The Game Awards Is "Moving Away" From World Premieres

27.11.2023 - 14:58 / thegamer.com

The Game Awards producer and host Geoff Keighley is "moving away" from world premieres, and will instead show a range of game updates and news. Keighley can't confirm how many new announcements will be made at the show this year either, hinting that we might focus on games that have already been announced instead.

This comes from a Q&A with fans, in which Keighley was asked how many world premieres will be at the show. As reported by VGC, his answer tries to shift the focus away from these grand reveals and suggests The Game Awards will have a totally different strategy going forward.

While it's called "The Game Awards", most of the conversation around the show centres around the new game trailers it reveals. This has sparked some debate amongst viewers over whether the awards themselves are being ignored in favour of adverts.

"I don’t know. I haven’t counted, honestly," says Keighley, when asked how many reveals there will be. "I think around the same [as last year], but I don’t know.

"Also, what is a world premiere?" Keighley continues. "Actually, you’ll see this year, we often put up those cards, ‘world premiere, world premiere’… We’re kind of moving away from that, just because everything’s kind of, ‘is it a first look? Is it an announcement?’ So we just treat it all as great game content.”

On the whole, the answer is pretty cryptic, but the fact that Keighley is even questioning what makes a world premiere certainly suggests a shift in direction. Who knows, maybe we won't even hear that iconic "world premiere" voice-over before all the trailers now.

That doesn't mean it won't make for an exciting show. Of course, the main pull should be the awards themselves, and in a year as competitive as this, it's going to be a nail-biter. Baldur's Gate 3 has just cleaned house at the UK's Golden Joystick Awards, but that does not guarantee that The Game Awards' audience will feel the same way. Alan Wake 2 is up for the same amount of awards as Baldur's Gate 3, and both are up for the big Game of the Year prize alongside heavyweights Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Then, there are the announcements. It's largely assumed that Grand Theft Auto 6 will finally be revealed at the show. We know the reveal is coming in December anyway, so taking to the stage on December 7 makes a lot of sense. Other than that, we'll have to see if many world premieres are shown off this year.