Kudos to Geoff Keighley, host and creator of The Game Awards. He promised a memorable night celebrating the 10th anniversary of the showcase/awards hybrid show, and the biggest promoter in gaming delivered. Game Awards 2024 was filled with major announcements, including the return of beloved franchises, surprise announcements, and a few new IPs to keep things fresh.

While various awards were handed out (congrats to Astro Bot for winning GOTY), viewers were treated to everything from an exciting preview of the world of The Witcher 4 to a surprise reveal of a new co-op survival game set in the world of Elden Ring, and enjoyed a wide range of “world premieres,” from the first look at PlayStation's crown jewel, developer Naughty Dog's next game, “Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet” (odd name, but it looks pretty awesome).

In fact, there were so many spectacular announcements at this year's game show that it was very easy to miss something.

The Game Awards 2024 began very strongly with the first trailer for The Witcher 4. This completely cinematic unveiling confirmed that Siri is the protagonist this time around, and she is taking a page from Geralt's book to become a professional monster hunter like her (adopted) father.The six-minute trailer set the mood, and the Witcher's grim, dark world was beautifully rendered. Sharp-eyed viewers may have noticed text at the bottom confirming that the trailer was pre-rendered on an unreleased Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU.

While From Software's popular Souls games have traditionally had cooperative elements (with the exception of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), the acclaimed Japanese developer is looking to bring full multiplayer to the next installment in the Elden Ring franchise Trying to make it happen, “Elden Ring: Nightreign” is a standalone (not DLC for the base game), with three players adventuring through a remixed “Lands Between” and hunting down fearsome foes. This mix of battle royale and survival elements is not a perfect “Elden Ring 2,” but it is sure to offer the same intoxicating gameplay of risk and reward. It will be released in 2025.

Fumito Ueda is the developer of video game cult classics Ico, Wanda and the Colossus, and The Last Guardian, and during The Game Awards 2024, Ueda and his team at GenDesign confirmed that their next project is in active development. The project is currently untitled, and a short teaser reveals little. The story involves a young boy climbing on top of a large robot and rocketing out of the head of a towering mecha. We have no idea what this game will be like, but it certainly looks like something Ueda would make, for better or worse.

Hazelight, the team behind “A Way Out” and “It Takes Two,” continues to make cooperative-only games with “Split Fiction.” In “Split Fiction,” which is a bit like the latter, you (and your chosen collaborator) play a pair of writers. The twist is that one of you writes science fiction and the other fantasy, and the two genres merge in an unexpected way. Split Fiction will be released in March 2025.

The “Borderlands” franchise needs a bit of rehabilitation after the disastrous summer release of the “Borderlands” movie, but this fourth installment in the popular loot shooter series is likely to get the series back on track. Borderlands 4 is very similar to Borderlands 3, but it looks a lot prettier than Borderlands 3 and adds a number of new enemies and more powerful weapons. Frankly, that's all fans can hope for in this fourth mainline film. It will also feature a new cast of Vault Hunters. It will be released sometime in 2025.

“Omuniusha: Way of the Sword” is the newest installment in this historical hack-and-slash series. To be honest, I'm not very familiar with “Ominusha” (in my defense, I wasn't even 10 years old when this franchise was in its heyday), but my colleague Jason England was so excited by this announcement that I had to add it to this list. The film's cinematic trailer suggests that it's one to keep an eye on, but the 2026 release date seems very far away.

Rumors have been circulating for months that PlayStation-owned Naughty Dog was developing a new original sci-fi game, and it turns out that the internet whispers were correct: Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is the first game to be released since the release of ” a new franchise from the team behind “Uncharted” and “The Last of Us”. You play a cosmetic bounty hunter trapped on a dangerous planet. While the setting may sound somewhat generic, the retro-futuristic aesthetic and music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are enough to pique my interest. Plus, it's Naughty Dog, so it's bound to be spectacular.