On Tuesday, Geoff Keighley announced the nominees for the 2019 Game Awards. The nominees for Game of the Year are Death Stranding, The Outer Worlds, Control, Super Smash Bros: Ultimate, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Resident Evil 2. But which games are most likely to win? And what will be the biggest announcements of the show this year?
The Game Awards are hosted by Geoff Keighley and are the continuation of the Spike VGAs after they were taken off the air. The 2019 event is taking place on December 12 and will honor games in over a dozen categories. Last year, God of War took home Game of the Year. The show also includes categories for Content Creator of the Year and multiple Esports awards including Best Esports Player.
However, most of the show in recent years has been dedicated to World Premieres and new game reveals. The Game Awards has become the place for end of the year announcements. As the industry has trended away from saving a majority of releases for the holiday season, a greater number of publishers have early 2020 games they need to start hyping up.
Which New Games Will Show up?
Every year, games get announced at The Game Awards and this year it seems many are still a secret. Last year, The Outer Worlds was announced and now it's a nominee in multiple categories including Game of the Year. Bioware showed a teaser for Dragon Age 4 last year and not much has been heard of that game since, so maybe it will get a follow up trailer this year.
As of the time of this writing, there are only two confirmed World Premieres for the 2019 Game Awards. And they are both Microsoft projects. Shortly after Microsoft's X019 event, Keighley confirmed that two Microsoft games would be getting exclusive looks on The Game Awards livestream. The show will be streamed live on Youtube, Twitch, Mixer, and other major social and gaming platforms.
The first is Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the follow up to the once-exclusive indie Ori and the Blind Forest. The original game was heralded as a beautiful Metroidvania with a great soundtrack and was one of the best Xbox One exclusives when it first launched. Will of the Wisps is coming exclusively to Xbox and Windows in February 2020.
The second game Microsoft is showing is Gears Tactics. This XCOM inspired take on the Gears franchise has been dormant since being announced at E3 2018. There has not yet been an extended gameplay demo, or really much gameplay at all, shown so this will definitely be a first look at what exactly to expect from Gears Tactics. The World Premiere may also confirm a release date.
If Microsoft is running the show, it would make sense to see a lot at an Obsidian project. The team is already up for many awards for The Outer Worlds and we know they are working on more RPGs. In terms of other announcements, The Game Awards have been historically kind to Batman: Arkham developer Rocksteady, and for years, rumors circulate that their new game will be at the show. Hopefully, this is the year for that announcement.
Which Games Will Win Big?
When it comes to what is likely to be the big winner of this year's Game Awards, there's a couple reasons Death Stranding is looking pretty. There isn't quite anything else like it, and for some that has made it Kojima's best game, but it also the most divisive release from Kojima yet. But among the nominees, it had the most nominations with almost every category it could qualify for including Best Narrative and Best Action-Adventure Game, and two in the category of Best Performance for both Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelson.
There is also the strange coincidence that Geoff Keighley, host and creator of The Game Awards, is in Death Stranding. Final voting is based mostly on a blend of a jury of 80 leading outlets and influencers, with 10% sway going to the fan vote online, so it's not like Keighley has final say over what wins. But the public friendship between Keighley and Kojima should not go unnoticed.
With regards to other nominees, and categories Death Stranding may not win, Outer Wilds has a good chance of taking home the Best Independent Game award, as it was also nominated in other categories including Best Game Direction. Another surprisingly strong independent showing on the list is Disco Elysium. This computer RPG was nominated for Best Narrative as well as Best RPG and Independent Game and has a very good chance of winning multiple of these categories.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate technically came out in 2018, but missed the cut off for nominations last year. The fact that the game is up for Game of the Year and the frontrunner in many other categories (including the Nintendo dominated Best Family Game) is a testament to how well Nintendo has been supporting it, and the job the community has done making it one of the top fighting games of 2019.
There are enough games represented to display the diversity of 2019 as a year for video games, but some releases like the recent Pokemon Sword and Shield and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order are noticeably absent. Perhaps the jury didn't quite get enough time with these before making their initial lists or perhaps the technical issues both games are facing is what's holding them back. It does seem unlikely that these two games would show up in next year's batch of nominees, though. With The Game Awards only a few weeks off now, it is once again time to transition out of heavy release season back into the news cycle for the games of early 2020.
The Game Awards 2019 will take place on December 12, 2019.