The Game Awards 2024: Your guide to the biggest night of news in gaming
The Game Awards 2024 is on its 10th year of celebrating not just the games that we play but the people who make those games. It’s like the Oscars for video games, with categories that include Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Performance and many, many more — all of which we’ll be adding to this article as the nominees are announced and the winners are crowned.
The show is also packed with news, reveals, and trailers. Don't worry, we also gave you a live rundown of the show right in this post as it happened, just in case you miss out.
Check out all of our coverage, including some wonderful features, below.
The winners

Astrobot takes home four Game Awards, including Game of the Year
Unreal Engine games celebrated at The Game Awards 2024
The news
Thick As Thieves trailer delights
Thick As Thieves is the next game from Warren Spector and Paul Neurath's studio, OtherSide Entertainment. Spector and Neurath's decades-long history in the industry includes games like the Thief series, Deus Ex, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and more, and they're joined by a team of industry veterans including Greg LoPiccolo (Thief: Deadly Shadows) and David McDonough (XCOM: Chimera Squad).
The team is putting their immersive sim chops to use, but with a twist. The first trailer for Thick As Thieves began with two words and a phrase: Immersive. Multiplayer. In a living world. The trailer showed off The Spider, The Hood, The Chameleon—an eye-catching cast of characters parkouring around an alt-history city where magic and technology coexist, just like the blend of stealth, simulation, and multiplayer do in this unique game.
For more on Thick As Thieves, don’t miss our interview with its developers, including Spector, LoPiccolo and McDonough.
Excited? Now go read our interview about the game.
The Witcher IV surprise-opens the show
The Witcher is back, but different. Developer CD Projekt Red had already told players that The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt would be longtime protagonist Geralt's last outing, and they stuck to it. In The Witcher IV, the titular Witcher is a woman—specifically Ciri, Geralt's adopted daughter, who players of The Witcher 3 will remember well.
In The Witcher IV's debut trailer, Ciri arrives in a village to save a woman being sacrificed. Ciri grabs her sword and walks into a dark forest full of leafless trees to confront and conquer something evil, something monstrous, something that will soon be dead.
“There are no gods here,” Ciri says to the ungrateful villagers at the end of the trailer, carrying the head of the horrible thing she killed. “There are only monsters.”
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is headed to PC
It’s official: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is coming to PC on Jan. 23, 2025. If you'd like to get caught up on the story ahead of launch, head over to the Epic Games Store and pick up Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, the first part of Square Enix's epic remake of 1997’s Final Fantasy VII.
The next game from Ico's creator gets an evocative debut
The Game Awards debuted the next game from genDESIGN, the studio founded by video game designer and director Fumito Ueda of Team ICO, creators of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian, the latter of which became a genDESIGN project after the team departed Sony.
It's apparent from the debut trailer that something’s gone wrong. There’s a ground zero. There’s an evacuation zone. There’s a countdown to disaster. A mysterious character climbs up what at first looks like a rock outcropping, but it becomes clear that it’s actually a gigantic robot. As a black tsunami of who-knows-what almost overtakes the duo, the caped character scrambles into the robot's giant head, which detaches and flies up to apparent safety—just in time.
It's an evocative first look. The game is being published by Epic Games, as part of a string of multiplatform partnerships announced in 2020 with developers including Playdead (Inside, Limbo), Remedy Entertainment (Alan Wake, Alan Wake 2, Control), and genDESIGN. Make sure you check out our dive into the history of genDESIGN to understand why you are or should be so excited.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII arrives Feb. 11, 2025 with crossplay
A live orchestra and chorus performed the theme to Sid Meier’s Civilization® VII, and as they built to a closing crescendo, the big reveal appeared on a screen mid-stage: the game will release on Feb. 11, 2025 and support cross-platform crossplay.
For more on the game, be sure to read our hands-on impressions with the new historical sandbox and dive into some of the revolutionary changes coming to the series. You can also wishlist Sid Meier’s Civilization® VII on the Epic Games Store.
Split Fiction blends co-op, sci-fi, fantasy, and hot dogs
Hazelight Studios founder Josef Fares walked out onto the stage, swore like a sailor (as he tends to do at awards shows) and announced the co-op adventure game Split Fiction at The Game Awards 2024.
Split Fiction follows Mia and Zoe, two characters who accidentally wind up as players in a game-within-a-game simulation. Split Fiction blends fantasy and sci-fi, alternating between levels. Each level also has a unique mechanic, like the one that starts with hatching a dragon egg and ends with full-fledged fire-breathing monsters. Another level has droids that operate first like pinballs and later like exosuits. There are also hot dogs for some reason. He didn’t really want to talk about it.
Fares also stressed that you only have to buy one copy to play with a friend when Split Fiction launches March 6, 2025.
Hazelight Studios is an independent developer based in Stockholm, Sweden. The developers are known for their well-received co-op games It Takes Two and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, the latter of which got a 2024 remake that resurrected the indie classic.
Killing Floor 3’s beta is imminent
Killing Floor 3 is getting a beta in March 2025. The trailer for the wildly gory sequel from developer Tripwire Interactive was filled with genetically modified zombie-like Zeds and gallons upon gallons of blood.
Be sure to read our feature story that dives into Killing Floor 3’s unreal upgrades and gory gameplay and wishlist Killing Floor 3 in the Epic Games Store.
FragPunk hits March 6, 2025
FragPunk is a new 5v5 first-person shooter that features 10 heroes, 15 guns, and most importantly more than 70 Shard Cards that completely change the flow of combat. Today's trailer revealed that FragPunk will release on March 6, 2025, and showed off a bunch of those card effects, including World Flip, which instantly turns the entire map upside down. Trippy!
Borderlands 4 gets a new in-game trailer, 2025 release window
Borderlands 4—which the developers at Gearbox Software told us will be the best Borderlands game to-date—showed up at The Game Awards 2024 with a CG trailer full of sci-fi menaces. Then it transitioned to some Borderlands 4 gameplay footage, highlighting a bunch of locations and characters (including the always-annoying Claptrap) all rendered in the familiar cel shaded style. The trailer then ended with a release window in 2025.
It's been a big year for Borderlands, with Borderlands 4 first appearing during Gamescom Opening Night Live with a mysterious announcement trailer, and the often-shocking franchise expanding beyond the confines of consoles and PCs with the Borderlands movie. For more on Borderlands, be sure to read our interview with Gearbox Software founder and Borderlands creator Randy Pitchford, in which he tells the story of how a crazy pitch became a video game megahit and movie.
You can wishlist Borderlands 4 on the Epic Games Store ahead of its 2025 release.
Splitgate 2 is all about the portals in 2025
A trailer for Splitgate 2, the upcoming 4v4 free-to-play shooter from developer 1047 Games, showed off its gunplay, movement, and (most importantly) portals, which will propel players through walls and floors and high into the air upon the game’s release in 2025.
For more on Splitgate 2, be sure to read our hands-on impressions of this love letter to arena shooters of yore. You can also wishlist Splitgate 2 in the Epic Games Store.
Warframe 1999 hits Dec. 13, 2024
Warframe 1999, developer Digital Extremes’ latest expansion for its action role-playing/third-person shooter hybrid, will release the day after The Game Awards on Dec. 13, 2024.
As you might expect, Warframe 1999 takes players back to the past—but in the final Warframe 1999 trailer at The Game Awards 2024 we finally learned how. Apparently there’s a strange, plant-like outbreak permeating the world of Warframe, which traps players in a motorcycle-infused (and relatively low-tech) 1999.
You can download Warframe for free in the Epic Games Store.
Dying Light: The Beast arrives in summer 2025
A trailer for Dying Light: The Beast, the upcoming zombie-filled action game from the developers at Techland, shows how a game that began as DLC then expanded into a standalone product.
In Dying Light: The Beast, you play as Kyle “Hero of Harran” Crane, protagonist of the original Dying Light, who’s been held against his will and experimented on for more than a decade now. Now it’s time to seek your revenge and hunt your captors. The trailer at The Game Awards showed Crane’s break-out, killing zombies in the woods, parkouring onto their heads amid the ruins, and even setting enemies ablaze with a blowtorch.
You can wishlist Dying Light: The Beast in the Epic Games Store today—and check out our initial impressions from Gamescom 2024.
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered heads to PC on April 3, 2025
The Last of Us Part 2 is coming to PC at long last. Originally released in 2020 (and then remastered for PlayStation 5 last year), developer Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 2 picks up four years after the events of the original and continues the brutal and bloody journey through this post-apocalyptic world.
You can also find the first game, The Last of Us Part I, in the Epic Games Store.
Screamer remade
Screamer, the racing game originally released for DOS in 1995, is getting a remake thanks to the racing-centric publisher Milestone. Today's trailer at The Game Awards sets up a high-stakes race—it's not just about winning, but about life and death.
In 2022, developer Graffiti released a version of the original Screamer, available in the Epic Games Store, if you want to check out the classic ahead of the remake.
Major updates coming to Zenless Zone Zero and Honkai: Star Rail
We got a pair of back-to-back Hoyoverse updates during The Game Awards 2024.
A trailer for Zenless Zone Zero teased the launch of Version 1.4, titled A Storm of Falling Stars and which is set for release on Dec. 18, 2024. The highlight? In-game celebrity Astra Yao finally makes an appearance—and might be playable? Hard to tell from the trailer, but huge news for ZZZ fans.
Meanwhile, Honkai: Star Rail showed off its 3.0 update, which arrives in January and takes players to the hidden land of Amphoreus, and adds new character Castorice.
The entertainment
Statler and Waldorf, the infamous Muppet hecklers, interrupted Keighley early in the night, roasting him and his hosting skills, they even managed to squeeze in a jab about selling out.
Harrison Ford made a surprise appearance, presenting alongside Troy Baker who plays the title character (and sports Harrison Ford's likeness) in the just-released Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Snoop Dogg and his son, Cordell Broadus—the founders of Death Row Games—took to The Game Awards stage together to announce the winner of the Best Ongoing Game category, Helldivers 2. “This year, my father and I launched Death Row Games with the dream of bringing minority stories to the gaming world,” Broadus said. “We intend to create a hip-hop gaming universe that can stand beside some of these nominees tonight.” A few minutes later, Snoop took the stage to perform some hits, including "Gin and Juice," and a song from his upcoming album Missionary, out tomorrow.The stories
Creators of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian show new game
Thick As Thieves wants you to embrace creativity in a multiplayer immersive sim
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is officially coming to PC and the Epic Games Store
The Best Fortnite Islands

It’s time to vote for this year’s best Fortnite Island for The Game Awards
The Nominees
ASTRO Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth tie for most 2024 Game Awards nominations