The Game Awards Had Some Amazing and Unexpected Announcements

I was correct – my predictions of games that definitely wouldn’t be announced at the Game Awards weren’t announced.

On the other hand, some of the games that were announced feel even more improbable than those.

I’m just going to cover the highlights that stood out to me, so check out the full live stream if you want to see everything from the Game Awards. Here are the announcements I’m most interested in.

The first game shown during the pre-show was Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. Now, I’ve never played the Ninja Gaiden games, so you might be wondering why I’m giving it a highlight. That’s because it’s being developed by The Game Kitchen.

The Game Kitchen developed a horror point-and-click adventure game that I really enjoyed, The Last Door, and then went on to make the dark metroidvania Blasphemous (which I’ll play one of these days). To see them now making a new game in an established series like Ninja Gaiden just feels impressive.

Speaking of platformers, one of the most bizarre surprises of the night was Shadow Labyrinth, a dark metroidvania… Pac-Man game??

What the heck?

I really don’t know how to feel about this. It does look kind of neat, so I might play it, but it seems like such a weird direction to take Pac-Man.

Moving on to the main show, The Witcher IV was officially announced. Right, so one of these days I’ll finally play 2 and 3 and be able to talk about this trailer in more detail (assuming the game isn’t out by then, which might be giving me too much credit). For now, all I can say is that it looks intriguing.

Now, a new game in the Elden Ring universe was also announced… but it’s a multiplayer co-op survival game in which you must try to survive for three days and nights… so in short, it doesn’t sound like my sort of thing. That’s fine, I need to finish Elden Ring anyway.

There also was a cat game that you’d think I’d be interested in, but it felt oddly uncanny to me while I was watching, and it turns out it’s an AI game with some other questionable details surrounding it. So no cat game for me.

You know what does look neat, though? The untitled new game from Fumito Ueda, the creator of Ico. I haven’t played his previous games, aside from briefly starting Ico once, but it looks interesting.

We also got a new trailer for The Outer Worlds 2, and while it wasn’t as entertaining as its announcement trailer, it has a similar style of humor. I enjoyed The Outer Worlds, although now that I think about it, I never played its DLC. Maybe I should do that before the new game comes out.

There was a trailer for Borderlands 4, too, and while I did play the first Borderlands and part of the second, I sort of fell away from the series. Who knows, maybe my interest will be reinvigorated by the time it comes out, but right now it’s not anywhere near the top of my list.

Okay, now let’s move on to some of the really unexpected announcements.

When I made that joke prediction of Judgment 3, the joke wasn’t so much that I didn’t think we’d ever get a new Judgment game (because I do), but that expecting RGG Studio to announce a new game when they already have Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii coming out next year and be big enough for it to be announced at the Game Awards was too much.

Well apparently not, because not only is RGG Studio developing the new Virtua Fighter game, they also announced a brand-new game using the codename Project Century, set in 1915.

I need to know what this is. It has somewhat of a Yakuza feel, but it also looks much more violent and visceral. Is it set in the Yakuza universe? Is it an entirely new IP? RGG Studio hasn’t even tweeted about it or anything, so it feels like a big mystery right now.

(Their ability to release amazing games so quickly is incredible. What are they feeding them over there??)

So, what could get me more excited than a surprise new RGG Studio game? How about the revival of a series that seemed all but dead? Even when I played the remaster of the first game in the series, the most I hoped for at the end was that the other games would be remastered too.

When the trailer started, I thought it had Onimusha vibes, but I figured I was being tricked again like when Kunitsu-Gami was announced. Then I saw the gauntlet and realized it was really happening. Onimusha is back with the first full new game since 2006.

(It’s a testament to Onimusha that I’ve only played a single game from the series yet immediately recognized it when they showed the gauntlet.)

Since it isn’t due out until 2026, I hope that means they’ll remaster the remaining games in the series before then.

Now, I also have a passing interest in Dungeon & Fighter: ARAD, except I’m not convinced it’s not a gacha game, so I’ll need to learn more about that before I can say one way or another.

Finally, we have perhaps the biggest shock of the night… Capcom is making a new Okami game. Not only that, but it’s being directed by Hideki Kamiya. He’s founded a new studio called Clovers, a definite reference to the original Clover Studio.

The tease for the Okami sequel, which is so early in development that it’s actually being called just Okami Sequel right now, is very short, but it’s so beautiful.

I never finished the original Okami. For years, I’ve been tempted to get the remaster on sale to give it another try, and when I saw this trailer, I told myself I finally would. And you know what? They put it on sale for $4.99, cheaper than it’s ever been before, so I can’t ignore it now. I’m ready to get Okami again and see if I should be excited for this new sequel.

So like I said, my “ridiculous” predictions almost feel too tame now. Sure, I can say they’d never announce two Ace Attorney games at the Game Awards, but Capcom reviving both Onimusha and Okami feels just as absurd. Anything is possible now.

These were the highlights from the Game Awards for me. What announcements stood out to you the most?