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It's that time of year again. Geoff Keighley is back, with the annual event celebrating the year's best in gaming. There's plenty of awards to be given out, but also importantly, plenty of game announcements to be made. So settle in, because we'll be wrapping up every announcement made at the event. It all kicks off at 6:30 CST.

The first announcement is The Free Shepherd. You play as a sheepdog herding things. PS5 and Steam, 2027.

Donkey Kong Bananza wins best family game.

Decrepit is a first person soulslike.

Audio Mech is a new game from the AudioSurf dev. Demo available on Steam tomorrow.

Doom: The Dark Ages wins innovation in accessibility.

Guild Wars 2 is getting new content. Visions of Eternity.

Best eSports game goes to Counter-Strike 2.

Best eSports athlete: Chovy.

Best eSports team Team Vitality.

Pragmata is about a guy in a mech suit and a girl. April 24, demo today though. Coming to NS2.

Best mobile game: Umamusume.

Solasta March 12, 2026.

Tank Rat 2026.

Best indie: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Read Dead Redemption's lead desinger has a new game that's a puzzle platformer. Bradley the Badger.

Stupid Never Dies is an action game. Out 2026. Has former Capcom employees that worked on Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games.

Best adaptation: The Last of Us Season 2.

Best action game: Hades 2

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic announced. It's an RPG. Directed by Casey Hudson, KOTOR and Mass Effect director.



John Carpenter's new game has you shooting tons of zombies. March 12. Toxic Commando.

Larian has announced a new Divinity. It'll be bigger than Baldur's Gate 3.



Best performance: Jennifer English

4 Loop is a new PlayStation game, from JJ Abrams and the Left 4 Dead creator.

Coven of the Chicken Foot has you play as an old lady exploring with some monsters.

Frictional Games, creator of SOMA, Has horror sci-fi elements. Called Ontos.

Games for impact: South of Midnight

Resident Evil Requiem gets a new trailer. February 27.

Braid's creator has a new game. Has puzzle elements. Order of the Sinking Star. 2026.

Wizards of the Coast has an action-RPG. Exodus is a new game from them. Early 2027.

Warlock - Dungeons and Dragons is launching in 2027. A gameplay reveal will happen next year.

Screamer is out next year. Is a storytelling game involving racing, has anime style.

Remedy is working on a new project. Control Resonant. 2026.

Nagoshi Studio is working on Gang of Dragon.

Street Fighter is getting a movie. It'll be out next year.

Best ongoing game: No Man's Sky.

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight gets another trailer. May 29.

Best audio design: Battlefield 6

Content creator of the year: Moistcr1tikal

Best fighting game: Fatal Fury

Most anticipated game: GTA VI

Paper Trail is a slightly creepy game made by indie devs where your drawings come to life and haunt you. It's made by kids.

Tomb Raider is back. Tomb Raider Catalyst. 2027.

Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. 2026. It's a remake of the original. Crystal Dynamics is working on it.



Forest 3.

Invincible Vs. a 2D fighting game gets a new trailer. April 30.

Switch 2 exclusive title. It has coop. Orbitals.

Best action/adventure game: Hollow Knight Silksong.

Best art direction: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

Best sim: Final Fantasy Tactics

Best debut indie: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred expansion out April 28.

Marvel Rivals is getting Deadpool.

Lenny Kravitz is in 007: First Light.

Best score: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

Lords of the Fallen 2 has a gameplay trailer.

Best sports game: Mario Kart World

Best community support: Baldur's Gate 3

Best VR/AR game: The Midnight Walk

Best RPG: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

Player's voice: Wurthering Waves

Housemarque is working on Saros, out next year, with a cinematic trailer reveal tonight.

Best narrative: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

The Ascent's developers have a new game called No Law.

Best multiplayer: Arc Raiders

Total War: Warhammer: 40K revealed. Pre-alpha footage shown off.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is coming next year.

Burnout's former devs are working on a Star Wars game. Star Wars: Galactic Racer, out next year.

Co-op adventure Out of Words, a stop motion animated game.

Phantom Blade 0 is an action game out 9/9/2026. Developed by S-Game.

Best direction: Clair Obscure

Capcom is making a new 2D Mega Man game called Dual Override. Out in 2027.



Bowser Jr. makes his appearance in a new trailer for the Super Mario Galaxy Movie, out this April.

Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja show a teaser for Nioh 3. Demo out Jan 26.

The final reveal is a game that's far along in development but hasn't been leaked or shown anywhere yet. It comes from former Apex Legends developers. This is meant to push shooters as a genre. It's named High Guard. It's a shooter where you can materialize mounts and use abilities. Hero shooter elements. January 26, f2p.

GOTY: Clair Obscure: Expedition 33

 

[Kioku]

Really…? Another side scrolling mega man? Give us Legends 3 you COWARDS!

 

[Skv0ra]

Yeah I agree but in terms of being an actual RPG which is "Role Playing Games" by definition, I think an actual RPG should take the cake.

Well, in both you're role playing a set character(s), but I honestly agree that Kingdom 2 should've taken the overall cake. All for indies making fantastic games, but another Pokemon Fantasy thing vs applying poison to blades in Kingdom on top of literally being able to poison entire enemy camps and all that...and then the actually unique combat system and how the whole presentation MADE you be interested in the medieval history snore setting it is outside of engaging writing (lets assume you skipped the first game, like I).

Obscur is that anime appeal, and fucken turn-based combat all over again - flashy flashy approach to an outdated formula.

Post automatically merged: Dec 12, 2025

Really…? Another side scrolling mega man? Give us Legends 3 you COWARDS!

Oh, here I agree as well! Give us more convoluted, alt-story madness and in 3D!

 

[mituzora]

*sees new mega man game in description*
*gets hopes up of a new mega man, or something in the X/Legends series*
*sees that it's just OG Mega man*
*dies a little inside*
sigh...I'm not gonna complain because mega man, is mega man, but like I'm so sick of the mainline blue bomber. Give me a game in a different subseries, like come on.

 

[Xzi]

Obscur is that anime appeal, and fucken turn-based combat all over again - flashy flashy approach to an outdated formula.

The aesthetic isn't remotely anime, it's very much high fantasy, and that's probably what got it the win over a more grounded medieval game like KCD2. Each and every environment is so unique and gorgeous to look at, and it's the one UE5 game that actually runs well on top of that.

 

[SecureBoot]

Guess I need to actually play expedition 33. I played about 30 minutes back in the summer then got distracted

 

[jesus96]

A new MegaMan was really unexpected and the name is curious with the "double" and the protoman whistle makes me think it's going to have some kind of co-op,very neat a shame for a 2027 release because both characters are coming to sonic crossworlds next year

 

[Skv0ra]

The aesthetic isn't remotely anime, it's very much high fantasy, and that's probably what got it the win over a more grounded medieval game like KCD2. Each and every environment is so unique and gorgeous to look at, and it's the one UE5 game that actually runs well on top of that.

But you can't make the combat, which is THE main focus of well, most damn games RPGs or not, work the way you want, right? That was my point - Kingdom 2 made approaching most/all game aspects so open-ended that the rest just blended in and didn't have you asking for more visual diversity or much else to be different. Hell, having to play other characters was that heart-rate jump enough knowing it would be outside of your existing build and approach.

 

[DragonMals]

Congrats for 33 for winning most of the stuff, and I am SO looking forward to the new Mega Man game after so long. Ever since they've done the StarForce collection hype talking about the characters from the first StarForce (even mentioning the forgotten one Pat Springs), I knew that Capcom was finally back.

2025 was definitely a year for gaming.

 

[Xzi]

But you can't make the combat, which is THE main focus of well, most damn games RPGs or not, work the way you want, right?

You can, each character's can be spec'd down four different skill paths or a hybrid of two or more, and they all have different synergies with other characters' skills in your party. The parry system also makes combat much more engaging than other JRPGs, very satisfying to get the timing perfect given all the wildly varying enemy attack animations. Nothing wrong with having a preference for real-time combat, but Expedition 33 does turn-based as well as it has ever been done before. A modern-day Chrono Trigger, if you will.

 

[Viri]

I actually tried to play Obscure: Expedition 33, but it just kept crashing my PC. My PC could handle it, but I'm on Linux. So, I refunded it. Maybe I'll try it again some day in the future, in hopes of it not crashing my PC.

I bet Ubisoft feels real silly now.

 

[Xzi]

I actually tried to play Obscure: Expedition 33, but it just kept crashing my PC. My PC could handle it, but I'm on Linux. So, I refunded it. Maybe I'll try it again some day in the future, in hopes of it not crashing my PC.

I bet Ubisoft feels real silly now.

Odd, it works even on Steam Deck (albeit with some FPS drops of course).

 

[linuxares]

I actually tried to play Obscure: Expedition 33, but it just kept crashing my PC. My PC could handle it, but I'm on Linux. So, I refunded it. Maybe I'll try it again some day in the future, in hopes of it not crashing my PC.

I bet Ubisoft feels real silly now.

I run it fine on Linux but I use the CachyOS Proton for it to work.

 

[Ambers_Crimson_8K]

*sees new mega man game in description*
*gets hopes up of a new mega man, or something in the X/Legends series*
*sees that it's just OG Mega man*
*dies a little inside*
sigh...I'm not gonna complain because mega man, is mega man, but like I'm so sick of the mainline blue bomber. Give me a game in a different subseries, like come on.

So I'm not the only one that saw it was the same Mega Man, lol...
I guess I've played them all and wasn't impressed with this one.
It basically looked Just like a mixture of MM11 and MMX mixed together!

Expedition 33, deserves all the praise, that game brought be back to loving games after a long hiatus of boredom.
Music, Gameplay and Story were all amazing! And love the characters and their designs.

 

[LightBeam]

Haven't played Clair Obscur yet and I'm sure the game is really really great, but nobody will convince me there's no crazy astroturfing going on. It's the perfect Geoffslop, It even won the fking Indie award but still had Kepler Interactive credited when they were on stage, they aren't even hiding it like they were for Dave the Diver.
Call me crazy but I just see it as a godsend for publishers who see that kind of games as a way to escape the AAA bubble that's popping rn


Also Arc Raiders got robbed, but we know what kind of people the jury are. It's not surprising in the slightest. This year was pretty mid, no real exciting news for me except maybe Tomb Raider ? Even tho there were leaks.

Anyway, still didn't top the time when The Finals showed a trailer and immediately released the game when they were expected to just give a date. And "Highguard" has a fraction of my interest simply because it's a multiplayer FPS, but it's a bit weird how Geoff was so excited about it and sure, it's cool that they've developed it in secret (reminds me of Apex Legends) but what they've shown doesn't say what it is about. I was wondering if it was a roguelite ? Coop ? PvP ? Battleroyale ? Extraction ? Hero shooter ? Persistent ? None of them answered.
I'll try it if it's F2P, but I already have more than enough on my plate. I'm not going to spend that much energy trying to know a game that doesn't seem to be interested in telling me clearly what it's trying to be. Not that I want it to be of any particular genre, there are so few games that are actually innovative and most people don't want to reward innovation, but at least tell me what the hell is the goal.

and it's the one UE5 game that actually runs well on top of that.

I wish it wasn't artifacting like the rest of them, the technical aspect isn't worthy of praise really, even tho it's better than a lot of UE5 games (not to say most of them)

 

[lolcatzuru]

I actually tried to play Obscure: Expedition 33, but it just kept crashing my PC. My PC could handle it, but I'm on Linux. So, I refunded it. Maybe I'll try it again some day in the future, in hopes of it not crashing my PC.

I bet Ubisoft feels real silly now.

that would imply they are people and not heartless puppets

 

[raxadian]

Let's see how rigged the awards are this year.

Nintendo won two awards so the usual.

Silksong won something.

Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 won so much people will joke about it.

 

[Francie]

Is it just me or... NoLaw's assets (characters, objetc, lighting, doors, walls, everything) looked identical to Cyberpunk 2077?

it's just you

 

[Ethelbert]

Overall a bit disappointing.
Needed at least one more big hype thing.
Showing Divinity gameplay and that it is a Witcher 3-style AAA open world, third person RPG, for example.

 

[RokkumanX]

40 year old me should be happy for a announcement of a new Mega Man game but somehow since Mega Man 11 and in later years the novelty have kinda worn off.

 

[doorbell8423]

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