Media Diary 9: The Game Awards 2018

I have a huge guilty pleasure for any type of award shows, press conferences or other live-streamed media spectacles, especially when it comes to subjects that I already love, like video games. There's something incredibly fun and satisfying in staying up late, reading people's expectations beforehand, reacting in real-time to whatever happens, and then seeing other people's reactions to  in live chats and tweets. That's why yet again, I decided to torture myself and forbid myself of sleep last night just so I could watch The Game Awards 2018, and scoff at how all the wrong titles win all the awards yet again.

That's the mindset I often have with events like this (if only so that I don't end up disappointed later on), but with The Game Awards the point of the show is not just in the awards. Although it is a typical award show in that it still does have the tear-filled winning speeches and mid-show music performances, The Game Awards is also an event for new video game announcements and trailers. According to the Game Awards host and producer Geoff Keighley, this is because having reveals and extra entertainment in the show attracts a far larger audience than keeping the event as a pure award show would, which other events had tried (and failed at) before. There is certainly room for a proper game event in the winter too: the video game industry's greatest annual event E3 takes typically place in June, but there is no similar event during the winter months. Sony's own event Playstation Experience has been going on strong for a few years, but this year's event was cancelled because of the lack of new games to show. So at least for me, the more announcement-focused approach of The Game Awards has been more than welcome!

Going over everything that happened last night at the event would be way too boring for both me and whoever might read this post, so instead I'll go over some of my highs and lows of the night.

The awards

First off, the main point of the event: awards! This year there were no major surprises or upsets for me. As expected, Red Dead Redemption 2 conquered quite a few awards, although it turned out to be God of War that snatched the grand award for the Game of The Year. If I had to complain about something, then I am maybe just a tiny bit upset that RDR2 won the best soundtrack award. Don't get me wrong, RDR2's soundtrack is definitely not bad in any meaning of the word, but for me it just  pales in comparison to Octopath Traveler and Celeste.

I was little disappointed that this year (again) certain major awards were announced during the pre-show. I can understand the pre-show treatment for awards like the best student game or the best esports coach, but for the best RPG and the best action game too? Those are some major genres with good and popular games in them, so it feels odd that they were left out of the main show like this...

Dragon Age

 

Four years after the last instalment in the series, a new Dragon Age -game is officially, properly, finally confirmed. I was already starting to panic a bit when it seemed like there wouldn't be trailer for a new Dragon Age after all, but thankfully Bioware didn't let me down (for once). The teaser is very short, doesn't tell really anything new to anyone who has played the previous games, and doesn't even announce the new game's title, but as it's exactly what I expected to see, I'm satisfied. According to rumours, the game is at least three years away from release, so maybe it's for the best that Bioware doesn't hype it up too much quite yet.

The Outer Worlds

 

A big surprise for me was Obsidian's new RPG The Outer Worlds, and not because the game's existence is a surprise, but because of how interesting it looks to me. I'm not a fan of Fallout, or any first-person RPGs in general, but the trailer for The Outer Worlds managed to sell the game to me: its colourful and fun style in graphics, interesting characters and environments, and the overall personality all look really appealing. Unfortunately, it is a first person game, which more or less guarantees I'll never be able to play it, as I get horrible motion sickness whenever I try to play an FPS. Oh well.

Persona 5's Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 

 

This is that one announcement that I, along with practically anyone else, never saw coming. I have to admit I got stupidly excited when Persona 5's cast suddenly interrupted the event, and for a second there I hoped it the trailed was for Switch port or perhaps Persona Q2 localization, but hey, I'm fine with this too. I've never actually played Smash, and do not currently have any plans to get the new one either, but any Persona content is good content in my eyes.


Overall, The Game Awards 2018 was almost worth staying up all night. I was somewhat disappointed how minor most of the game announcements were, and how certain rumoured games didn't make an appearance after all (such as the leaked Harry Potter RPG), but as an award show the event was definitely well executed. The music performances were beautiful, the host was more than charismatic enough, and the pacing was fitting with no particularly big pauses or any too rushed moments. It was fun to watch, and I'll surely tune in next year too.