The Game Awards 2023 - Recap and Reactions

[00:00:00] The Game Awards 2023 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome in for a special episode of the Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Cameron Warren, and I'm joined, as always, by Jacob Price. Jake, how are you doing?

[00:00:25] I got a belly full of diet, Dr. Pepper, pizza, and M&M's peanut butter. So doing pretty well. We did it like we always do, ladies and gentlemen. Watch the Game Awards with some friends of the show, even here at my house.

[00:00:42] Watched all the announcements, the reveals, the winners. Was a fun time as always. And we are in rare fashion. We're on the ball. This is right after the show, but show just ended and we're doing our reaction.

[00:00:56] So you're going to have this hopefully in the next couple of days, right after today's Thursday. Obviously, Game Awards tonight. Hopefully you guys have this very, very soon so you can listen to our reactions. Well, with that, Jake, let's jump in. I think we should knock out.

[00:01:12] Let's talk about the winners at the show first. Jake, do you want to break down? Maybe maybe you should read off the winners in each category and then we can discuss what stood out. That's all. Maybe not every category, but the ones that matter now. Yeah.

[00:01:31] Some of the biggest ones probably generally in for us. So Game of the Year goes to Alan Wake. No, it goes to Baldur's Gate 3, which kind of came. Which goes to I think no surprise.

[00:01:49] So the biggest, I don't know, surprise for me, maybe not for Cameron and not for Stafan of the Discord community. I think the only one of our little contests, the guess this one. Baldur's Gate 3 also took players, no, it took a best performance, right? Neil Newman wins there.

[00:02:09] I don't know, should we just read through these? Sorry, my brain just farted. Yeah, maybe just read them off and then we can discuss. That's probably easier. Studio slash Game Direction, we got Alan Wake 2 for Game Direction.

[00:02:23] Games for Impact was Chia, Action Adventure, The Legend is Elders Tears at the Kingdom, Independent Game, went to an Independent Game and went to Sea of Stars. The debut indie game was won by Cocoon, RPG Baldur's Gate 3, Art Direction, Alan Wake 2. Best adaptation, no surprises here, right?

[00:02:42] The last of us. Multiplayer Game, Baldur's Gate 3, Ongoing Game, Cyberpunk 2077. Folks, sorry, I'm going to skip the content creator and eSports stuff because we ran a little in-house competition in our Discord and those were the categories that nobody

[00:03:00] in our Discord really follows, so a bunch of people won there and we are so happy for them. Anticipated Game, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Mobile Game, Honkai, Star Rail, Sports Racing Game, Forza Motorsport, let's see Action Game, Armour Core 6, Fighting Game, Street Fighter VI, Community Support, Baldur's Gate 3,

[00:03:21] Performance already mentioned, and let's see Soundtrack, Final Fantasy XVI, Narrative, Alan Wake 2, Family Game, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, VR Game, Resident Evil VR, Strategy Game, Pikmin 4, Audio, Hi-Fi Rush, Innovation and Accessibility, Forza Motorsport. So you've heard a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 in there,

[00:03:44] but we're going to talk about this stuff broadly. Yeah, so no surprises I don't think. Baldur's Gate 3 was going to win Game of the Year. I mean, it's operating at a different level. But Alan Wake 2 took home a lot of, I think, well-deserved awards.

[00:04:08] I think my biggest comment on kind of the winners and losers is definitely I feel like if there was one big criticism I had of the show is that it's not, I mean, it's not really an award show.

[00:04:23] I just not enough time, I think, for the light to be shined on celebrating the people who make these games and the awards that they won. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, the announcements are cool and super entertaining and I love seeing them.

[00:04:40] So and obviously there's a lot of ads asked to pay for it all. Yeah. But yeah, just not enough time, I think, for these people to talk and kind of give thanks and shine the light on people who make the games.

[00:04:57] And there were some big categories that didn't even get formal introductions like best fighting game, I think, totally should have had its own thing. Best RPG. Yeah, best RPG. Didn't get one either. RPG and I think gaming have a very long history together.

[00:05:12] And that one is to me is like really you're just going to give 30 seconds to this maybe not even. That one especially was like really action game also, right? It was one of those that was just kind of tossed in there.

[00:05:25] Yeah, because you get, you know, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, but you get Kojima up there for like 25 minutes saying stuff about his new game, which we'll talk about in a minute. And we basically know nothing about it.

[00:05:38] But then you gave, you know, no time to talk about the best fighting game. So, you know, weird, weird things. But yeah, I don't think really any shocking surprises for me in terms of the winners. These are all super well deserved games.

[00:05:50] This is one of the best years in terms of games that came out for sure. Yeah, I will say that Tears of the Kingdom did probably get the shaft. I think. Yeah, it's wild. There's so many games that were so incredibly successful

[00:06:06] that walked away with one or zero awards. So Tears of the Kingdom got best action adventure game. Super Mario Bros. Wonder got best family game. Nintendo, I think, got the biggest snub in that regard. But at the same time, you look at some of these other categories

[00:06:22] and you're like, it's tough. It's tough. You could have picked those games, but you also could have picked the ones that won. You know what I mean? Yeah, any of these could have won. And obviously the way this works is that you have all the top outlets,

[00:06:36] like 120 different outlets, I believe, who are voting on these categories. Do you think Alan Wake, too, wins the Recency Bias Award? I think for Game Direction, no. I think that one is deserved, absolutely, because Alan Wake, too, is a masterclass of multimedia like integration into a video game.

[00:06:56] And it takes it takes a really organized management and game director to be able to kind of pull that off as successfully as it is, especially because, like we mentioned in our episode on it, it is such a meta game.

[00:07:13] And I think to have some somebody or a team of somebodies tracking all that and making it coherent and interesting and engaging definitely takes that. I'm trying to think of other ones. Best Narrative. This was my personal pick for Best Narrative,

[00:07:30] because this is the type of narrative that really tickles my brain. I think I think Best Narrative was tough, though. I think you easily could have gone with Baldur's Gate 3. Maybe there's some Recency Bias in there. Maybe with Best Art Direction 2.

[00:07:47] But I feel like overall the ones that Alan Wake 2 took home, it was fine. I don't think there was too big of any issue there. Yeah. Yeah, I do think Alan Wake 2 probably does. The Best Narrative one, now that you bring it up, is one where I

[00:08:11] I think the reason that I would have voted Baldur's Gate 3 is not, again, any of these could have won. And I don't disagree with Alan Wake 2 winning Best Narrative. I think definitely well deserved. But also on the other side of the coin,

[00:08:26] I think what Baldur's Gate 3 offered in terms of narrative was only a really good narrative, but a narrative with so many branching paths that were all extremely meaningful, which is just kind of nuts that they were able to pull that off.

[00:08:39] So while Alan Wake offers an extremely well-crafted singular narrative, Baldur's Gate offers an extremely well-crafted you know, 1,000 permutations of narratives. Obviously, so, you know, but we could sit here and talk about how great Baldur's Gate 3 is all day. That doesn't... Yeah.

[00:09:02] Again, at the end of the day, these words don't really matter. Right. They don't really mean anything. It's just it's fun. And the point is to celebrate games, which the overall conversation for me coming out of that

[00:09:15] is that there just there was enough time and the whole like and this is going around social meter right now. They had like a teleprompter telling people to wrap it up after like 30 seconds. Yeah. Just I don't know, like and I get, you know, you're trying

[00:09:30] to make it not too long and I totally understand that. But what's an extra 20 minutes so people can say thanks to like a few extra folks, you know, or you could have a few more people get up on stage and accept the war and talk about their achievements.

[00:09:43] Yeah, I kind of think maybe that was the biggest snub was some of the categories themselves and how much time they were given to present. I have a really hard time thinking that there are like any major major snubs. There were definitely some surprises.

[00:09:58] I was surprised that Chia took home games for impact. Right. There's a I think only maybe one other one that really surprised me. And I'm trying to remember exactly which one it was. Excuse me. Yeah, I kind of feel like I feel like the game awards

[00:10:18] this time around felt too much like Summer Game Fest. Summer Game Fest, I think should be more about like what is happening and what's being released in the game industries and because there are actually like awards and categories with the game awards.

[00:10:32] Well, I would like to see is that the game awards remains the same length total, but you you take out a third of those games that were being advertised for the first time or just advertise at all. And you gave that time to a bunch of these categories

[00:10:46] like best RPG that were given 15 seconds on screen. Just I think I have a few reasons for this. One, like I agree with you and sort of the buzz that's going around on social media, you know, post game game awards, these people need to be thanked

[00:11:03] and they need to thank and we need to celebrate them more than just like, hey, the title of your game changed from white to yellow. The other part of that is I think it's actually kind of a disservice to all these games

[00:11:15] that are being announced because I cannot remember half of them. And so many of them are sci fi shooters and I cannot for the life of me remember a bunch of them. And so I feel like in order to make those world premiered,

[00:11:30] you know, game trailers feel more impactful. They just got to be less. I think that it's just over saturation. You know what I mean? So I think those kind of changes would kind of really help benefit next year. Yeah, yep. 100 percent agree. Not super well handled.

[00:11:54] I don't know. I feel like we're getting really close. Jeff Jeff Keely is getting really he's I feel like he gets closer every year. Every year there's like another just like slight misstep in terms of the production and the timing of the show.

[00:12:06] At this point, does it really matter if you make this thing like four hours long? I don't think anybody really cares. Just make it longer. Who cares? People are watching. Right. I mean, people are the people who are going to watch it are going to watch it.

[00:12:18] I don't think you're going to detract people by making it longer. Maybe people don't watch the whole thing, but does it really matter? I don't think it probably doesn't. Yeah, yeah. It's just a bit of a shame that the we're supposed

[00:12:33] to be celebrating things here and we don't get that much time. To celebrate. And but like you said, like some of these game announcements get so much space. Like, listen, we all like Kojima and the weird stuff he's doing.

[00:12:43] But holy cow, how much time did that presentation take? Like way too long. Yeah, it was way too long. And Jeff's like friends with Kojima, so that makes it a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it is a big thing.

[00:12:55] It's it's a big thing, but is it bigger than letting the best RPG come on the stage and talk about it? Probably. I mean, it is and it's kind of what pays for the show and gets people to watch the show.

[00:13:08] If you know, let's just be honest for a second. Like that's those are the those are the things that give people to turn this on. Right? If it's just an award show, nobody turns it on. So it's a hard balance. I don't know.

[00:13:19] I'm glad I don't have to make those decisions because that is tough and I get it. But they definitely need to lean, I think a little bit more. And maybe that means fewer categories. I don't know. I don't know something something's got to give on that.

[00:13:32] I would say just to give credit where credit's due, I'm glad that we didn't see like a whole lot of random movie ad spots. We really just saw we saw like the promo for the fallout series, which makes sense, I think, for this type of award show.

[00:13:49] We didn't get random energy drink commercials, you know, at least the bulk of everything presented there was about video games, which feels and a lot better and is a lot smoother, I think, for the overall experience. Even the celebrities that they brought on, I feel like

[00:14:06] at least they were announcing that they were like involved in this project and how seeing Matthew McConaughey out there is still a little weird. Having Timothy Chalamet do do Game of the Year, though, that seems totally bonkers to me.

[00:14:17] And honestly, a part of me wonders, so like if when Jeff Keely is like finding people to present the awards, I'm like, did the previous did from software, you know, from Elden Ring where they were just like,

[00:14:29] oh, no, we don't want to present the Game of the Year. And so he's like, oh crap, let's find somebody. Oh look, Timothy Chalamet will do it. Like it makes me wonder if people say no. I mean, like Idris Elba didn't even show up

[00:14:41] even though he was a nominated for an award, right? How much of that is involved there? I don't know. But even at the same time, why not just have somebody in the game industry who's well known do that sort of award presentation beats me?

[00:14:59] Well, with that, let's talk about the announcements. I have a list up here. I don't think we want to go through everything on one of these because they're not worth it. But I just have all, these are in order and I'll stop on the ones that were like

[00:15:17] the significant ones. And if I miss one, actually Jake, I'll just send you this list so we're on the same list. How about that? This is a good idea. Yeah, a whole lot announced tonight though. Like an outrageous amount. Overall like really good show, cool announcements.

[00:15:34] One of the hypest moments, like reveal trailer. I think probably the most hyped at least I've ever, like I jumped out of my chair straight up. Yeah. But let's start off here. First one, I sent you this link, Jake if you're looking at this one.

[00:15:51] I'm just gonna jump around, jump. I'm gonna go in order, but I'll jump to the ones that I think are, we'll start off with God of Ragnarok Valhalla. Free DLC to a massive game franchise coming what? Was this is next week? December 12th so in finally Tuesday.

[00:16:09] Yeah, Tuesday. On Tuesday we're getting on, I didn't hear a P, I heard that there might be DLC coming, but nobody knew what it was gonna be. This is, and nobody knew when it was coming and it's coming literally next week. This is a crazy shadow drop.

[00:16:27] This is the best kept secret of 2023. I don't know how it made it this far without being leaked or without people talking about it. And to be totally honest, I'm kind of surprised that this was so early on in the game awards.

[00:16:41] I feel like that this was a really hefty and pretty earth shattering announcement to make, especially cause it's free. This could have helped anchor I think the second half of announcements, but it was brought to us pretty early on. Yeah, it was an early drop.

[00:16:57] What one game of the year last year again, Jake? Was it Ragnarok? Dude, I'm blanking so bad right now. Dude, I am blanking on this super bad. Oh, is it takes two? Was that last year? No. Was that last year? No, that wasn't last year. Game award, 2022.

[00:17:16] No, it was Elden Ring, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Elden Ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously. It was between Ragnarok and Elden Ring. But Ragnarok probably also easily the second best game last year. Getting free DLC in it coming in like three days. That's insane.

[00:17:34] That's pretty nuts for PlayStation. That's a pretty huge announcement. And that's really cool. Supposedly like a roguelike mode too. Yeah. Which that could be super cool. Excited to, I will probably check this out. I don't know if I'll check it out immediately,

[00:17:52] but I will probably check it out. Yeah, kind of strange. Last of us, part two, remake is getting a roguelike mode. Got a war. Ragnarok is getting this weird roguelike thing. Interesting way to kind of do DLC. It could be cool.

[00:18:09] Let's jump to the next one, which this is a, the next game from the creators of Untitled Goose Game, the weirdest video game trailer that I have ever watched. Hands down. Big walk by House House. I have no idea what this game is.

[00:18:30] It's some sort of cooperative game that you have these weird, you know that like, shoot, what is it? It's kind of like one of those perpetual motion toys. It's like the bird that is always dipping forward to drink water out of something. It's like a little desktop thing.

[00:18:47] Yeah, like a dodo bird or something. Yeah, yeah. Not the game, but in a realistic setting, but they're hyper cartoony. It's like this hyper realistic environments, but then the main characters are like these, what look to be stand in game models

[00:19:10] like that you'd find in like a generic engine genre. It's like if the Pikmin became sentient or more sentient and had arms. Dude, it's freaking weird. And I'll be honest, I'm kind of going on faith for the big walk or big walk, there's no that in there.

[00:19:30] Dude, if you didn't know that this was from the creator of Untitled Goose Game, you would just be like, what the F is this? Just get this out of my foot. I'm still kind of thinking that. Listen, House House could have just made Untitled Goose Game too.

[00:19:47] That's all I'm saying. And it would have been a slam dunk, but they decided to take a big risk and I'm definitely gonna wait and see. Yeah, I don't even know how to comment on this to be honest, this is kind of wild. Weird.

[00:20:06] This is wild, but Untitled Goose Game is great. Oh, love it. I love that game. Yeah, we've got faith in House House. Next up we'll jump to Wind Blown, which is a new multiplayer co-op rogue-like dungeon crawler thingy with the head some nice anime style animated trailer

[00:20:30] in there with some gameplay from the creator of Dead Cells. So yeah, basically Dead Cells next game. Thoughts on this one, Jake, excited? I'm going on faith as well because it's made by the Dead Cells team. I like the idea of like a cooperative rogue-like though.

[00:20:49] So even outside of just the studio that's making it, I think gameplay could be super interesting as well. Not a huge fan of the art direction, but if the gameplay is good, you know, maybe I could get into it.

[00:21:03] Yeah, I did not play a lot of Dead Cells. Didn't feel much for this one, but I do like you said, I liked the idea of it being like a co-op version of that. So that's a really cool idea. Next up, another Senua Saga Hellblade II trailer.

[00:21:26] Man, I was hoping to get a release date for this. Still no release date on this game. Holy crap. Like I just feel like that's a mess. Like give me a freaking release date for this time. Or give me a window. Give me Q1, give me Q4.

[00:21:41] Yeah, that makes me worried that it's still up in the air because they're still working on it or they're still working out stuff. And we're so long into the life cycle for this thing. I just feel like I'm kind of tired of seeing this

[00:21:55] and I want it in my hands. Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat. I really liked Hellblade I. Hellblade I is a very visceral and intense and emotional experience. And so I know that they're trying to top that. I think they are, it looks fantastic.

[00:22:14] Like when they show the portions of this, at least very much look like gameplay. It looks, it's probably the best looking visually trailer that was shown by far. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm kind of ready for it to come out at this point.

[00:22:29] Glad we got to see it more of it, I guess. Glad to know that it's still cooking and that it's coming 2024. I think that year is kind of locked in at this point. I kind of feel like there's probably some pressure

[00:22:41] behind them to make sure it comes out 2024. What is Xbox's 2024 look like? Four quarters, if you had to guess right now, Hellblade II. A vowed. Q4. I think a vowed is Q3 or Q4. Do you think a vowed next year for sure? I don't see why not.

[00:23:02] The last info that they gave us on it. I mean, we've seen more of a vowed practically than Hellblade. It's kind of crazy. I think they're both coming out in 2024. I think they're both coming out. Hellblade, Q4, a vowed, Q3, stalker II, Q2.

[00:23:19] What comes out in Q1 next year? What random shadow drop can they have like high five rush? And it has to be like a somewhat major really, oh that's going to be a tower born. Oh, yep, yep, yep, yep. I think you're totally right there.

[00:23:36] That's an Xbox studio. Wait, is that even an Xbox Studios game or is that just a game pass game? Well now I'm... I think it is, it was at the Xbox Tower. It was at the Xbox show, but that doesn't mean that it's an Xbox studio.

[00:23:48] No, it's not created by Stoic. The studio that brought you the award-winning banner saga trilogy. Maybe they're counting this though. I don't even know how they... If this isn't an Xbox Studios game, that means there's one more next year. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter that much.

[00:24:10] I'm curious though, because we are close to 2024 and we don't really know what Xbox's Q1 and Q2 games are. One of them is going to be that Flight Sim thing. Oh, the Microsoft Flight Simulator. Sequel? It's like some weird standalone thing with a little more action involved.

[00:24:33] That is, that's going to be something. That's like a full-blown sequel, but yeah. Yeah, I would say that is going to be one of those Q1 or Q2 games. All right, well, I'm ready for help way too. It looks insane.

[00:24:47] I'm sure this will be like a very gritty... Yeah, it looks nutty. Let's see here. We got No Rest for the Wicked, which is from the Ori creator of the Ori games. Not a lot of thoughts on this one from me, Jake.

[00:25:06] I think the next big but worth mentioning. And then Sega dropped this crazy trailer where they showed one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, six different games that are all in the works from Sega. For popular franchises, for like their most popular franchises.

[00:25:30] So Golden Axe, which I have no idea what that is. Do you know what Golden Axe is? No, but a Rosebud does, who we were watching the... He does. Well, the other three, I do know what they are. Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, and Streets of Rage

[00:25:46] are all getting either Remake slash sequels. And these were showing off in a big showcase trailer. But it says over the next several years. So we have no idea when these are coming, but we know that they are. Yeah, so these are remakes, reboots, something like that.

[00:26:06] But games that some people have been asking for forever like Jet Set Radio, finally Sega's gonna do something with that. So I don't know man, it'll be interesting to see more info on that as it kind of trickles out over the next few years. Yeah, no for sure.

[00:26:25] I mean, these all look just a brief like screenshots that we're seeing. I mean, they all look great. I'm just, I'm watching the clip right now, crazy New Age Crazy Taxi. Dude, that is, that's gonna be fun, I think. Crazy Taxi was a good time.

[00:26:46] Let's see here, scrolling down Rise of the Ronin. This is the next game from... What's that studio called? Ninja, Ninja. That Team Ninja. Team Ninja? I'll be totally frank. I watched this and I don't think it visually looks that great.

[00:27:06] I actually, my hype lowered after watching this trailer for this game. Yes, this trailer was not as good actually as the last one. Yeah, I would 100% agree with you. And I'm, I have bounced off every single Team Ninja game, including the one that came out early this year,

[00:27:26] which was... A Wulong Fallen Dynasty. Wulong Fallen Dynasty. I really, really wanted to like that game and I just did not jive with it. Nia wanted to, same thing. I really wanted to like those games, played into them and I just bounced off super hard.

[00:27:41] So don't have super high hopes for this one, but you know, I hope it's good. Fingers crossed. Next up we had... Sorry, do you have another comment on? No, I didn't. I was just gonna say, some people are gonna be really excited about Visions of Mana.

[00:27:59] That's not Cameron and I, but I know people are gonna be really stoked about that. And same with Kimmari, this is from Ikumi Nakamura. And we were talking about this. She worked on the Evil Within. That's what she's known for. Okay, I was wondering where that came from.

[00:28:18] So we didn't get much on that game. Could be interesting, but it was very, very little there. But the next game up was OD from Kojima Productions. Kojima's... Yeah, this game had a trailer that's like not even gonna be in the game

[00:28:35] as Freddy Oboom who was watching the game works with us. It's like, yeah, you won't even see this later. But I think this is just meant to communicate the vibes of what this is gonna be. This is described as a horror game that's like pushing the boundaries

[00:28:51] of audio visual, fear, horror experiences. And the surprise reveal was that it's being worked on with Jordan Peele. And others. And others. So I'm super... I think Kojima has this kind of pull to draw in people like Jordan Peele.

[00:29:11] But also like who else is gonna be in here? Obviously this is just like a teaser. This is more just sort of cementing some rumors that we had about this Kojima Productions game that is for Xbox, right? I believe that this is going to be

[00:29:26] at least a timed exclusive for Xbox. But yeah, we pretty much learned nothing about this game other than that it's gonna be a Kojima game. Yeah. Yeah, this is... We know nothing about this game. This will be some sort of horror game probably with some interesting elements.

[00:29:51] I'm not quite sure what, but it's Kojima. So who knows? Jordan Peele is involved. If you don't know who Jordan Peele is, writer-director of some of the biggest horror films of the last five, six years, nope. Get out us. And I think one other one. Yeah.

[00:30:15] Yeah, no, I'm not interested in this at all. All right, dude. But I'm very interested in Death Stranding too. So yeah, which we did not see any of, any more of at least. But Jurassic Park Survival. Hey, there we go.

[00:30:33] I didn't think that we needed another Jurassic Park game. I'll be honest with you. But watching this, I'm kind of interested. Like I'm actually very interested in what this is gonna be. So you basically play as a scientist who's left behind

[00:30:49] on Isla Nublar after the, at the end of Jurassic Park One, they are helicoptered out. So dang, I think it's gonna be cool. Yeah, this looks pretty early, although they did show gameplay, which was pleasantly surprising. Looks like you're pretty, some like a survival horror game.

[00:31:12] Like you mentioned, Jake, survival horror set in sort of the original Jurassic Park movie, it looks like, like maybe that same setting. Yeah, I mean, cool. I mean, dude, Jurassic Park is one of the best movies of all time.

[00:31:25] So if you can pull off like a tension filled survival horror game with good mechanics, I mean, with dinosaurs, could be great. Or just bring back Dino Crisis. You know what I'm saying? No. Next up, Black Myth Wukong. This is the biggest trailer we've seen for this thing.

[00:31:48] Yet Black Myth Wukong originally, some like a trailer slash YouTube video was put out like in 2019, I wanna say. Yeah. Didn't see anything else about it. Then they released like some random gameplay footage a couple of years later. And then now we're finally seeing this full blown trailer

[00:32:09] with a release date for August 20th. This game looks nuts, to be honest. This looks pretty wild. Yeah, they showed off some bosses. Bosses look cool. I think bosses look cool. So very curious to see more about this game. I mean, that release date is so far away.

[00:32:28] I'd like to think that they're gonna stick it. Yeah, August 20th seems like a lot of stuff for this one. I mean, we don't know. We still, there's still a lot of 2024 that we don't know of, but this looks like a good spot for this.

[00:32:43] This game looks good. I have high hopes for it. This looks like a good Souls-like, great graphics, combat looks like it could be solid. So yeah, this is definitely high up there, I think for me. Suicide Squad, we already know all about that. Banishers, Ghosts of New York.

[00:33:05] Ghosts of New Eden, got another trailer. This was delayed out of December of this year to February of next year. So just a short delay. This looks really good. This gives me really strong God of War vibes. Looks very, looks expensive.

[00:33:24] Looks like it could be a really great like third person action game. Listen, I'm pretty into this one. It is being made by Donod who is, I think, on fire right now with the games that they're putting out. So hopefully this game really, really lands well.

[00:33:40] But yeah, it looks cool. I mean, I'm into it. I'm really into it. I'm just going through the last, there's some interesting stuff here. Tales of Kanzara featuring one of the actors from, if you haven't watched it, it's an HBO Max. Raised by Wolves, HBO Max, sci-fi show.

[00:34:11] Tales of Kanzara looks like a 2.5D Metroidvania action game. Yeah, I mean it looks like a good Metroidvania. I didn't know what to expect when they showed like the first in-game cinematic. I was like, okay, what's this game going to be like?

[00:34:26] And then as soon as it cuts into actual gameplay, I think it looked infinitely better. And so I'm interested. Comes out in April. Yep. Next up, a new Life of Strange game. The Lost Records, Bloom and Rage. And then we saw the first Berserker.

[00:34:45] This looks like a pretty, very pretty looking like anime Souls-like. Yeah. Can't even describe this game with words. It's a Souls-like. It looks like a Souls-like through and through. The first Berserker Kazan. It was jarring to look at because the characters are feel very like 3D anime style,

[00:35:07] but the environments I don't think are that way at all. So kind of two different art styles mixed into one. I typically dislike that unless it makes for very strong visual clarity. Like you can really see what you're supposed to see and what's going on.

[00:35:23] And for a game that appears to be a Souls-like where you very much need to be able to see how bosses attacks are telegraphed, it could work. I think it could really work. But initially I was a little put off, but I may have talked myself into it.

[00:35:39] Yeah. Then we saw Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, little performance there which was fun. This is probably my most anticipated game for next year. I think Jake and I agree on that. Skull and Bones might actually come out, but could get, I mean they have two months for this.

[00:35:56] Do you not even know? Like dude just get this game out man. Just come on, just release this thing. Please, like please Skull and Bones. Just for, I just want everyone to know if you're listening to this. I was at the Ubisoft booth at E3 2018

[00:36:16] and this game was playable. That's five years ago. So just wanna throw that out there. So Skull and Bones. But I guess the rumblings are that this game is actually good. So who knows? Man, who knows? Next up is probably one of the biggest hype reveals

[00:36:42] that I've experienced at a game show in a long time. And even though I don't like this kind of reveal because it's CGI only and it's for something that's not gonna be coming out for a long time. But dude, we got a Blade game coming from Arcane Leon,

[00:37:04] the creators of Dishonored and that is one of the best pairings that I could possibly think of. That is just crazy. Yeah dude, the Blade man. It looks good and we've talked about this before. I haven't played a ton of Marvel's Midnight Sons

[00:37:23] but I was like dude I'd play a Blade game and then here you have Arcane making a Blade game. Yeah. If you play Marvel Midnight Sons, which for the holiday sales right now is down to 20 bucks on your platform of choice, you put Blade in your party

[00:37:51] and you play with him for like a few rounds and he is by far the coolest character in that game and it's not even close. And to Jake's point, I liked Blade and thought he was an interesting character before and then I played him in Marvel's Midnight Sons

[00:38:04] and I was like, oh man, this is a cool dude. And just thinking about the skill and the kind of style of Arcane Leon and their ability and what they did with Dishonored 1 and 2 and then handing them this Blade franchise

[00:38:20] like set in Paris is wild to think about. This is a third person action game. They tweeted out that they just started development on this. So who knows when this is gonna come out? Like a long time from now. A long time and that's the most disappointing thing.

[00:38:39] I really don't like to see stuff this early. This is a great hype moment but it also is deflated and I'm excited that it's happening but it is definitely deflated by the fact that we could be six years from this game. Yeah.

[00:38:57] And who knows if we'll even be here still in six years. Oh man. I gotta say after that, I feel like we kind of hit a bit of a lull where a lot of the games, this is what I mean by like at the beginning

[00:39:15] of this episode when I was like, you gotta cut out at least a third of these games that are being shown. And I feel like this portion, like after Blade up until Light No Fire where I just felt like the games, there was actually two games,

[00:39:32] the trailers were shown back to back and I didn't even know for the longest time that they're showing two different games. Yeah. So this was, I'm trying to find that like the titles are so funny. The Last Sentinel went straight into the first descent

[00:39:47] and it's just, I think it does service to both of these games to have all the crammed in as ads here. And I much rather would have preferred to see this chunk dedicated to just the awards and the celebration of the games. And even just like,

[00:40:05] I know I'm kind of going off topic here a little bit but people were really pushing for sort of two main topics to be addressed at the game awards. And the first one was all the layoffs this year. And then the second one is people wanted

[00:40:16] some sort of statement regarding what's happening in Palestine. I didn't think they were ever going to do anything regarding what's happening in Palestine but I was a little surprised that they didn't mention or try to recognize all the layoffs in the industry.

[00:40:30] And I just feel like if you had taken out sort of this chunk of games here where we didn't really get to focus on them anyway and sort of dedicated that more towards like the industry as a whole and the games that are being celebrated and awarded here,

[00:40:45] it would have been a slam dunk game awards. Yeah, I mean, I imagine it's a tough thing to figure out. How do you, as somebody who works in the game industry and like as part of a company that got some pretty terrible layoffs,

[00:41:04] figuring out how to talk about that in a way and like that's tasteful and that like honors and respects to people who got fired while also maintaining like the excitement and it's like celebration of games. I think, yeah, I definitely think it did need to happen

[00:41:20] but that's a tough thing to figure out. Right, much easier to say than do I think in the way that you're describing where it's still tasteful and respectful and you still maintain sort of reverence and celebration, right? And maybe that's something you do

[00:41:34] like at the very beginning of the show, right? You just start off by saying like, hey we got a lot of incredible games worked on by thousands of extremely talented individuals this year many thousands of those were maybe that was it. I just figured it out.

[00:41:49] I think you just figured it out. I think that would have been perfect. Just start off the game awards. It's so funny, you start off with like a minute just sort of recognizing and saying what you said. And now we will have a moment of silence

[00:42:01] and then you stay in there. No. And then Gonzo comes out and he leads us in a moment of silence. No, and also I mean we've mentioned this on our shows 6,500 people laid off in the games industry this year which is just totally wild.

[00:42:18] But yeah, so there's, yeah I mean there was a bunch of like Jake said there's a bunch of filler trailers here I don't even think they're even worth mentioning. I think- Which is sad because maybe on their own they are

[00:42:29] but because of the way that they were presented they're not I think. And they just didn't these are trailers that just didn't give us much to go on, right? They were too generic or they're showing like two broad strokes of the world

[00:42:42] or like there's no mechanics being displayed it's just like random sci-fi world. Here you go, showing back to back to back to back right? Yeah. So with that I think we can skip right down to Light No Fire which is- Dude. Sean Murray. Hello Games, next game.

[00:43:02] This is probably in my mind the best reveal slash trailer at the whole show. Would you agree Jake? Prom- no. I think my favorite one was still the Blade one but I agree with you and- Well no, no, let me just clarify what I just said.

[00:43:21] I agree with you because we actually saw the game in Light No Fire. Yes, that's what I mean. The reason I'm giving it the best over Blade. Blade is the coolest thing at the show. But I give this better because we're gonna get to play this game

[00:43:39] I would think within a year that would be my guess. Yeah, so Sean Murray mentioned that they've been working on this for five years. It kind of came after watching a cool recap of the journey of No Man's Sky from launch until where it is now

[00:43:56] and it's magnificent now. And Sean Murray starts with this like we're recreating a new Earth and it's like, all right dude, hold on. Dude you're doing it again. You're doing it again Sean. Love the enthusiasm but please don't screw it up again.

[00:44:13] But then we actually saw the trailer, right? And it started off, I was like, okay, what are we looking at? And then the further we got into it, I was like, hold up, hold up, hold up. This is looking cool. So yeah, I agree.

[00:44:28] I think that I wouldn't be surprised if this game came out in like early access by the end of 2024. You know what I mean? And then they just like spent a year in early access and we got 1.0 in 2025. Yeah, I think that's reasonable.

[00:44:42] They've been working on this for five years. No Man's Sky is 10 years in at this point. Yeah, this was a really cool trailer. This is really cool. It's like a survival type game. Apparently reading, I looked at the Steam page which they launched shortly after.

[00:45:01] The goal is to create a generative game world the size of Earth. So instead of like discovering planets and space, you are exploring a game world the size of like the actual Earth. So you're discovering like new continents and you're wild, you know?

[00:45:27] And it's like, how does that actually work in reality? But I'll give credit to having went through what they went through. Sean Murray hyping his game to the moon, not really delivering, but then over a decade really figuring things out and making

[00:45:44] one of the most impressive like comebacks. They've got these, they are equipped to make a, if anyone is equipped to make this game, they are equipped to make this game more than anybody else. And so that actually gives me the hope that like, you know what?

[00:45:59] They actually could pull it off. I think they can't. I absolutely agree with that. Over 10 years, they've learned a lot from some pretty horrific mistakes. They've been working on this game for five years. No Man's Sky, I imagine has given them thousands

[00:46:13] of ideas to implement into this new game. And I love the fact that because it's gonna be so massive, you're gonna have huge writable mounts to be able to get around in this world. Dude, I wanna ride a dragon around. I just... Very cool. So I'm with you.

[00:46:31] I think that they are in a unique position to actually pull off the game that they are selling right now. And so just gotta see them deliver. Yeah, I agree with you. I would think we see this to your point.

[00:46:45] I think we see this in early access on PC by the end of next year. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that is pretty much it. The last thing is some Final Fantasy XVI DLC, one of them which is available now, Echoes of the Fallen and then another one.

[00:47:06] The finals got a shadow drop there 1.0 today. Very cool. Which is pretty dope, excited to play that this weekend. If you're not familiar with that, that's X Battlefield Devs made a fully destructible environment like a rena shooter. This has been kind of on people streaming this

[00:47:26] and playing the open beta for a while. And then the last thing, the last reveal of the show, this was an interesting one to do last. I don't know if this was the right place for it, but Monster Hunter Wilds, which is basically Monster Hunter World 2,

[00:47:40] but not coming till 2025. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I actually really liked Monster Hunter World. I did fall off it after doing 90% of the main mission and then I ended up going back and beating it. So Monster Hunter Wilds, I'll definitely check this one out.

[00:48:01] I really like Monster Hunter World. This one looks like it's going to shoot for a seamless open world rather than just kind of like hubs like there were in Monster Hunter or like just different cordon off areas where you'd go hunt down specific monsters.

[00:48:16] So I'm interested to see sort of what happens here, but I am a very casual Monster Hunter fan. So for this to be the closing trailer for me, it fell a little flat, but I understand that the gaming world is bigger than I am and Monster Hunter

[00:48:33] is a franchise that is massive globally. And so I do think that this was actually probably the smart choice, probably one of the biggest things that they could put at the very end of the game awards because it's trying to reach the global gaming audience.

[00:48:46] So I don't know, I think it's fine. By the end I was just like begging for a Hollow Knight silk song or Elden Ring DLC like I don't know, a lot of people, but I think it's fine ending the way that it did.

[00:49:02] And that is it, another game awards in the books for 2023. Jake, give me your overall final thoughts on the show and all the reveals. Okay, overall final thoughts show. I'm gonna say it again for the third time. We need to ditch a third of those ads

[00:49:19] and we need to give a lot more breathing room for the people who are being celebrated and awarded tonight. I think it's time to rework some categories. The best ongoing game needs to be best ongoing games and we were discussing this as we were watching this.

[00:49:37] You just need a best DLC slash expansion category, I think at this point. The games industry is big enough there are enough of games getting, receiving DLC or expansions that I think it needs to be its own category. This is something that I'll be touching on

[00:49:52] the indie game of the year episode but indie categories I think need to be reworked and I think they need to be expanded because the reality of the gaming industry is that there are so many games coming out every single day, every single minute

[00:50:09] it seems like on the Steam Store page and there just simply is not nearly enough media coverage of all of the games coming out which is why I think disproportionately a lot of these categories tend to favor like really big games from big companies

[00:50:25] and I think that's not so much a criticism as it is just sort of reality of the game industry but I think if you wanted to add a little more equity into awards you got to create some new little more fine-tuned, fine-tuned, fine-tuned lead

[00:50:40] defined categories to try to celebrate games that are coming from other like from just I don't know, double A or indie spaces. So I think overall the game awards, yeah let's focus on the awards, let's do some more celebration. The game reveals I think we're awesome

[00:50:58] lots of flash and pomp there but like you said, I'm kind of repeating what you said at this point Jeff Keely is fine-tuning this and it gets better I think every single time I think we just all wish that the fine-tuning would happen a little faster

[00:51:15] and that we'd get more steps in the right direction more sort of honing in on what we would like the game awards to be collectively every year but it's just a slow process and I'm sure there's a lot of bureaucracy involved there. Yeah, I agree with your thoughts.

[00:51:31] I think this is always fun to watch. It's a fun event every year. I look forward to it every year. I've been excited about it this you know these past few weeks and yeah, I think it delivered. It was a super fun show.

[00:51:44] Lots to talk about, lots to discuss. I love stuff like this, love seeing reveals. I probably love trailers and reveals and news of video games more than actual video games if I'm honest. Yeah. Sometimes so it's exciting. Yes. That being said I agree with everything you said.

[00:52:02] This is a production nightmare and so I don't envy Jeff Keely and his team's job. I don't know how many people he employs. I imagine he has a much larger team and he's making a lot of money now and there's a lot of balance

[00:52:19] that I think he has to strike between paying for the show and making more money and making the show financially viable and making it worthwhile for him and for his team and for his production company, which means ads which means more people paying to have trailers

[00:52:35] because they know there's gonna be a certain amount of eyeballs at the show. Yeah. And how do you balance all that? Well also having these awards that essentially in the grand scheme of things are really meaningless, right? There's meaningless in the sense

[00:52:49] that they don't really matter in terms of sales or in terms of anything for the game other than a way to recognize and honor the studios and developers who worked on them. Right. Which is important and good in and of itself

[00:53:08] but that part doesn't exist without all the other stuff which is the trailers that get all the eyeballs and the ads that pay for all of it. And so how do you balance all that out? I have no idea.

[00:53:20] I do think he does continue to need to do a better job though and I don't know how he does that. And I'm sure he's smart enough to know and he'll get the feedback and I think he's open to it, right?

[00:53:36] And he knows he's gotta make adjustments each year and I hope he adjusts so that there's time for these awards and for these people to come on stage and accept their awards and breathe for a second. And I don't know, I don't know how you split that up.

[00:53:52] I'm not a producer so I don't know how you like... I'm not a producer, director, coordinator of events like these, this has to be massively complex so don't know how you pull it off but they gotta do a better job for sure. I agree. Final, final thought.

[00:54:07] Flute Guy. Flute Guy needs his own cam. He needs his own ISO cam whenever the orchestra is performing. Flute Guy, ISO cam 100%. Please, please, please, please, please give us that. And with that ladies and gentlemen, this has been our episode recapping the Game Awards 2023.

[00:54:26] There's something for everyone here. So there was something to get super excited about for the next year. We already are on the precipice of a lot of releases in January, February, March. Lots of crazy stuff coming. Exciting to watch this and react to this with you.

[00:54:42] If you have comments or your reactions to the show, sound off on Twitter. Let us know in the Discord. You can find the link to those in the podcast description. You can follow us on Twitter X at Pre-Ordercast. You can also support us on Patreon.com

[00:54:56] slash Pre-Ordercast, sign up at the $5 tier. You'll get episodes like this early. You'll get access to Jake's indie impressions and I believe, Jake, are you not doing an indie Game of the Year episode on Patreon? I am, I am. It is a huge undertaking

[00:55:11] and so it's probably gonna come out the second half of December. There's a lot of work that goes into that by Jake. He's putting a lot of individual effort. He is a specialist in the indie game space. Plays more games than anyone you know, guaranteed.

[00:55:28] So, more indie games. So yeah, if you sign up and join us on the Lettux edition, you will get access to that and that is only on Patreon. Lastly, the best way that you can help us out besides those things is you can go leave us a review

[00:55:45] on your platform of choice that helps people find the show. Thank you so much for listening and have a great night.