailers, and news stretching into the early hours of the morning. At least for us Brits.
In case you don't have the time to sit through the entire multi-hour livestream, we've done the hard work and put together a list of every noteworthy trailer and announcement that was shown at this year's The Game Awards. You can get started reading; I'm just gonna... shut my eyes for a bit.
]]>EA have announced Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a side-scrolling metroidvania from Surgent Studios, the developer founded by voice actor Abubakar Salim. It's being published under the EA Originals label, and is inspired by the myths of African Bantu cultures. It's also something of a memorial project, shaped by Salim's own experiences of grief, though you might not get that impression from the trailer, which is a blaze of magical battles and aerial stunts.
]]>The final chapter of horrifying cooperative FPS GTFO is out now, sending it off with a scream as the developers look forward to their newly announced next game. The update, Rundown 8.0 Duality includes new expeditions, new awful beings to murder you, and new weapons to attempt to stop them. It looks awful in a lovely way. Maybe I'll finally pluck up the courage to give GTFO a proper go, especially as a free trial weekend is running on Steam and the game's discounted too. I'd have to be some sort of coward to ignore that. Some sort of coward who doesn't want to creep and fight through hordes of horrid meatmonsters.
]]>Black Myth: Wukong, the visually striking Soulslike based on Journey To The West, now has a release date: August 20th, 2024. It also has a new trailer, which continues to showcase its odd, stunning character design.
]]>Capcom have unveiled the next entry in their dinosaur hat/pants/jumper-making sim this evening, and it's called Monster Hunter Wilds. A kick in the dino groin to this year's monster hunting pretender Wild Hearts, perhaps? Who can say. Formally unveiled at tonight's Game Awards, this new Monster Hunter is coming in 2025, and looks to be the jazzed-up successor to Monster Hunter: World. That's not a diss on Rise (which was excellent). Just that it's being developed for PC and consoles first, rather than Switch. And it looks rad as heck. Come and watch the reveal trailer below.
]]>Do you like paragliding, exosuits, loot, and tornadoes? Do you like all of those things at once? Then you might enjoy the just-announced Exoborne, a tactical open world shooter from Sharkmob, the Swedish studio behind Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt. Running on Unreal Engine 5 and set in fictional, near-future Colton County, USA, it's a PvPvE affair in which you roam a big ruined map either alone or as a team, fighting other players, NPCs and renegade "natural" elements. Published by Level Infinite, it'll be a premium game with live service elements and microtransactions, and there's no release date yet. I caught a briefing before today's announcement, and yeah, it looks all right.
]]>Destructive, team-based multiplayer shooter The Finals has launched. The release was announced during this evening's Game Awards, but has been long expected. The Finals had a successful open beta last month, after which it became the most wishlisted game on Steam.
]]>Nexon and Neople have announced The First Berserker: Khazan, a single-player action RPG from the Dungeon & Fighter universe. I’m not familiar with DNF, but going by The First Berserker’s trailer, it’s all about exceedingly grimdark blokes beating the paste out of each other. In this instalment, you play a once-proud general of the Pell Los Empire, who has been falsely accused of treason and sent into exile. He’s pretty miffed about this! Berserk, even.
]]>After recently being delayed to late 2024, Focus Entertainment and Saber Interactive have been toying with our emotions over the last few weeks over whether or not they'll reveal an actual release date for Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. Well, you can set your heart at ease. You might have missed its brief 30-second reveal during tonight's Game Awards, but at long last, we have a date.
]]>Move over, Henry Cavill. Your time as PC gaming's celebrity uber nerd is under threat. There's a new faction leader in town and he's coming to take your RTS lunch money when Stormgate - the very Starcraft 2-looking strategy game that's being made by ex-Starcraft 2 devs - launches into Steam Early Access in summer 2024. Yep, it's Shang-Chi actor Simu Liu, who took to the stage at tonight's Game Awards to announce he's not only a dab hand at Starcraft (handy), but that he's also the voice of its demonic Infernal Host chief, Warz. Yes, they actually named him Warz. Never changes, does it?
]]>Hello Games have announced Light No Fire, the Guildford, UK-based developer's most ambitious new game since 2016's space sim No Man's Sky. In development for roughly five years so far, it's an exploration-driven fantasy experience with building mechanics, a range of curious mythological creatures, and a procedurally generated open world that is apparently Earth-like in both geography and scale. Hello have just screened a trailer at this year's Game Awards. Earlier this week, they invited me down to their Guildford offices for a quick, informal chat about the game, which I am going to characterise as Fable meets Microsoft Flight Simulator.
]]>Following the fascinating and horrifying co-op shooter GTFO, developers 10 Chambers today announced their second game, a cooperative sci-fi heist 'em up named Den Of Wolves. Expect corporate espionage, sabotage, assassinations, and more in a futuristic island city. Oh, and meat computers? Lovely. Learn more in the announcement trailer, below.
]]>Skull And Bones was initially meant to launch in the autumn of 2018, but it's been delayed and delayed, rebooted and delayed some more. Its most recent slip was from November of this year into 2024, but Ubisoft have now put a new specific date on their multiplayer pirate 'em up: February 16th, 2024.
]]>I have absolutely no room in my life for another live service looter shooter but if it has grappling hooks, well, maybe I will install it for a wee look-see. I'm only human. Summer 2024 is when we'll all get to play The First Descendant, makers Nexon announced today during Geoff Keighley's Big Flick Through The Argos Catalogue. The news comes via a new cinematic trailer showing more of the sci-fantasy setting and, yes, a grappling hook.
]]>After the disastrous launch of Redfall, you'd have thought that immersive sim experts Arkane would have wanted to bust open the curtains and stay as far away from vampire games as physically possible. And yet here we are, with tonight's Game Awards reveal that they're making a Marvel Blade game. What are the chances? Will this second bite at making a (hopefully good this time) vampire game be the one? It's still early on in development, from the sounds of things, but here's the reveal trailer.
]]>Life Is Strange superstars Don't Nod are once again returning to spooky happenings amongst teenage girls, though this time in retrospect. In Geoff Keighley's Advert Amphitheatre today they announced Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, a new spooky story about young friends who encountered something strange in the summer of 1995 then became very much not friends for decades after. It looks interesting! Check out the announcement trailer.
]]>It's official, dinosaurs are In again. Saber Interactive, Universal City Studios and Amblin Entertainment have unveiled Jurassic Park: Survival, a new first-person single player action-adventure based on Spielberg's 1993 monster movie starring a new character, InGen scientist Dr. Maya Joshi, who missed her chance to evacuate Isla Nublar alongside the movie's cast. Classic videogame origin story - the Hollywood actors surf off into the sunset, leaving your B-team protagonist to pick up the pieces.
]]>Good news, Mana fans. After years of remakes and remasters, Square Enix have announced the first all-new Mana game in 15 years. Visions Of Mana will return to the series action-RPG roots, and pop you into the boots of Val, who - all right, deep breath - is a soul guard chosen to be the Alm Of Fire, and whose job it is to go and revive the mana flow at ye olde Mana Tree. Got it? GOod. Let's watch the reveal trailer.
]]>Hideo Kojima isn't only working on Death Stranding 2. It's long been rumoured - and leaked - that Kojima Productions are also developing a horror game, thought to be called Overdose. It was finally officially revealed at The Game Awards this evening. It's actually called OD, and it's being developed in partnership with Jordan Peele.
]]>I don't want to encourage more publishers to create irrelevant, self-indulgent trailers for Geoff Keighley's Advertganza, but I'll cut Sega a break for their one. Sure, the first 52 seconds are some live-action skit, but the following 41 seconds announce no less than five games. Sega are returning to their glory days once again, with new games coming based on Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Streets Of Rage, Golden Axe, Shinobi, "and more." You can get a few tiny glimpses at those in the trailer below.
]]>Supermassive Games have dropped the first trailer for The Casting of Frank Stone, their single player Dead by Daylight spin-off, a collaboration with original developer Behavior Interactive that was announced earlier this year. The new horror game combines Until Dawn’s branching storyline approach with Dead by Daylight’s supporting fiction of a malevolent Entity, trapping people in fog-bound pocket dimensions with legendary killers, so as to feast on their fear.
]]>It's been a while since we last got a proper good look at Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, but this year's Game Awards hasn't just given us a new trailer for Ninja Theory's long-awaited sequel, but a rough release window as well. Coming in 2024 to PC, Xboxes and Game Pass, it hopefully won't be long now before we can continue Senua's story and maybe slay some cool looking giants.
]]>I hope you're not sick of third-person sci-fi shooters with slick angular décor yet, because we have incoming. Archetype Entertainment and Blur Studio have announced Exodus, an action-adventure role-playing game featuring Matthew McConaughey, which deals with the theme of time dilation during space travel, much as in McConaughey movie Interstellar.
]]>Ikumi Nakamura, creative and art director on Ghostwire: Tokyo, left Tango Gameworks back in 2019 to start her own company, Unseen. At The Game Awards' this evening, Nakamura appeared onstage to introduce the studio's first project. It's called Kemuri and the cinematic trailer suggests it's a combat parkour game with a colourful urban fantasy setting.
]]>Well, I bet you didn't see this coming from Ori And The Blind Forest developers Moon Studios, did you now? Then again, neither did I. Announced during tonight's Game Awards, No Rest For The Wicked is quite a different kettle of cursed fish compared to Moon's previous games, but I'm also quietly intrigued by it at the same time. For starters, this is an online ARPG that combines the top-down combat of games like Diablo 4 with the patient, weighty boss battles of your Elden Soulslikes. Come and watch its reveal trailer below to find out more.
]]>The creators of Untitled Goose Game have unveiled their next, err, not goose game. Announced at tonight's Game Awards, Big Walk is quite a different proposition from Goose Game, not least because we've moved from the quaint environs of a classic English village to the wilds of the Australian bushland. It's also an online co-operative multiplayer game that will see and your friends solving all sorts of puzzles you find out in the wild. Come and watch the reveal trailer below.
]]>Now we’re cooking. Terrific, demonic rhythm-basher THUMPER is getting a sequel of sorts called THRASHER, created by the first game's artist and composer Brian Gibson. It’s a weirdo racer in which you use gesture controls to evolve the creature you're controlling, in a “breakneck race for survival that begins at the dawn of time”. Which is certainly a concept. Will there be any flying hell triangles in this one? Will my thumbs be able to keep up, seven years after almost breaking them against the sneering face of THUMPER's world 3?
]]>Look, they might as well call off The Game Awards. I thought announcing Pony Island 2 during the pre-show would be hard to top but to follow that up with the announcement of World Of Goo 2? Pack it up. We're done. The sequel to our favourite game of 2008 is due to launch in 2024, bringing not just new puzzles to build things from goo but exciting new fluids too. I can scarcely wait to cover my goo in goop. Have a peek in the trailer below.
]]>Between spin-offs, sequels and remakes, there are now more Persona games than you could play in a lifetime. It's exciting therefore to see Persona developers try their hand at something different, and Metaphor: ReFantazio certainly looks different. It's a high-fantasy RPG developed by Atlus and led by various former Persona and Shin Megami Tensei devs, and there's a new trailer below.
]]>Finji, the publishers behind Tunic and Night In The Woods, have revealed their next internal development project at tonight's Game Awards. Usual June is a new action adventure game where you play as the eponymous June, a college student who happens to be able to talk to ghosts. Hang on a second, has someone been reading Alice Bee's very good book? Sounds quite familiar if you ask me. Come and watch the reveal trailer.
]]>Dead Cells developers Motion Twin and publisher Kepler Ghost have announced Windblown, a wholesome yet bloodthirsty new roguelike action game in which heavily-armed cartoon animals set out from a floating village to brave the horrors of the Vortex. It’s due in early access on PC in 2024, and we’ve got the first trailer for you below.
]]>After the deadly (and delightful) card game of Inscryption, creator Daniel Mullins is returning to his happy land of little horses. Today he announced Pony Island 2: Panda Circus, a new genre-shifting curio described as "a phantasmagorical voyage through time, myth, divinity, and video games." I like that this description is likely wholly earnest and accurate. This news came during the pre-show for Geoff Keighley's Shopping Hour and if a game like this is relegated to the pre-show, I can only assume the main event will include Half-Life 3, Elden Ring 2, and Deus Ex 5.
]]>Well, hello there, sequel to excellent detective game, The Case Of The Golden Idol, didn't expect to see you here. Announced during the pre-show of tonight's Game Awards, The Rise Of The Golden Idol exists as little more than a brief teaser trailer right now, but to be honest, I'm sold already. Sign me up, please.
]]>505 Games have announced a remake of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, the mournful 2013 fantasy adventure from Josef Fares and Starbreeze Studios. It's due for release on 28th February 2024, and we've got the reveal trailer below.
]]>Ubisoft will be releasing a demo for Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown ahead of its release in January, a leaked Game Awards trailer has revealed. Posted earlier this evening by PlayStation Brazil's YouTube channel, the trailer has since been taken down, but not quite fast enough to prevent some folks from downloading it and plastering it all over the internet (good spot, VGC). Apparently the demo is coming January 11th - one week before the game's full release on January 18th.
]]>The Game Awards are back tonight, as is our Game Awards liveblog. I’ll be doing the turbo-reporting solo this year, and since the show kicks off at 12:30am GMT (that’s 7:30pm ET and 4:30pm PT), you lucky readers can follow both an announcement-rammed awards gig and one hardware hack’s public crumbling into exhausted, sleepless ruin. Live!
]]>The Day Of The Devs showcases are always some of the brightest spots in the biannual trailer'thon gauntlets, and this year's inaugural edition for The Game Awards is no exception. There were 20 fresh-faced indie games highlighted in tonight's 90-odd-minute stream, and cor, there are some right old gems in here, too, with brand-new game announcements from the devs behind Genesis Noir, Kind Words and Tangle Tower to name just a few. We also got more in-depth looks at some of this year's most intriguing indie games that previously only had an enigmatic teaser snippets attached to them. So come and join us below, where you'll find a digest of all 20 announcements from this evening's showcase, as well as the stream in full if you'd prefer to watch it all as it happened.
]]>This week is the week of The Games Awards, aka Geoffest, aka the Ke3ghleys - an absolute banquet of trailers, release dates and game announcements for the Maw. There are a few reveals in the offing. Some, we already know about, and may even have written up in advance; others, we'll learn about together with your good selves when the livestream begins at 4.30pm Los Angeles time on 7th December, which equates to 12.30am on 8th December (ouch) in the UK. There's the trifling matter of the first GTA 6 trailer on 5th December, too.
Some games out this week that we're keeping in the corner of our eye, in case they turn on us: A Highland Song (5th Dec), Blood West (5th Dec), Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (7th Dec), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (7th Dec).
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