(Warning: Nothing major beside spoilers for The Game Awards 2024.)
Another year went by and despite all the terrible events that happened around the world, we’re still here. But that’s not what this blog is about (but I’ll mention it in my upcoming end of the year blog).
Instead, I’ll be talking about this year’s The Game Awards, an annual awards ceremony that honor achievements in the video game industry. Even though the event has been around since 2014, it wasn’t until last year when I decided to watch it myself to see if anything dumb happens. Such as that one time in 2022 Game Awards where some kid managed to sneak on stage at the end of the show and became a meme out of it.
That wasn’t the case in last year’s Game Awards. Instead, it was one of the worst ones due to them prioritizing announcements and celebrity guests over nominees and winners. That they only allow the winners to have a 30 second speech before being shoo out by the music. Especially at the end, where during the Game of the Year speech, one of the developers was honoring his dead teammate when the wrap up music started to play! Like, rude.
Then that they refused to talk about the industry layoffs that caused 10,000 developers to lose their jobs that year and the ongoing Gaza humanitarian crisis, which affecting developers who live in Gaza when the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October. This left a nasty taste in everyone’s mouth and swore that they won’t be watching future Game Awards because of it. Some even wondered if this is the end of Game Awards as we know it (as the last few year's event has been a mixed bag)! Not really as had one of the most top views in its 9 year existence.
Despite all that, there were some of the few non-controversial things I remember from last year’s ceremony. Such as when they show the trailer for the new Fallout TV series and everyone on the Internet trashed it, for being yet another television adaptation of a video game series that they don’t want or need (as that and movies adaptation of video games series tend to have a bad reputation for being poorly made). Jokes on them as not only Fallout was actually good, but they even won this year’s Best Adaptation (although it made Arcane fans mad as the show was better than Fallout)!
Then there was the fact Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom came out that year with rave reviews and have 6 nominations, which include Game of the Year. Then Baldur's Gate 3 came out in August, stole Tears of the Kingdom’s thunder and end up winning Game of the Year instead! It didn’t help that Tears of the Kingdom was going through a hype backlash as it turns out the game wasn’t as great as many thought it would be. Then that for some, they see the game as $70 DLC version of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. And that they were getting sick and tired of Zelda being an open world game and wanted the traditional gameplay again.
But they did show a Sega trailer, where they announce that they’re going to do a remake of Jet Set Radio, which I think is cool and all that…
So, why I am watching this than as I’m a Nintendo fan and that they rarely win anything big beside in 2017, where Breath of the Wild won Game of the Year?
Well, sometimes Nintendo like to make big announcements (and memes) there such as the time they announce that Joker from Persona 5 will be joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate during the 2018 Game Awards, which freaked out the fans and again in the 2020 Game Awards when Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII will be a playable fighter.
But unfortunately, Nintendo didn’t have any big announcements for this year’s Game Awards as they’re too busy developing the Switch 2 (which we STILL don’t know anything about it).
However, I do have a Steam account, where I play of mixture of both indie and AAA games. That I do like to read gaming news as it’s one of the few news sources that won’t cause me to go into a sweat. And when I used to watch Twitch on a daily basis, some of the streamers I watched sometime play those games that were either past nominates or future nominates. Oh and the memes, I always come for the memes; both for the good and the bad. So because of that, I do have a reason to watch the Game Awards!
Thankfully, this year’s ceremony was one of the better ones in years, where not only Geoff Keighley (the host) actually called out the industry layoffs (which actually got WORST since over 14,000 developers lost their jobs this year) during the ceremony, but it also allows the winners to make longer speeches. Thanks to the getting rid of the time limit, we got emotional speeches from the winners to the presenters. One include from the winner of the Game Changer award, Amir Satvat who made a moving speech on how he use his efforts to help laid off developers find work again.
They also toned down the Hollywood promotion, which turned off some from last year. Yeah, there were a few celebs there and two, promoting their upcoming video game appearances. Some were good, while other were bad. Instead, the ceremony focused its time to the game presenters and the winners.
This shows that Keighley is listening to past criticism of the show and is trying to fix it. Although many said that he should do more, but at least they admit he’s actually trying than go quiet for another year in order to please the investors.
As for the awards themselves, many thought that indie breakout Balatro and China’s first AAA game Black Myth: Wukong was going to sweep up the awards. That honor went to Astro Bot as not only it won 4 awards, but it also won Game of the Year! Then there were some people on both the Internet and Reddit, that were being salty about it because they feel like it was rigged in favor of the journalists and that its too "kiddy"! Ah, the usual.
The reason why Astro Bot even won it was because the game was polished, joyful, is good callback to platformer games, such as Super Mario Bros. and did a beautiful job honoring the PlayStation as it celebrate its 30th anniversary. It also shows that video games don’t have to use the best graphics and movie like writing in order to be a good game. It’s a game that gaming developers wants to play themselves, not for sale targets as Swen Vincke said himself when presenting Game of the Year nominations.
At least Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, a DLC of Elden Ring didn’t win Game of the Year as DLC games don’t belong in that category. Actually, why there isn’t category for DLC games, Keighley? Maybe there will be one next year…
As for the announcements (aka, the main reason why many even watch the Game Awards), there were many surprises as we saw trailers for new games such as Witcher IV, Borderlands 4, The Outer Worlds 2, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet (which some parts of Reddit are already hating for its protagonist, who is a woman who has a shaved head and is a POC) and that Elden Ring has a co-op spinoff game. There were also trailers for updates ongoing games such as Helldivers 2, Tekken 8 and Dave the Diver that made their fans excited.
But one of the biggest surprises for me that Okami is finally getting a sequel from the original game’s director, Hideki Kamiya! Yeah, there is Okamiden, the first sequel that Capcom (its gaming publisher) released back in 2010. But it didn’t “count” as it wasn’t made by Kamiya and he even disowned the game! And while Okamiden is a good game on its own, it’s not a good sequel to Okami. Now the game can finally have a “true” sequel after all these years.
The reason the Okami announcement is a big deal to me because I have seen the Zelda-like game before. I saw a Let’s Play of Okamiden, 10 years ago (please don’t ask why I did that). Then 5 years later, I played Okami Steam, where I now understand why the first game is better than the second game. 5 more years later, the true sequel is announced! Welp, now it’s time for me to wait another 5 more years until the game comes out! Well not really as it just announced that they’re starting devolvement and it’ll take years to make a game. So, I’ll wait until it comes out.
Of course, there were some criticisms. Such as there was an AI-generated game that somehow sneaked in a trailer, which didn’t fool anyone. That some of awards such as Best Esports Game and Innovation in Accessibility were quickly presented in the preshow, instead in the main show. That some of the celeb segments dragged on too long than it should have. And that Nintendo was shutout! Okay, the last thing was a “me thing”. But even then I don’t mind, as long everyone had a good time there; I’ll consider it a win.
Hopefully, next year’s Game Awards continues to improve to make it better than this year’s Game Awards. Maybe Nintendo might win some awards when the Switch 2 comes out!