Alongside some worthy winners – Balatro, Astro Bot and Metaphor: ReFantazio swept the board – the Game awards last Thursday brought a generous bounty of end-of-year announcements, like unexpected gifts under the tree. In terms of newsworthy reveals, it was the best show yet: it felt a bit like an old-school E3 conference. If you were, quite understandably, not watching a three-hour video game awards show live from LA that aired after midnight UK time, here’s what’s worth knowing about.
A first look at The Witcher IV
We’ve known that another dark-fantasy RPG has been in development in Poland at CD Projekt for some time, but now we’ve seen it. The next Witcher game stars white-haired warrior badass Ciri, instead of her sort-of-father-figure Geralt, and the trailer shows her locked in combat with an impressively gruesome monster. I hell yeah’d my way through this whole trailer – I spent about 200 hours on The Witcher III back in the day and I am looking forward to this immensely.
A new game from Naughty Dog
The next project from the developers of The Last of Us is called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and, as the name would suggest, it’s science fiction. You are trapped on a planet at the edge of the known galaxy from which nobody has returned in 600 years, cut off from communication with civilisation. The premise feels a little tired, but I’m loving the stylish lines and bright colours of this space fantasy, and the judicious use of Pet Shop Boys in the trailer.
We also saw a new trailer for another promising-looking AAA game: Mafia: The Old Country, which is set in Sicily. (Our Guardian games columnist Dominik Diamond recently played the remake of the original Mafia, to see if he was too old to finally become a mafioso.)
Sequels I never expected to see
I loved the 2006 painterly Zelda-alike Ōkami, in which you play a wolf-god fighting demons across ancient Japan with the help of a magic ink brush – but I had long since given up hope of seeing a sequel (aside from 2010’s Ōkamiden, made by a different studio). So the announcement that Hideki Kamiya, the game’s original director, is working on Ōkami 2 at his new studio Clovers was a surprise on a par with the unveiling of Shenmue III at E3 2015. The studio name is an in-joke: Kamiya’s former studio, which made the original Ōkami, was Clover.
Another unexpected Capcom announcement was a new Onimusha game – another PS2-era hit about samurai in feudal Japan, just as exciting but significantly more forgiving than the Ninja Gaiden action games (which are also getting a side-scrolling sequel). Sega is also getting in on the revivals – the team behind Like a Dragon have been tasked with working on a new entry in the Virtua Fighter series. And even 90s dinosaur hunter Turok is getting another shot in a new game called Turok: Origins (warning: violent trailer).
Future co-op classics
Swedish developer Hazelight is known for its cooperative games A Way Out, about two brothers attempting a prison break, and It Takes Two, a magical-realist platformer about a couple on the edge of divorce. The next one is about two aspiring writers – sci-fi and fantasy – who get trapped together in a VR simulation of their stories. You switch between fighting dragons and mechs. It’s called Split Fiction.
Meanwhile, the new game from the creators of Overcooked! is a creepy cooperative horror affair called Stage Fright, which has two players working through escape-room style scenarios. And also, FromSoftware has a new Elden Ring co-op spin-off that looks a bit like Elden Ring meets Monster Hunter – I am slightly sceptical of this but also delighted at the prospect of a new FromSoftware game that I may actually be able to finish, because playing it will totally count as quality time with my partner.
And finally …
Fumito Ueda led the team at Sony’s Japan Studio that made Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and The Last Guardian, a trilogy of standard-setting games that all made me think differently about how games can express ideas. Now at a new studio in Tokyo, he’s back in game development with Project: Robot. There’s barely enough here for a one-minute trailer but, nonetheless, I will play anything this man makes any chance I get.
What to play
In the madness that is being a working parent in December, I have found some peace in Naiad, a free-flowing game about being a water nymph. Followed by small shoals of fish, you swim through beautiful river scenes, singing to the birds and enjoying piano music and the sounds of nature. Sometimes you reunite lost ducklings with their mother, or make a brief appearance in the human world (these are, alas, the most frustrating parts). It has made me feel submerged in nature on my Steam Deck.
Available on: PC
Estimated playtime: 3-4 hours
What to read
Bloomberg interviewed the CEO of CD Projekt Red to get more context on how the studio has changed since Cyberpunk 2077 in preparation for The Witcher IV.
And if you want to hear more about the background of that Ōkami sequel, VGC has a great interview with Hideki Kamiya.
Classic adventure game Beneath a Steel Sky turned 30 last week – Eurogamer ran an entertaining interview with its makers to mark the occasion.
What to click
Question Block
Thank you to everyone who’s sent in a pick for our upcoming readers’ games of the year issue, and also to those who’ve just written in to say how much they enjoy the newsletter. It truly makes my day. One last question for the year is a perennial classic from reader Jessica:
“As usual I have family descending upon me for Christmas, and I’m hoping there’s a video game that different generations might be able to play together. Everyone is bored of Overcooked. Help?!”
The Christmas gaming classics never seem to change: Wii Sports, the Jackbox series for gameshow-esque quizzes, Just Dance, Mario Kart, 1-2-Switch, Heads Up! for a hilarious phone version of charades, and Clubhouse Games for a beautifully put together collection of virtual board and card games. But in the interests of providing an actually new recommendation: Super Mario Party Jamboree is the best that virtual board games have ever been. My five-year-old can play it, so I reckon anybody could.
If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.
