The Game Awards 2016 have come to a close, with it a ton of new announcements from old and new games alike. Here’s your one-stop breakdown of everything you missed from the show.
The announcements began before the actual show kicked off. The first shown was a new video for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild showcasing new terrain and even teasing an appearance by (one would assume) Zelda herself.
Then there were the first two awards of the night, Best Mobile/Handheld and Best Family Game, which was nabbed by Pokemon Go.
Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford then took the stage to announce that the company will now be publishing games under Gearbox Publishing, and their first game under the label is Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. Full Clip Edition will bring the original Bulletstorm to new consoles at 4K and 60 FPS, and include Duke Nukem as a playable character.
Following that, the award for Best VR Game was presented to Rez Infinite. Best Fighting Game was also awarded to Street Fighter V before the show officially started.
New DLC was then announced for Rocket League called Starbase ARC, which adds a new arena, new and optional $1.99 cars, and new music by Hollywood Principle. The update is coming on Dec. 7.
Once the show officially kicked off, the first thing Geoff Keighley wanted to get off of his chest was Hideo Kojima’s Industry Icon award. Kojima took the stage and showcased brand new footage from his studio’s first project, Death Stranding. You can check out that…. interesting video below.
Immediately following was a new update announcement from Warframe called The War Within, which is coming in December.
Afterward, Playdead Studio’s Inside took home two awards, Best Art Direction and Best Independent Game.
Keighley then introduced another world premiere: the next Telltale game series, Guardians of the Galaxy. You can check out the teaser below.
The next award up for grabs was Best Action Game, won by DOOM among the company of Gears of War 4, Uncharted 4, Battlefield 1, and Titanfall 2.
The Games for Impact award was next, which was taken by the developers of That Dragon, Cancer with a tearful acceptance speech.
The next announcement was one of both a new game and new studio — Phoenix Labs, formed from former Bioware developers, and their game Dauntless, a free-to-play four player co-op game coming in 2017. Here’s the first trailer.
The next award was for Trending Gamer of the year, which among plenty of strong competition was taken home by Boogie2988 (or as some might know him, The Raging Gamer, Francis).
Cliff Bleszinski joined Keighley during as aside to introduce a new trailer for his studio Boss Key Production’s inaugural project, LawBreakers.
Nolan North took the stage of The Game Awards to accept the award for 2016’s Best Performance, which he accepted while also recounting the last nine years playing Nathan Drake for the Uncharted series and thanking developers for their work.
In passing, Keighley also awarded Best RPG to The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, the DLC expansion that rounded off the series earlier this year. Also revealed was Best Strategy Game, which unsurprisingly went to Civilization VI. Best Sports/Racing Game was taken by Forza Horizon 3. The last in the streak of awards was Best Music and Best Sound Design, which went to DOOM.
Following this, Arkane Austin took the stage for the gameplay reveal of Prey, their first game, which they originally announced back at E3. You can check out that gameplay below, which gives off some serious BioShock/Dishonored-in-space vibes.
https://youtu.be/230FWzLqVb0
In a previously announced appearance, champion Olympian Michael Phelps took the stage of The Game Awards to present Best Esports Player, which was won by Cloud 9 player coldzera, champion Counter-Strike player from Brazil. Best Esports Team also went to Cloud 9.
Next was some brand new gameplay from Nintendo for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which exemplified some moment-to-moment exploration and a look at some new environments in the game. Check that out below.
Keighley then unveiled his next world premiere, the first trailer for Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment. The game is looking great, and you can check it out below.
Neil Druckmann then took the stage to accept the award for Best Narrative with Uncharted 4. His speech included a special thanks to Amy Hennig, his predecessor behind the first three Uncharted games.
Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan came up next to thank Overwatch’s community in their win for Best Game Direction, and even took a second to encourage pro-Genjis around the world. Overwatch also took home two more wins for Best Esports Game and Best Multiplayer Game.
The Game Award’s next premiere was a brand new story trailer for Halo Wars 2, which you can check out below.
As The Game Awards were winding down, Arkane accepted the award for Best Action Adventure Game with Dishonored 2.
Telltale then followed their Guardians of the Galaxy announcement with new footage from the first two episodes of The Walking Dead Season 3, featuring a new protagonist and an older Clementine.
The Game Award’s last big reveal, teased throughout the night, finally came with Mass Effect: Andromeda, which had over five beautiful minutes of combat, conversation, and jump packs.
To send off The Game Awards was Game of the Year, a strong category filled with the likes of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Titanfall 2, Inside, Overwatch, and DOOM. Keighley revealed the winner as Blizzard’s Overwatch.
About the author
