Holy crap, what a show! I’ll be honest: I wasn’t expecting much this year, much like any year I watch the Game Awards live. I still enjoy the show a lot. I tend to go out and get some takeout to bring home to enjoy while I watch the show (I did the same this year as well, of course!). I was not expecting this year’s show to be as awesome as it was, though. It’s not often that I see a cool trailer that catches my attention at this show, but here we are! Here are the biggest announcements of the night for me, in no real order:
Elden Ring: Nightreign
Man, this was unexpected! Described as a standalone, co-op multiplayer Elden Ring experience, Elden Ring: Nightreign is a unique spin off based on FromSoftware’s amazing Elden Ring. From my limited reading, it appears that the idea is that three people can team up to fight enemies and field bosses while searching for loot and various items in a survival setting. There appears to be a “wall” of sorts that closes around the environment ever pushing the players towards a main boss somewhere on the map. It’s currently scheduled for sometime in 2025, and is definitely on my radar.
Project: Robot
From the creator of Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, and The Last Guardian comes an unnamed game going by Project: Robot. We don’t have a lot to go on, but it seems like the story will focus on giant mech-like robots in some way. We have no official gameplay as of yet, but the character we saw climbed up the robot in a way that suggests that climbing tall things will be present, kind of like we saw in Shadow of the Colossus. While we don’t know a lot yet, it definitely is exciting to see what’s coming next from this legendary creator!
Okami Sequel
Another announcement straight out of left field! It’s been almost twenty years since we last dove into the beautiful world of Okami. I’m so excited for fans of the series that have held out hope for a sequel after all of these years! I’ve never played the original myself, but in reading about this, I discovered Okami HD, which could be a good excuse for me to finally take a look!
Turok Origins
I, for one, thought Turok had gone the way of the dodo — extinct, not unlike the animals you hunt in these games. Holy crap though, I’m pretty stoked! From the reactions I’ve seen, most folks are very let down by the game being a third-person shooter, which is understandable. The classic games were first-person shooters, really putting you in the driver’s seat of the action. I think I get why they made this change, though. With this POV, you get more of the impact from dealing fatal blows on creatures. It’s easy to mess this up in first-person, but time will tell, I guess!
These are probably the biggest, most exciting announcements for me. I had a great time with TGA this year, though I wonder if there’s any way they can top this with next year’s show? Maybe a certain Mr. Freeman will show up (assuming he doesn’t show himself before then)? We’ll just have to wait and find out!