2022 Game Awards rumors, predictions, and confirmed reveals
The games and announcements to expect during this Thursday’s Game Awards livestream.
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The Game Awards have become a sort of mini-E3 in December. Atlast year’s show, we saw announcements for Alan Wake 2, a new Wonder Woman game, Sonic Frontiers, the upcoming Star Wars game from Quantic Dream, and somewhere around three dozen gameplay trailers. Some awards were awarded, too.
Game Awards creator and host Geoff Keighley has said that this year’s show, which airs on Thursday, is going to be shorter than the last one. The last one was over three hours long, though, so shorter doesn’t exactly meanshorthere. Keighleyrecently estimateda two-and-a-half hour runtime, which will include acceptance speeches, musical acts, and another bushel or two of trailers and announcements, some of which have already been teased.
The Game Awards will be streamed onTwitchandYouTubethis Thursday starting at 7:30 pm Eastern. (Here’s when that is in your time zone). Below, we’ve collected all the relevant pre-show teases and rumors. If you miss anything, come back here for a recap after the show.
Confirmed reveals and guests
📺 Publisher 505 Games teased a game reveal witha videofeaturing actor Michael Madsen. A QR code at the end of the video leads tovisitrockaycity.com, which currently features a nighttime cityscape, perhaps suggesting a GTA-like open world game.
📺 There’ll be aBaldur’s Gate 3revealfrom Larian.
📺Tekken 8will be there.
📺 A new trailer forDestiny 2: Lightfall,the expansion coming in February, willbe shown.
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📺 A new beast from upcoming fantasy hunting gameWild Heartswill be revealed.
📺 The firstStar Wars Jedi: Survivorgameplay will be revealed. A March 16, 2023 release date will probably be announced, too, which we know because itleaked early via the Steam page.
VIDEO: The Star Wars: Jedi Survivor teaser from June.
❓Final Fantasy 16producer Yoshi-P is giving a “very special live presentation.”
❓The developers of 2020 lockdown hitAmong Uspromise"huge" news.
🎤Keighley saysthere’s a “good reason” that this year’s presenters include Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery directorRian Johnsonand actorsDaniel CraigandJessica Henwick. (The good reason might just be that they were involved in a popular movie, but we’ll see.)
🎤 Hazelight Studios director and “Fuck the Oscars” guyJosef Fares, whose game It Takes Two won the Game of the Year honors in last year’s show, will present an award. Maybe he’ll stick it to the Nobel Prizes, which have had it coming for a while now.
🎤 Sierra On-Line foundersRoberta and Ken Williams, who last we heard were remaking Colossal Cave after getting bored in lockdown, will present an award.
🎤Pedro PascalandBella Ramseyfrom the upcoming HBO show based on The Last of Us will be presenters, as will Last of Us voice actorsTroy BakerandAshley Johnson, who also have roles in the show. There’s not much left to announce as far as the show goes: It airs on January 15, and anew trailerwas released a few days ago. Maybe we’ll see an extended clip.
Game Awards rumors and predictions
🤔 If Hideo Kojima doesn’t show up with an announcement, he’ll surelytease something cryptically, right? We knowDeath Stranding 2is in the works, sinceNorman Reedus leaked it.
😈 Rumor has it that there’ll be aDiablo 4announcement, probably a release date. We just had ahands-on preview of the game(it’s fun!), so that’d make sense.
🔨Insider Gaming sayswe can expect to seeWarhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2gameplay.
💍Elden Ringfans are hoping for a DLC announcement. Perhaps the timing ofthis week’s PvP updatewas chosen to bring the game back to mind in advance of that announcement?
🚀 AfterStarfield’s delay to 2023 back in May, and after Bethesda let 11/11/22 (Starfield’s original release date) pass by without a word, fans are pretty thirsty to see something new from the long-awaited space RPG. It probably doesn’t qualify as a rumor as much as it does a desire, but the show wouldn’t be a terrible place to release a new trailer and a concrete release date. Then again, we’re talking about Microsoft and Bethesda, and they might want to make those sorts of announcements on their own time instead of cramming them into the middle of a show featuring dozens of other trailers. I’m personally not holding my breath, butI’ve been wrong about Starfield before.
🐲 It would be a reasonable time for BioWare to show up withDragon Age: Dreadwolf. The studioput out a cinematic trailerearlier this week, andsaid in Octoberthat an alpha version of the game is now playable from start to finish. It’s shown up with teasers at The Game Awards twice before, so this is something of a habit for BioWare. The Dragon Age Netflix show releases on Friday, too, so it’s a very Dragon Agey week. Something about the next Mass Effect is possible, too, but BioWare hasn’t teased any involvement in the show at this time, so both games are longshots.
Award nominees
The award nominees are listed onthe official Game Awards website, where you can also cast your own votes in each category. The public vote is mixed with votes from a jury of influential gaming people and outlets, including PC Gamer, to determine the winners. (The one exception is the Players' Voice award, which is entirely determined by fan vote, and has come down to abattle between Sonic Frontiers fans and Genshin Impact fans.)
The most important award is of course the Game of the Year award, which Elden Ring is the heavy favorite to win. Here are this year’s Game Awards GOTY nominees:
Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the ’80s and ’90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call “boomer shooters” now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that’s right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he’s focused on the site’s news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.
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