Death Stranding Trailer Baffles Everyone – TGA 2017

It’s not like Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding was anything new at the time. However, we had only seen brief glimpses of what Hideo Kojima’s twisted mind was capable of delivering. At The Game Awards 2017, over 8 minutes of new footage was showcased and it arguably trumped everything before it. Shadowy figures, supernatural happenings – it was weird, to say the least.

Arguably the most important part of Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards show this year was when he took a moment to explain Hideo Kojima’s absence from the event- in a ballsy move, Keighley announced to the world that the Konami-Kojima spat was indeed real, and that Kojima was practically being held hostage by Konami, barred from attending even award shows.

In a Reddit AMA, Keighley has explained why he spoke out.

“It just broke my heart that he couldn’t be with us – something had to be said. I didn’t tell anyone on the show team what I was going to say and it wasn’t rehearsed,” said Keighley.

Man… not even telling the other members of the production team what you’re going to do, and going off script like that… that’s even ballsier. I have even more respect for Mr. Keighley speaking out like he did. It was a rare instance of the gaming media engaging in true journalism.

The Game Awards continue to rise in popularity – the 2015 iteration of the same saw 2.3 million viewers tuning in which is a 20 percent increase over last year’s event. Organizer and host Geoff Keighley revealed this to Polygon in a new interview and is confident of the event returning next year.

“With the growth this year and all the sponsor support, I feel pretty confident we will be back next December for The Game Awards 2016.”

This year’s event responded to feedback and strove to achieve, “A tighter production technically, a shorter run time, and more on-stage awards. The format feels good, and it’s been nice to see the audience response – two solid years means we’re on the right path.”

A competitive gaming tournament was supposed to take place this year but didn’t happen. It will be interesting to see what does make it in 2016 though as Keighley said, “Next year will be about adding other elements around the show.”

What did you think of The Game Awards 2015? Let us know in the comments.

The Game Awards 2015 was held tonight, and the show was generally a success- whether it be for the quality of game reveals, or some segments that really celebrated the game industry, or even the first public acknowledgement of something that had so far only been speculated at, it was generally a good, fun showing all around.

That said, the most important part of an awards show is, you know, the awards. And on that count, The Game Awards 2015 really came through- although I still wish they would have more on stage awards than they did, I can hardly fault them for their choices.

Here’s the full list:

Jury Voted

Game of the Year: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Developer of the Year: CD Projekt Red

Best Independent Game: Rocket League

Best Narrative: Her Story

Best Score/Soundtrack: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Best Performance: Viva Seifert (Her Story)

Games for Change: Life Is Strange (Dontnod/quare Enix)

Best Shooter: Splatoon

Best Action/Adventure: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Best Role Playing Game: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Best Family Game: Super Mario Maker

Best Sports/Racing Game: Rocket League

Best Multiplayer: Splatoon

Best Art Direction: Ori and the Blind Forest

Fan’s Choice

Most Anticipated Game: No Man’s Sky

eSports Game of the Year: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

eSports Team of the Year: Optic Gaming

eSports Player of the Year: Kenny “KennyS” Schrub

Best Fan Creation: Portal Stories – Mel

Trending Gamer: Greg Miller

The Witcher 3 swept the awards, which I am pretty happy about. It really was the best game of the year.

One of the best games of this year, and possibly one of the best games of this generation period, is now coming to the Xbox One- thats right, multiplayer sensation Rocket League will be coming to the Xbox One early next year, and, true to the tradition of the series, it will be getting some exclusive content. In this case, Rocket League will be getting Halo and Gears of War themed cars. And hopefully, it will also get a ball that looks like an Xbox One logo- it’s too obvious of an opportunity to pass up on!

It’s the best possible thing that could have happened- Rocket League is an awesome game, and it really deserves the biggest community it can get. The question here is, will the Xbox One version allow for cross platform play, which the PS4 and PC versions already do?

We don’t know yet, but we will let you know for sure when we find out. Stay tuned.

LEGO’s Marvel The Avengers will be a pretty damn massive game, even by LEGO standards. The trailer for the game, which debuted at The Game Awards tonight, confirmed that the game will basically cover not just both the Avenger movies, but also Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, among others.

The game itself looks like typical LEGO fare, which means it’s probably gonna be loads of fun, and something the entire family can enjoy together. It will launch next year on every system known to man – seriously – including the PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and PC. Looks like they finally dropped the Wii.

You can check out the trailer for the game below for yourself, and tell us what you think in the comments. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more information and coverage coming to us from The Game Awards.

The unexpected happened at The Game Awards again, as Tim Schafer’s iconic Psychonauts got, against all odds, a sequel announcement… yep, that’s right, Psychonauts 2 was announced tonight at The Game Awards. You can check it out for yourself below.

In a trend that is becoming disturbingly common, the game itself has not yet entered development, but is currently up for backing on a crowdfunding platform. However, in this case, the crowdfunding platform will lead to backers essentially becoming investors, which means if you put your money down for this game, you get paid on its sales. It’s an interesting concept, and one that takes the crowdfunding concept to the new level. And given that Schafer and Double Fine were the first to put a game on Kickstarter anyway, it’s interesting to see them continue to evolve and grow the concept.

Check out the trailer for Psychonauts 2 below.

The very first all new game announcement at tonight’s The Game Awards continued with the trend of going big- the very first brand new game announced tonight at the event was a brand new Batman game. But this new Batman game isn’t by traditional series custodians Rocksteady, or even Warner Montreal, or TT Games- it’s by Telltale games, of The Walking Dead/Tales from the Borderlands/Game of Thrones/The Wolf Among Us fame.

This sounds awesome, by the way.

A brand new Batman game, focused on the narrative, with the kind of moral choices that Telltale is known for? The new Batman game by Telltale could be in the same kind of line as the Batman graphic novels, which no video game or even movie has been able to accurately capture so far.

Check out the reveal teaser for the game for yourself below. And stay tuned to GamingBolt for more new information and coverage straight from The Game Awards.

So, that’s a good first outing, right? The second edition has to at least live up to the standards set by the first, if not outright exceed them. Can The Game Awards even do it? With Sony holding most of their announcements for their own PlayStation Experience that follows a day later, Nintendo holding its most exciting announcements close to its chest until next year, and Microsoft not being very bullish on the event in general, what can we expect from The Game Awards this year that would make it live up to last year’s show?

A lot, as it turns out. In the leadup to the event, a lot of companies have confirmed some of their plans for the show- and they all sound very exciting, definitely.

MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA

A new Mass Effect is coming up- that would ordinarily be cause for loads of hype and anticipation, but so far, we haven’t actually seen anything of Mass Effect Andromeda. We’ve had some nice, nostalgic montage teasers for the game, but as for what Andromeda itself is? Who knows? Bioware have been playing this one very close to the chest.

And we think that is about to change with the upcoming The Game Awards. There’s precedent for it, too- Mass Effect 3 was unveiled at VGA 2010 (although that was just with a teaser- but in that case, the game’s existence was confirmed for the first time at the event). Mass Effect typically aims for the mainstream shooter audience, the kind that Bethesda aims for with Fallout. That is the kind of crowd that will be tuning in to The Game Awards, more than anyone else. What better way to get their attention and pre-order money for your new upcoming game, than to have the world premier of said game at an event where they will all be watching? The only other such chance that Bioware would get to reveal the game would be at E3 next year, and frankly, for a game that is launching in Holiday 2016 (allegedly), that would be too short of a hype cycle, especially with how EA does things.

No, the highest possibility is that we will be seeing the game in action for the first time this Thursday.

OCULUS RIFT

This one isn’t a prediction as much as it is pretty much a given- we already know Oculus is going to have some kind of presence at The Game Awards. It’s a smart move, too- Oculus has a lot of hype in the niche enthusiast circles, but for the mass market, it’s pretty much non existent at this point. People either don’t know Oculus exists, or if they do, they associate it with some far flung future technology that can’t realistically be achieved in the present, or previous, failed attempts at bringing VR or 3D to the masses.

If Oculus wants to actually send a message to people beyond the traditional tech savvy people, then The Game Awards would be a great platform to do so- as mentioned above, the mainstream casual customer, who purchases an Xbox or a PlayStation for their annual dosage of FIFA, Madden, Call of Duty, and Assassin’s Creed, is the kind of person who will be tuning into the event. If ever Oculus had a chance of ensuring some kind of break out success for their product, beyond their corest of the core niches, The Game Awards is it.

FAR CRY PRIMAL

Again, this one isn’t a prediction, but an expectation, and one we hold because it has been explicitly confirmed that we will be seeing the game at The Game Awards this year. Far Cry Primal was revealed earlier this year as a prehistoric Far Cry, which just sounds like the most ridiculously awesome thing ever. I mean, the kind of ridiculous and over the top action that Far Cry is known for, combined with the ridiculously awesome (and underutilized in games!) setting of a prehistoric earth? What could possibly be better?

The only blemish on the hype so far is that we have not yet seen the game- and thankfully, that will change this Thursday evening. Far Cry Primal will have its world premier at The Game Awards, meaning we finally get to see the kind of insanity that Ubisoft has been cooking up. Plus, since the game is targeted only for current gen platforms – no PS3 and Xbox 360 versions like with Far Cry 4 – we’ll be able to see what a Far Cry game not held back by the limitations of a ten year old hardware spec can really be like.

Can’t wait.

NINTENDO

Nintendo owned the show last year at The Game Awards- they took the stage to show off Super Mario Maker, they took the stage to show off Codename STEAM, and, in an incredibly unexpected turn of events, they also had the world premier of the gameplay for the upcoming Wii U Legend of Zelda game at the show. It was insane, and it was something else entirely.

Which is why expectations are high from them this year. Nintendo have already confirmed that they will have something at the event (plus we also know that The Game Awards will have some kind of memorial for the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who passed away earlier this year). The question is, exactly what could this showing consist of? We know it’s not the NX, because Geoff Keighley clearly shot that possibility down. So what could this be? Star Fox? Another look at Zelda? Cloud in Smash Bros.?

It could be anything at this point, which is why this is so exciting. We don’t know yet what Nintendo is planning- but since they’re so inherently unpredictable, it will be exciting to see what they have to show on Thursday.

METAL GEAR SOLID V CHAPTER 3

The Metal Gear Solid V ruse cruise has been something else entirely (as you probably know if you’ve been following the coverage on GamingBolt!) The highly anticipated game was launched earlier this year, to massive backlash from fans, in spite of critics loving it- an obviously incomplete story, along with liberties taken with the series canon, as well as a second half of the game being rushed, all formed a witch’s brew of clearly undesirable elements for fans.

A lot of these fans refused to believe that this could be it- with Kojima apparently fired from Konami, they refused to believe that Metal Gear Solid V as it exists could be the end of their beloved saga. So they took to mining and honeycombing for all sorts of hints and teases in a way that only Metal Gear fans can do. From datamining hidden files that hinted at something more coming, to leaked lists of missions, to something that hinted at an entire Chapter 3 having once been planned for the game, they were desperate for any evidence that there was more to The Phantom Pain than what they had.

And you know what? Against all odds, they may have been right! Look, Hideo Kojima is almost certainly going to be at The Game Awards, as is Keifer Sutherland- why would these people attend the show? Kojima might even be there to accept an award should his game win one, but why Sutherland? He hasn’t been nominated in any category, he has no reason to be there. Unless- unless there is more to their presence there. Unless we actually do learn of a Metal Gear Solid V Chapter 3 at The Game Awards this year.

Wouldn’t that be something to see.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

The Game Awards features a significantly packed line-up for this Thursday, including the premiere of Far Cry Primal’s gameplay as part of its ten exclusive world premieres.

There will also be a “special announcement” concerning VR headset Oculus Rift with host Geoff Keighley stating on Twitter that Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey will be attending the show.

For now, we’ll assume that this is to announce the release date for Oculus Rift’s commercial model, which is currently pegged to be out in Q1 2016. Pre-orders for the VR headset are expected to go live before this year is out so it could be that The Game Awards marks pre-orders going live and prices being available.

What are your thoughts on Oculus Rift appearing at The Game Awards along with details on its price and availability? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for more information. The Game Awards takes place on December 3rd, 6 PM EST/9 PM PST.