With the recent confirmation of the date of December 8th 2022 for Geoff Keyleigh’s The Game Awards, and AAA gaming season now in full swing, we thought it would be fun to do some very early predictions for some of the games of the year and maybe a couple of other things we can expect to see. We will start with some of the game award categories, then look at things that may be shown.
Racing game of the year
Source: Polyphony Digital
Gran Turismo 7 (GT7)
The F1 fan in me would pick F1 2022 here, but GT7 will probably win this. Sure, it has come under intense criticism for its financial setup, but it is still a fantastic game and has been optimised well for a racing rig. Gran Turismo also has a huge following of the franchise. F1 does too, but many of them are out of the core video game sphere.
Source: Xbox
Indie game of the year
Tunic
This is probably the toughest category to call. There have been some absolutely AMAZING indie games this year. In many ways, they have really propped up the year for games which has been comparatively light on AAA games from large publishers. Special mentions go to Tunic, Si-Fu, TMNT: Shredders Revenge and As Dusk Falls. Tunic is the choice I am going to go for here. It’s such a hard call to make though and there are many that are still very close that I haven’t mentioned. Again. GREAT year for indies.
Source: Sony
Game of the year
God of War Ragnarök
It will be God of War: Ragnarök. People will cry Elden Ring, but it came out what feels like ages ago and multi-plats normally do win, and even though Elden Ring was amazing… It is still one of those games that is slightly too niche, maybe… Honestly, I think A Plague Tale: Requiem can feel hard done by here if it doesn’t win. It is phenomenal and gets my personal game of the year, probably… I prefer the characters and story in A Plague Tale compared with God of War and even though open-world action RPGs are my favourite genre, A Plague Tale captured me in a way that Elden Ring did not. Still, I think it will be God of War. Like A Plague Tale, it has the benefit of being the second game in a series allowing Sony Santa Monica to improve on a game that was already close to perfect.
Upcoming games we will see
Hellblade 2
Hellblade 2 seems to love The Game Awards, so it is a relatively safe bet to say we might well see it appear again, perhaps with a release date. Last year we got gameplay, and it blew viewers eyes clean out their sockets with life-like visuals. Probably a safe bet.
Source: Sony
Wolverine
Sony have been quiet in terms of what they have shown this year. God of War and Gran Turismo will still mark a fantastic year for their first party. But since Star Wars KOTOR was delayed ‘indefinitely’ the focus of the game communities hype has been for Marvel’s Wolverine. We could well see it make a gameplay debut here, which would be so awesome. Insomniac have already done a stellar job with Spiderman and almost everyone is hyped to see what they can do with the much darker, gritty character of Wolverine.
Source: Xbox
Avowed
The recent leaked screenshot got people even more pumped for Avowed. It was heavily rumoured to be making an appearance at the Xbox & Bethesda showcase during summer but didn’t make the cut. With Microsoft electing to only show only what we can expect to see in the next 12 months. Prior to the Xbox summer showcase it was rumoured that there were many teams within Xbox Game Studios who had stuff they wanted to show but were asked to wait. It was heavily speculated that Avowed was one of those games. With this in mind, it should surprise very few people if we did see Avowed at The Game Awards.
Bonus
Redfall Release Date. With a new trailer dropping for Redfall, marketing appears to be really ramping up. When it was delayed, it was said to be early 2023. A release date announcement here would make sense.
