It’s that time of the year again, it’s The Game Awards season. We’ve started to receive our video gaming wrap-ups for the year from PlayStation. We’re still waiting on the others — let’s go, Nintendo! This year, I even received a YouTube wrap-up that reassured me that I mostly watch gaming content and cooking videos, with the occasional “YouTube University” car videos (anytime something is wrong with my car).
Last night, Geoff Keighley held his annual video game clip show and industry awards ceremony, and there were many great new games to reveal. This year felt like a balanced mix of reveals to awards. Geoff Keighley has been our video game reveal Santa Claus for a long time, except now he shows up three times a year with presents for us hungry little gamers — Summer Game Fest, Opening Night Live, and the big finisher, The Game Awards).
Each year I enjoy seeing which games are praised as the best of the year, although I am always behind on many of these games. I am aware of them. They are on my radar. I just haven’t found the time to play them all. This year I actually got to work on some of the big games from the 2023 The Game Awards — Alan Wake II and Final Fantasy XVI. I also just started Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which was nominated for at least one award in last year’s show.
If I weren’t still hard at work on the original Hades and Hollow Knight, I’d be knee deep in both of those sequels right about now — both nominated for multiple awards. I’m also waiting until early 2026 to finally get into Ghost of Yōtei and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 — which took home almost all of the awards.
If you want to see all of last night’s winners you can do so here. Now, let’s go over my TOP FIVE announcements from the night. There will also be a short honorable mention list because there were too many big announcements for me to just choose five.
1 | Bradley the Badger
This trailer already got off to a great start when I thought it was for a game called, Badgerborne. That was just one of the many parodied video game worlds within the trailer. We also saw Bradley travel into Cyberbadger and The Last Badger. The early gameplay looks smooth and there’s that transformation element that I want to see more of. Plus, who doesn’t love Evan Peters.
I’ve also wondered what Davide Soliani (Creative Director on the Mario + Rabbids series) was up to since he left Ubisoft Milan. Now I know that he started his own studio Day 4 Night with Red Dead Redemption’s lead designer and writer Christian Cantamessa and I really want to play this game.
2 | Divinity
There are so many teasers that act like beautiful announcements to say “[This studio] is working on a game called [this].” They are just marvelous cinematic trailers featuring no main characters, no story, no gameplay footage, just brushstrokes from the world you will enter in the game. Still, people lose their minds just knowing that [this game] is happening.
Larian has a proven track record with Baldur’s Gate 3 — another big 2023 hit. They also have the previous Divinity series of games, which they are now returning to. It’s going to be interesting to see how they use all that they’ve learned creating Baldur’s Gate 3 in creating this next Divinity game.
3 | Orbitals
The Orbitals trailer started off with a super cute, retro anime-inspired look that I was already here for. At some point the gameplay became split-screen co-op gameplay. The gameplay reminds me in some ways of Split Fiction and other Hazelight games with the visual stylings of something like Hi-Fi Rush.
Orbitals is one of the only games I remember coming exclusively to the Nintendo Switch 2 during the show. I always have local co-op games on my radar to play with my partner. Most of the games I beat in 2025 were local co-op games.
Orbitals is set to release in 2026 on the Nintendo Switch 2.
4 | CONTROL Resonant
I have now played all of the recent Remedy Games (CONTROL, Alan Wake, Alan Wake II). The problem is I have yet to reach the end of any of these games.
I had been working on the original Alan Wake for ten years or more, but I recently quit and moved onto Alan Wake II for my spooky season game. I’m still early on in that game. I played a bit of CONTROL and loved it, but also moved onto other games.
From the trailer for CONTROL Resonant it looks like I may have to finish CONTROL before I get into that one. I only remember being inside the agency building in CONTROL, and this looks like the outside world is completely messed up. What looks great about this game is that it is set in the same world, but from a totally different perspective and point of view.
5 | Mega Man Dual Override
I am one of the ones Geoff was talking about. Someone who’s been gaming for decades. I grew up on Mega Man, and I now own some of the retro collections. I jump in every once in a while and I’m terrible at old school Mega Man games — maybe I always was.
It doesn’t matter if I’m terrible in this new game, I will support my man Mega Man forever. He’s just a cool ass dude. I’m a fan of the colorful world full of fireworks and explosions from the short game trailer.
HM | Honorable Mention
There were plenty of other announcements and reveals that I’m stoked for, but I couldn’t squeeze all of them into my top five list — maybe I should have gone with a top ten? Well, that’s what this section is for.
First, there were not just one but two new Star Wars games revealed. It’s nice to see two completely different games from different studios coming from the same franchise. We’re heading back to the world of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic with this brand new entry Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic with the original game director Casey Hudson.
The second Star Wars game is Star Wars Galactic Racer. I’m looking forward to pod racing with great visuals — I’ve only ever pod raced on Nintendo 64. The visuals look great in the trailer. I’m just hoping the audience is there for a Star Wars racing game.
Lara Croft is also returning with two games. One is a remake of the original Tomb Raider and the second is a brand new story. I wanted to get into the last reboot of Tomb Raider a couple of years ago, but I never had the chance to. Getting the original Lara Croft story in a remake (Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis) next year, followed by a brand new story (Tomb Raider: Catalyst) in 2027 is pretty exciting.
Tabletop giant Wizards of the Coast (Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering) is now getting more involved in the video game industry. They are also doing the thing I want to see big franchises and studios do. Working with multiple studios to give us different gaming experiences. They showed off two game trailers — Exodus and Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons.
It’s cool to see that a big chunk of the team behind Titanfall and APEX Legends has created their own indie studio to build a brand new world with Highguard. The only thing that may hold me back from getting into this one is that it is another PvP shooter. It does feature something new I haven’t really seen in an FPS game — mounting mythical creatures in combat.
I love that J.J. Abrams’s studio Bad Robot is getting into games with 4:Loop. Forest 3 had a great space trailer but may be a little spooky. There were a few games that have already been on my mind for some time — Saros, Phantom Blade 0, and Out of Words.
You can watch the entire 2025 The Game Awards right here:
This year’s show was a good mix of game reveals and awards. There were some nice performances and celebrity guests, but what really got my attention was the use of the stage when they brought out real-life actors to start off certain game trailers — we saw a lot of people flying in creepy ways.
If you have something you’re excited about from last night’s The Game Awards feel free to share in the comments below…
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