The Game Awards celebrated their tenth anniversary when they aired last week on Thursday, December 12th. And truly, Geoff Keighley and all the coordinators pulled out all of the stops. There was no shortage of game announcements or surprise winners or surprise guests that happened. And it broke viewership records, too!
In absolutely no particular order, here are our five favorite reveals that happened at the 2024 Game Awards
Harrison Ford, the GOAT, shows up, does GOAT-y things
Listen. Harrison Ford can do whatever he wants. He's Harrison Ford. He's definitely a full-blown grumpy old man, but he absolutely still has a soft spot for Indiana Jones.
You can tell just by the grin on his face as he walks out to a standing ovation, gives us the patented Harrison Ford finger wag, pokes fun at Troy Baker (who does an excellent Indiana Jones voice for The Great Circle), and waves dismissively at the teleprompter to just get to the nominees for best performance.
Our first look at The Witcher 4
If you had asked people before The Game Awards what they thought we'd hear about during the presentation, I don't think The Witcher 4 would have been on their lists.
But CD Projekt Red gave us our first cinematic trailer for The Witcher 4 and we get to play as Ciri. Who looks fantastic and Witcher-y and a great successor to Geralt. This has the perfect amount of story, combat, and consequences that you'd expect from a Witcher game.
And it's just a teaser trailer.
Naughty Dog's next project
It was very much a night of big reveals, as we also got the reveal for Naughty Dog's next project: Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Naughty Dog's last game was The Last of Us Part II, which released in 2020. We haven't heard anything from the developer since its release, and it was kind of a relief to see it being something completely different and not just more TLOU or Uncharted (as excellent as those would be).
While it doesn't give us much to go on for right now, it's enough to pique our interest and see what they may reveal in the coming months.
The Muppets hanging out and being their Muppet-y selves
I'm still angry at Disney for announcing the closure of Muppet*Vision 3D, so to see Statler and Waldorf heckling Geoff Keighley to start the evening felt like a soothing balm on a burn.
But honestly the highlight had to be Gonzo going full Sunny on Keighley regarding chickens in video games. I think he really has some fair points...
Balatro winning best indie game and best debut indie
It's not just a poker game, despite its looks. Balatro launched in February of this year and took the internet by storm over the last couple of months. Being nominated for Game of the Year only heightened the spotlight focused on it, and it's well-deserved. Think of it as a roguelike poker game; there's still some luck to playing, but you'll be surprised how easy it is to get sucked into the gameplay and just try one more round to see if you can beat the next run.
While Balatro didn't win GOTY, it did win Best Indie Game and Best Indie Debut, and that's impressive because it's made by one guy, LocalThunk, who went to the Game Awards anonymously. He deserves the wins. The game is awesome, and we're glad to see it get the recognition it deserves.
What were your favorite moments from the 2024 Game Awards? Let us know in the comments!