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Tom’s Guide

Technology

Rory Mellon

7 biggest announcements at The Game Awards 2024 — Elden Ring: Nightreign, The Witcher 4, Naughty Dog's new game and more

Elden Ring Naughty Dog The Game Awards 2024 PlayStation

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet screenshot.

Kudos to Geoff Keighley, the host and creator of The Game Awards. He promised a memorable night to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the showcase-awards show hybrid, and gaming's biggest hypeman delivered. The Game Awards 2024 was packed with major announcements including the return of beloved franchises, surprise reveals and even a few new IPs to keep things fresh.

Among the various awards being dished (Congrats to Astro Bot for winning GOTY), viewers were treated to a slew of “World Premiere” that ranged from an exciting taster of the world of The Witcher 4, the surprise reveal of a new co-op survival game set in the world of Elden Ring, and the very first look at the next game from PlayStation’s crown jewel developer, Naughty Dog, called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet (odd name but it looks pretty awesome).

In fact, there were so many epic reveals in this year's show that it was very easy to miss something, so I’m rounding up the biggest announcements from The Game Award 2024 down below...

Biggest announcements at The Game Awards 2024

Welcome to The Witcher 4

The Game Awards 2024 started very strong with the first trailer for The Witcher 4. While this cinematic reveal was entirely cinematic, it confirmed that Ciri will be the protagonist this time, and she’s taking a leaf out of Geralt’s book as she sets out to become a professional monster hunter just like her (adopted) dad. The six-minute trailer is a great mood setter and beautifully encapsulates The Witcher's grim-dark world. Eagle-eyed viewers may have spotted the text at the bottom confirming the trailer was pre-rendered on an unannounced Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU, so we can safely say that Witcher 4 is still quite a ways off.

Elden Ring is going full co-op

FromSoftware’s beloved Souls games have traditionally had a co-op element (barring Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice), but the acclaimed Japanese developer is going full multiplayer with its next entry in the Elden Ring franchise. Elden Ring: Nightreign is a standalone experience (this isn’t DLC for the base game), and see three players venture out in a remixed version of the Lands Between to hunt down fearsome foes, and probably die a lot in the process. Mixing in Battle Royale and survival elements, it’s not quite a full Elden Ring 2, but it sure does look like it’ll offer the same intoxicating risk-reward gameplay. It’ll launch in 2025.

Shadow of the Colossus creator has a new game

Fumito Ueda is the mastermind behind video game cult classics Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, and during The Game Awards 2024, Ueda and his team at GenDesign confirmed their next project is in active development. This project is currently untitled, and the short teaser gives very little away. We see a young boy clamber up a large robot before rocketing off inside the towering mech's head. I have no idea what this game will be about but it certainly looks like something Ueda would create, for better or worse.

Split Fiction is another co-op caper from Hazelight

Hazelight, the team behind A Way Out and It Takes Two, is continuing its streak of crafting co-op-only experiences with Split Fiction. Looking vaguely similar to the latter, Split Fiction sees you (and your chosen co-op partner) play a pair of writers who become trapped in the worlds they have dreamed up. The twist is that one author writes sci-fi stories, the other fantasy, so the two genres are mashed together in some surprising ways. Interested players won’t have to wait long for Split Fiction either, it’s set to launch in March 2025.

Borderlands 4 looks like more Borderlands

The Borderlands franchise needs a little bit of rehabilitation following the disastrous release of the “Borderlands” movie over the summer, and this fourth installment in the popular looter-shooter series looks set to get the series back on track. Borderlands 4 looks a heck of a lot like Borderlands 3, only notably prettier and with plenty of new enemies and powerful weapons thrown into the mix. Frankly, that’s all fans will want from this fourth mainline entry. Plus, there’s a new cast of Vault Hunters. It’ll launch sometime in 2025.

Ominusha makes a grand return

Omuniusha: Way of the Sword is a new installment in this historical hack-and-slash series. I’ll admit that I’m not so familiar with Ominusha (In my defense, I wasn’t even 10 years old when the franchise was in its prime), but this announcement has got my colleague Jason England very excited, so its inclusion on this list was a necessity. Based on the cinematic reveal trailer it’s one I’ll be keeping an eye on, but the 2026 release window feels very far away.

Naughty Dog’s new IP is revealed

For months rumors have been circulating that PlayStation-owned Naughty Dog is working on a new original sci-fi game and it turns out the online whispers were correct. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is the new franchise from the team that created Uncharted and The Last of Us. You play a cosmetic bounty hunter who becomes trapped on a dangerous planet. While the setup might sound somewhat generic, the retrofuturism aesthetic and score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are enough to pique my interest. Plus, it’s Naughty Dog, you know it’ll be epic!