Over the past decade, The Game Awards has become the place to reveal the most significant information about video games. Geoff Keighley’s annual gaming celebration is likely to focus as much on trailers as it does on the actual awards given out each December to game developers, streamers, esports athletes and voice actors. Publishers like to make a splash at The Game Awards, even if the games they announce are not scheduled for release for years. Hence the large trailers that rarely promise release dates.
Some games featured at The Game Awards disappear from play for uncomfortably long periods of time. Some games that were already announced or shown at The Game Awards 2019 have still not shipped. Others, like Campo Santo In the Valley of the Godsrevealed at The Game Awards 2017, it never will be.
But people who love video games enough to watch The Game Awards every year know patience. Below are some of the highlights of the games we’ve been eagerly awaiting for years, hoping that one day we’d be able to play them.
Prologue was announced almost five years ago at The Game Awards as a mysterious current project from Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene, also known as the creator of the Battle Royale genre and PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds (now called PUBG: Battlegrounds). Prologue was described at the time as “an exploration of new technology and gameplay,” and has since evolved to become just a taste of what Greene and his PlayerUnknown Productions team are working on.
Prologue it certainly hasn’t disappeared. It currently serves as a tech demo designed to showcase the terrain generation tools that PlayerUnknown Productions is developing for an even larger project, Artemis“a massive multiplayer sandbox game.” PlayerUnknown Productions posts regular updates on the company’s own technology and ambitions Prologue AND Artemis. Greene was also very busy social media providing updates, so it’s not like PlayerUnknown has muted the radio.
But as for when players will actually get their hands on it Prologue AND Artemis? This remains to be seen.
Ark: Survival has evolved developer Studio Wildcard made a large surprise at The Game Awards 2020. Ark 2 was coming, and Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel was set to play a major role in the sequel to the hit dinosaur survival game. Studio Wildcard promised a “next-generation survival experience” set on a massive alien world, Dark Souls-inspired combat, and full operate of the then-new Unreal Engine 5.
Ark 2 was originally scheduled for release in 2022, but Studio Wildcard postponed that release to 2023 and then again to slow 2024. The studio then delivered a remastered version Ark: Survival has evolved instead and it was pretty serene about where Ark 2 stands. The game’s Steam page now lists a “To Be Announced” release date. Polygon has reached out to Studio Wildcard for a status update Ark 2but hasn’t received a reply (yet).
The next installment of the Mass Effect science-fiction game series by BioWare is coming. Beyond that, we don’t know much, as BioWare has been slowly releasing details and mini-trailer trailers for the fifth Mass Effect game since it was announced at The Game Awards 2020. (The studio actually confirmed the current Mass Effect about a month before its release, and the trailer was revealed at this year’s show.)
BioWare has been quite busy, however, focusing on acquisition Dragon Age: Guardian of the Veil behind the door. Now that that’s out of the way, BioWare plans to focus its attention on Mass effect 5– says the studio. The last day of N7, the annual celebration of the Mass Effect series, was unusually serene. Perhaps this is the serene before the storm (or maybe I’m just coping).
In the meantime, BioWare fans have something to look forward to as Amazon MGM Studios is working on a Mass Effect TV show.
Joanna Dark will return Perfect darknessdeveloper of The Initiative, a reboot of Rare’s spy shooter. Originally unveiled in a cinematic trailer at The Game Awards 2020, we’ve seen some progress since then. During this year’s Xbox Games Showcase in June, we had a taste of reality Perfect darkness gameplay, a promising sign for the project that is it reportedly had a challenging development cycle.
Still no release date Perfect darknessbut IGN’s 2023 report said it couldn’t be expected until at least 2025. But at least we know that The Initiative and co-creator Crystal Dynamics are making progress.
ARC invaders it has had a fascinating journey so far. Announced in 2021 as the debut title from Embark Studios, ARC invaders was surprisingly burned, so the team of former Battlefield developers who created it were able to release a completely different game instead: Finals.
Embark has since turned its attention back to ARC invaders and aims for a 2025 release. The extraction shooter was recently tested and almost three years after its announcement, we got to see it in reality for the first time ARC invaders game.
ARC invaders the premiere is planned for next year on PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X.
When Star Wars Eclipse was announced at the Game Awards 2021, we knew we would have to wait a long time. Detroit: Become Human said developer Quantic Dream Eclipse was in the “early stages of development” when it showed off its intriguing cinematic trailer, and early reports predicted the game would arrive sometime in 2027 or 2028.
Not much has been said about Quantic Dream Star Wars Eclipse over the last few years, but we know that the game is set in the High Republic era, i.e. in the same period in which Acolyte — and that player choice will matter a lot in this intricately branching action-adventure game. Despite the already long wait Star Wars Eclipsea serene period in the game was expected. Like all announced Star Wars projects, this one will be released whenever it gets here.
Warner Bros. and Monolith Productions, creators Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and continuation Shadow of warI promise to bring back the infamous Nemesis System in a current DC Wonder Woman game. Features an original story and open-world game mechanics, Wonder Woman is highly anticipated as a much-needed turn for WB Games’ superhero franchise.
But we have heard almost nothing current on this topic Wonder Woman from the end of 2021. An alleged leak of game details from a marketing survey earlier this year indicated that Diana – armed with super strength and her golden Lasso of Truth – would face the sorceress Circe and her army of cyclops, gorgons and other monsters who had invaded the Amazonian home island of Themyscira. Based on the details allegedly revealed, expect other DC characters to appear in Wonder Woman.
It is unclear whether WB and Monolith’s plans have changed at all under the current regime at DC Studios and whether the current Wonder Woman will have any connections to the revived DC cinematic universe being created under James Gunn. We’ll just have to wait…
Developer Splash Damage made a splash with its surprising trailer Transformers: Reactivate in 2022 – and not just because of the trailer for Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive.” The theatrical announcement trailer for Hasbro and Splash Damage looked like it was about something completely different; only in the final moments did it turn out to be a Transformers game. This alone has us excited about what Splash Damage has in store.
But we haven’t heard anything current about it Transformers: Reactivate in the intermediate months. Is it still in development? Can we expect this anytime soon? We’ve asked for an update on Splash Damage and we’ll see what she says.
The Game Awards 2022 featured many huge AAA games – including Dune: Awakening,
Death Strike 2AND Peepholeall of which we should get next year – but there’s a smaller game we’re eagerly awaiting more news about. Earth BladeWith Celeste Developer Maddy Thorson’s Extreme OK Games was once expected to arrive in 2024, but there was no dice.
The good news is that Thorson said so earlier this year Earth Blade still coming. “We had hoped to announce a specific release date now, but we didn’t expect it.” Thorson wrote in March. “We know this will be disappointing for many of you, and we apologize for that. Maybe it was predictable, but it always sucks when the haters are right. The good news is that the game is not standing still, we are still making progress and we are still looking forward to working on it.
If Earth Blade“exploration and action platformer”, is even close to as good as Celesteit’s worth the wait.
