The Game Awards 2023: all of the biggest trailers and announcements

Game developers have a problem with this year’s Game Awards.

While the awards part of Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards has increasingly become vestigial to the ads, teases, and trailers for games both out and coming soon, this year, that disparity was more keenly felt.

At this point, you cannot talk about how amazing 2023 has been for the quality of games released this year without also mentioning how it’s been utterly disastrous for the people who made them. But that’s exactly what Geoff Keighley did during this year’s Game Awards.

The numbers vary, but estimates say anywhere between six and seven thousand workers have lost their jobs just this year. No level of studio size or success has been spared. And those who have been let go are now being forced to contend for an ever-dwindling number of open job postings.

Baldur’s Gate 3, which just won Game of the Year at the 2023 Game Awards, is now available to purchase on Xbox Series X and S. You can buy it now for $69.99.

The Xbox version of the game has been in the works for a little while. A few weeks after the hugely-successful PC launch of the game in August — and just before the release of the PS5 version — Larian Studios announced that it would be bringing Baldur’s Gate 3 to Microsoft’s consoles, though without split-screen co-op on the Xbox Series S.

Square Enix already let us know that it was working on DLC for Final Fantasy XVI. But during the Game Awards, we learned it was working on not one but two DLC chapters with one of them available... right now. Watch the trailer here.

The first DLC, Echoes of the Fallen, is a new story chapter that takes place before the final battle. It features the whole gang working together (honesty, I choked up to see it) to investigate — what else — more messed up crystals. In the DLC, Clive will also be able to wield the iconic buster sword weapon from Final Fantasy VII as well as earn a chiptune version of the FFXVI song “Away”. It’s available right now, but I haven’t been able to find a link in the PlayStation store yet.

Things are about to get a little bit wild in the world of Monster Hunter. At The Game Awards this evening, Capcom revealed the latest entry in the franchise: Monster Hunter Wilds.

There aren’t a lot of details yet about what makes this one different from past MonHun titles, and the game isn’t expected to launch until 2025. It’s slated for the PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X / S. There’s at least a very beautiful trailer to watch full of lots of mounts to ride and monsters to hunt (obviously). More news on Wilds is expected in the summer of 2024.

“The Finals is a game show at heart; it’s not a battle royale or a military sim.”

That’s Gustav Tilleby, creative director of The Finals, describing a new shooter from former Battlefield developers that’s launching today — a surprise shadow drop during The Game Awards. Tilleby and the team at Embark Studios have spent nearly five years painstakingly developing server-side destruction to create something truly unique. The entire environment is destructible, making The Finals feel like a first-person shooter like no other.

A decade ago, at the Spike Video Game Awards, Hello Games made a splash by announcing the wildly ambitious sci-fi exploration game No Man’s Sky. This evening, at the 2023 edition of The Game Awards, the studio did it again, revealing Light No Fire. This time, instead of offering a massive universe of different planets to explore, the game is focused on a single, incredibly detailed world.

According to Hello’s Sean Murray, the game has been in development for the last five years by a small team. He describes it as “the first real open world” with no boundaries, which also has an online multiplayer component. From the trailer it appeared to have elements like crafting and mining, and also the ability to ride flying mounts.

Arkane Lyon is making a game based on Marvel’s Blade franchise, the studio announced at The Game Awards 2023 on Thursday.

The game was revealed in a brief cinematic trailer, so we didn’t get any gameplay of the title or any details about when it might be released. But Arkane Lyon studio director Dinga Bakaba said that it would be an “immersive third-person action adventure,” so we can look forward to that. The trailer’s description also notes that it’s single-player and that it’s set in Paris. A press release notes that Arkane Lyon has “just begun” development, so we might be waiting a long time to see it.

It wouldn’t be a Game Awards without Hideo Kojima. This time, however, the director wasn’t on hand to show off Death Stranding 2 — instead he revealed a new Xbox game called OD. We didn’t get to see much of the game, which was teased last year, and the first teaser mostly just showed the cast doing motion capture tests. It ended with the tagline “For all the players and screamers.”

That said, the game does have a strong cast, including Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier. Also Jordan Peele is involved somehow. Kojima teased other big names who are working on the project, but wouldn’t say who just yet. OD is billed as something of a cross between a game and a movie, with a press release describing it as an experience that “explores the concept of testing your fear threshold, and what it means to OD on fear — while blurring the boundaries of gaming and film.”

Moon Studios, the team behind the beautiful and incredibly hard Ori games, has announced its next project. It’s called No Rest for the Wicked and is described as “a mature, precision action role-playing game.” The game is launching in early access on PC in early 2024, with a full release on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X / S planned for sometime afterward. And, of course, it looks absolutely stunning. Here’s the age-gated trailer.

It’ll be Moon’s first title outside of the Ori series, and it sounds like there is a very large focus on combat. In a press release, the studio says that “fights in the game are animation-driven, direct, and tactile, allowing skilled players to combine visceral strikes and deadly moves.” It also features co-op for up to four players, with players able to “share their world and progress.”

God of War Ragnarök is getting a free DLC this month. During The Game Awards, mere moments after Kratos’ voice actor Christopher Judge made his triumphant (but far less winded) return to the stage, Sony Santa Monica debuted new DLC for 2018’s Game of the Year — God of War Ragnarök Valhalla.

God of War Ragnarök Valhalla is free DLC launching on the PS5 on December 12th. The DLC is set after the final battle of God of War Ragnarök and will feature Big Daddy Kratos and his BBF (that’s bodyless best friend) Mimir as they take on dungeons filled with monsters. The game will feature roguelike elements, where, upon death Kratos will reawaken outside the gates of Vahalla to try to defeat its challenges yet again.