2020 has certainly been a packed year, full of ups and downs for gaming. Though many games have gotten delayed to next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many fantastic titles have come out of the year, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Doom Eternal, and much more.
This year’s Game Awards 2020 event hosted by Geoff Keighley is almost here, and with it, many fans have began speculating possible announcements and game trailers that will come out of the event. But most of all, fans are starting to speculate which games will bring home the awards, with there being a total of 30 different categories.
Game Awards: Rumored Game Announcements and Appearances
Along with awards themselves, the Game Awards is also an event where many game developers showcase announcement trailers for upcoming titles. In past years, games like Soul Calibur 6, Bayonetta 3, and Mortal Kombat 11 were announced during this event, so fans should expect more game announcements to take place during this year’s event. Game developers have had to delay many games due to COVID-19 related setbacks, however, so fans might want to expect less announcements than usual this year.
But there have been many rumored titles that could potentially get official announcements during this event, or already announced titles that could make reappearances. Bayonetta 3, which was originally announced at the 2017 Game Awards, has yet to release for Nintendo Switch, so it could be interesting to see the same title reappear at the event this year with more information. Metroid Prime 4 is another Switch game in which fans have yet to receive any additional information on in nearly two years, so it would be great if it appeared during this year’s Game Awards. Alternatively, Nintendo could finally announce a port of the Metroid Prime Trilogy for Switch, which has been rumored to be coming to the console for quite some time now.
Outside of Nintendo, BioWare could also finally give some updates for Dragon Age 4, which is also sparse on details. FromSoftware’s upcoming title Elden Ring has been rumored to be making an appearance at the show as well. It was also recently rumored that a Silent Hill reboot for the PS5 would be announced soon, so that very well could be an announcement being saved for this year’s Game Awards.
Top Award Contenders
2020 wasn’t short of great titles, and the Game Awards nominees feature quite a big range in titles. Some awards definitely feel more up-in-the-air than others. Best Mobile game, for example, seems like it can be narrowed down to Among Us, as the game has undoubtedly become a worldwide phenomenon over the past few months, and Genshin Impact, which has some of the best monetization and fun a mobile game can offer.
Likewise, the winner for the award of Best Indie also seems like it can be narrowed down: Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was immensely popular upon its initial release, and continues to have great support from its developers and its large, active player base. Hades has also dominated the awards this year, and it’s likely to walk with several of its nominations in the bag.With that said, Carrion and Spelunky 2 were both critically acclaimed upon release so it could go either way.
Virtual Reality gaming had one of its best years yet, with several huge titles releasing in 2020. The year kicked off with Half Life: Alyx releasing to huge critical and fan success, being arguably the biggest VR game to release for the gaming medium thus far. With that said, the fantastic PlayStation exclusive title Dreams also got VR support this year. Star Wars: Squadrons also released, and has been declared by many as one of the best Star Wars games in tis genre in a very long time. With all of these picks and more, the award for Best VR/AR game is going to be a hard one. Half Life: Alyx is notably nominated for more awards including Best Action Game, Best Audio Design, and Best Game Direction. All of these categories are filled with other great titles, like Ori and the Will of Wisps, Doom Eternal, Ghost of Tsushima, and more.
Game of the Year Candidates
The Last of Us Part 2 is nominated for more awards than any other game, with 9 nominations in total. While this game’s unlikely to win all of the awards its nominated for, the award that it does feel the most deserving of it the Innovation in Accessibility award. The title feels deserving of this award as it was able to accommodate gamers with various disabilities, and with everything else in its favor, it’s likely to take home the coveted GOTY award as well.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons, another Game of the Year contender, has arguably had the biggest cultural impact out of all of the GOTY nominees for this year. The title has been a massive financial success, with over 26 million sales worldwide to date and has been one of the biggest online games of the year with a continually active player base. PlayStation 4 exclusive Ghost of Tsushima also looks like it has a fairly good chance of winning Game of the Year, with the title also incredibly popular. Unlike most of the other nominees, the game is a brand new IP and is probably one of the most unique games of this year. Still, with competition like Hades, Final Fantasy, and Doom, there’s really no way to predict how this could go—and that’s the exciting part.
Though it’s unclear as to which game will be taking home the big award, there’s certainly plenty of excitement surrounding the Game Awards for this year. Fans are also excited to see which games will be announced and featured during the event when it airs digitally later next month.
The Game Awards 2020 airs on December 10, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST.
