The Game Awards is making its yearly appearance as the Game of the Year season heats up. The video game awards show has quickly become a must-watch event for players awaiting the next big announcements and surprises. That goes double for this year’s show, as the event’s founder, Geoff Keighley, has teased a slew of announcements that promise to be just as big as those of years past. Thankfully, those who are curious won’t have long to wait as the ceremony takes place today. Here’s what you need to know about it.
This year’s Game Awards begin at 5 p.m. PT today on Thursday, December 9. As in past years, festivities begin with a 30-minute preshow that starts at 4:30 p.m. PT.
The Game Awards is available to watch on both of the major streaming services via its official YouTube and Twitch channels. There will also be feeds on social media sites including Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. The stream will be featured on Steam, Trovo, and Oculus. Anyone wishing to co-stream the event can do so on the official Game Awards site by signing in and opting in.
There will also be an accompanying Metaverse experience via Core for the event. Using the Core app, viewers will be able to watch and interact with the show live when the event begins at 5 p.m. PT. It is accessible via the title Axial Tilt, which serves as a metaverse hub for programming and events hosted by Keighley. Core can be downloaded at CoreGames.com or the Epic Games Store, and Axial Tilt is free to download within the app.
Along with the usual awards, the Game Awards is teased to feature tons of big announcements. In an interview with USA Today, Keighley said there are “at least four or five things” at the event on the same level as the Elden Ring reveal trailer unveiled at Summer Game Fest. One confirmed title is The Matrix Awakens, an “interactive storytelling experience” available for pre-download on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
As usual, there are accompanying rumors of games expected to show up during the event. One rumor that’s been gaining a lot of traction in relation to the Game Awards is a potential Chrono Cross remake, along with the next NetherRealms Studios fighting game. Keighley also states that he has a big surprise involving a project he’s been working on with a developer for the past two-and-a-half years, along with new game announcements numbering in the double-digits.
While it feels like almost anything could pop up at the Game Awards this year, it may be best to not expect anything from Activision Blizzard. Keighley confirmed that Activision is not a part of this year’s show outside of nominations following the storm of sexual misconduct controversy surrounding the company.
Throughout the past month, more allegations fueling the fire against the company have come to light including sexual harassment, withholding information of misconduct, and more. This has reportedly led executives at companies like PlayStation and Xbox to criticize Activision and reassess their relationship with the company.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.