We’re in the final hours before Geoff Keighley serves up his annual helping of awards and trailers for our enjoyment. The Game Awards are upon us and the pre-show speculation is a-plenty: What’s taking home the big prize? Which big series is making its grand return? Is Kojima gonna show up with a bizarre trailer? These are all questions that will eventually be answered by scrolling down and reading our live feed of The Game Awards as it happens.

The Game Awards are kicking off at 4:30 PM PT, beginning with a 30-minute preshow that will roll into the awards proper at 5 PM. That preshow usually involves its own slate of new game announcements, so we’ll be covering that, too.

If you want to keep up with the show without watching the livestream, just keep this page open. (It’s embedded above if you do decide to tune in.) I’m Morgan and I’ll be your skipper tonight. Let’s get started.

Everything that’s confirmed

As Geoff Keighley is wont to do, The Game Awards social media channels have been teasing and confirming a number of appearances at tonight’s show to drum up excitement.

• The future of Tomb Raider: Leaks indicate this could be a remake of the original Tomb Raider, a new Lara Croft adventure, or both
• A “terrifying new look” at Resident Evil Requiem: Leaked art suggests that Capcom is finally ready to tell us Leon Kennedy is in this game.
• Exodus: The third TGA appearance from the sci-fi RPG coming from ex-Bioware devs. This is the game that Matthew McConaughey introduced in 2023.
• The next game from Neon Giant, the studio that made that neat cyberpunk shooter The Ascent.

Good afternoon folks! Staff writer Morgan Park reporting for live blog duties. We’ll be updating this feed throughout the night with the biggest announcements from the awards, surprises, and obligatory celebrity appearances.

Care to watch the show for yourself tonight? Here’s how and where to watch The Game Awards live. Reminder: The preshow starts at 4:30 PM PT with a 30-minute preshow.

Statue mystery solved?

In case you missed the hullabaloo, Keighley tweeted out the coordinates of a mysterious statue placed in the California desert. Folks immediately got to work guessing what game it’s alluding to: God of War? Nope. Diablo? Not according to Blizzard. Elden Ring? Possible.

Then, another trademark-related leak seemed to spoil the mystery. A new listing for “Divinity” has appeared alongside a symbol that’s a dead ringer for the intimidating desert statue. So Larian’s next game might be at the show?

The rumors and anticipated “surprises”

There’s a fair bit of buzz around a potential Control sequel, Diablo 4 happenings, and that Assassin’s Creed 4 remake that keeps leaking. Here’s what we’ve got for now:

• Death Stranding 2: On The Beach PC — A recent ESRB rating suggests this is coming sooner than later. And it’d be a good excuse for Geoff’s friend Hideo to make an appearance.
• Control: Resonant — A trademark filing has kicked off the buzz around the next chapter of Control.
• Diablo 4 expansion — Blizzard recently urged Diablo 4 players to watch The Game Awards in the same breath that it dodged questions about its next expansion, so do with that information what you will.
• Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake — The existence of a remake for the 2013 Assassin’s Creed game has leaked so many times at this point, it just feels correct that it was always the plan to wait for the biggest stage of the year.
• Max Payne Remake — If Control 2 is a thing, maybe Remedy will have updates about the Max Payne remake it announced years ago? Don’t worry, I forgot about it, too.

A quick reminder of the GOTY nominees

This year’s GOTY ballot is a decent spread of big-budget and indies. The favorite by far is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which is neat, because very few of us even knew what that game was a year ago.

• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
• Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
• Donkey Kong Bananza
• Hades 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

I suppose Silksong is the natural runner-up, though once the dust settled on its highly-anticipated release, it seems like most agreed it was essentially more and better Hollow Knight. Ditto for Death Stranding 2 and Hades—perhaps the nature of additive sequels play against award odds.

Personally, I’m pulling for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, another sequel, but to a game that didn’t really break into the mainstream back in 2017. It’s sprawling RPG that feels like a modern Oblivion in a grounded historical setting, and I love it to bits.

Looks like Muppets are back on the menu…

30 minutes until (pre)showtime

The proper stage show is still an hour out, but the preshow starts soon. Over the years, the preshow have gotten pretty eventful. They tend to have a decent helping of new trailers and even awards, so it’s worth watching.