Astro Bot has done the unthinkable. Team Asobi’s platforming masterpiece snatched victory from the claws of China’s ravenous fanbases, installing itself as the definitive Game of the Year for 2024. But that’s not why you’re here. The Game Awards have since proven itself to be more than just a celebratory pat on the back for all the developers involved.
In years past, it’s become the go-to space for game developers looking to attract a crowd, filling the void left in the wake of our dear E3, and 2024 did not disappoint. We caught a brief glimpse of Naughty Dog’s not-The Last of Us IP, Elden Ring 1.5, whatever ‘Project Robot’ is, and the years-away render of The Witcher 4‘s glorious trailer.
The Witcher IV
You best start saving up now. CD Projekt Red has finally emerged from the damp, mossy cave we imagine the company has turned into an office to unleash The Witcher IV, the previous GOTY winner’s next big thing. What immediately caught our eye wasn’t the return of Ciri as the series’ next hero, but the disclaimer in the trailer’s beginning:
“Cinematic trailer pre-rendered in Unreal Engine 5 on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU.”
If that sentence alone doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the future of the series, you haven’t been paying attention. No release date (or even window) was mentioned, leading us to believe we might have another Cyberpunk 2077 situation on our hands. What we do know, is that CD Projekt Red is cooking, claiming The Witcher IV to be “the most immersive and ambitious open-world Witcher game to date.”
We see Ciri doing all the usual Witcher things – attempting to save a village from horrors unknown, drinking Cat potions, and showing off her Ghost Rider-esque chains. Don’t expect the actual game to look like this, however. This is more akin to The Witcher III cinematic trailer and shouldn’t be taken as a sign of what’s to come, graphics-wise. The tone, themes, and general vibes, however. Expect that in spades by the time IV is ready.
Project: Robot
If scaling a giant beast, set against the backdrop of some fantastic score, only to be the deciding factor of that very beast’s death has proven to be a teary subject for you in the past (ala Shadow of the Colossus), you might want to look away from GenDesign’s next big thing, likely code-named Project: Robot (final name to be decided).
In regular Fumito Ueda fashion, Project: Robot feels calculated to get the waterworks going, despite having no connections to the main character or the larger-than-life robot whose head he rides into inky blackness with, likely saving it from the oncoming horde of… what were those things? Whatever the case, Ueda appears to be drawing our attention to saving these mechanical critters, rather than banishing them to the shadow realm.
And… that’s it. In typical Game Award fashion, GenDesign failed to provide us with much other news other than the fact it’s got Epic Games backing its development. There’s no release date attached, either, so don’t expect one any time soon. Ueda is a perfectionist in his own right and has earned our faith, time notwithstanding.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet
Is anyone else noticing a trend here? Naughty Dog was another big what-if ahead of the Game Awards, and it did not disappoint – unless you were hoping for a follow-up to The Last of Us II. Neil Druckmann instead spent the last few years working on something wholly new (and oddly sci-fi), arriving in the form of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
The trailer doesn’t give much away in the four minutes we did get to see. We know it’s another expedition deep into the realm of motion capture, starring Tati Gabrielle as the MC – Jordan, Kumail Najiani as… someone, and Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) in the background. Fortunately, Naughty Dog’s PR team are far more forgiving, offering a sliver of information for us to latch onto.
“Intergalactic stars our newest protagonist, Jordan A. Mun, a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria – a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago. In fact, anyone who’s flown to it hoping to unravel its mysterious past was never heard from again. Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave its orbit.”
Again, there’s no sort of release pinned down, although ND did confirm this would be a PS5 exclusive. Druckmann reckons he’s spent the better part of four years developing Intergalactic, so a release could be closer than we think. Oh, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are developing the score. That’s a big win.
Elden Ring: Nightreign
Arguably the most surprising and interesting trailer of the evening was Elden Ring: Nightreign, which exists despite FromSoftware’s insistence that the Elden Ring name was by all accounts dead and buried at the company after Shadow of the Erdtree. We’re not complaining. We’re more wondering: what the hell is Nightreign?
To answer your question, it’s Elden Ring – thrown into a hodgepodge of all FromSoftware’s former IPs. Trick weapons from Bloodborne? Yup. Sekiro’s movement and parry system? Of course. The Nameless King from Dark Souls 3? You weren’t just seeing things. It’s a truly bizarre idea and one that takes the novelty even further by making it a co-op, PvE survival game (solo is allowed).
Players choose from eight unique characters and team up against the newly remixed map of Limgrave (now called Limveld), featuring randomised events and enemies over three in-game days. Each night will see players face off against a boss which will subsequently shrink the map and up the difficulty. Finally, on the third night, they’ll face off against the “chosen Nightguard” – a seemingly more powerful boss whose death ends the session.
It’s arriving on all the usual platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. It’ll arrive sometime in 2025 as a standalone spin-off to Elden Ring.
You can check out all the winners and nominees of this year’s Game Awards right here, or revisit the livestream to see what else was announced.
