From the Oscars to the Tonys, most major industries have their own dedicated award shows. Gaming is no exception: on Thursday, Dec. 9, The Game Awards was live-streamed from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, according to Business Insider (businessinsider.com). Annually, the Game Awards honors the past year’s best games by giving them a chance to win in 30 categories. For example, some of the most significant categories are Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score/Music, and Games for Impact. This year, EA’s adventure game “It Takes Two” took home three awards, including Game of the Year. Bethesda’s Deathloop also took home Best Game Direction and Best Art Design, as stated by Business Insider. 

Tons of news games were announced in the form of The Game Award’s “World premieres”: Sega’s “Sonic Frontiers”, Warner Bros’ “Wonder Woman”, Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars Eclipse”, and Remedy Entertainment’s “Alan Wake II” were all major revealed, many in the form of high-end cinematic trailers. Outside of gaming, the Game Awards also offered a peek inside game adaptations to film and TV, including debuting the trailer for “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”, Paramount Plus’ “Halo” series, according to Business Insider. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss, the stars of the hit Matrix series, made a surprise virtual appearance to discuss The Matrix Resurrections and debut a trailer for a new game called The Matrix Awakens developed by Epic Games, according to Uproxx. 

Sophomore Noah Berrios and senior Noelle DeMasi were rooting for “Metroid: Dread” and “It Takes Two”, respectively, to win at this year’s show. Both games ended the night with awards. DeMasi admired “It Takes Two” for multiple reasons: “… [The] art and graphics in that game are beautiful, along with that the storyline in the game is intriguing and the characters are almost real,” she said. DeMasi also commented on “League of Legends”, which won for Best Esports Game and Best Esports Team. “‘League of Legends’ [had the] best esports game, best ceremony… it honestly deserves it [the wins] because how mainstream and popular the game has been in over its 10 years,” she noted. As for Berrios, “Metroid: Dread” to him was “the game that deserved the most awards” – “The first game [“Metroid: Dread”] in the series in 20 years was executed near flawlessly and I personally think that it should have taken game of the year over It Takes Two,” he said. 

When asked about what he thought about the developers that won big this year (for example, Sony, Microsoft, and indie studios), sophomore Jack Hepburn said this was likely due to the fact that large studios like Microsoft and Sony and have a wider audience. Discussing Indie games, Hepburn attributed their success to them being “multi-platform or PC only, which is the largest market.” DeMasi further commented on certain studios’ successes, comparing them to Nintendo who lacked a presence on stage this year: “Most of the games mentioned are as huge and as popular as ‘Mario’ games are…it [Nintendo] could not withstand being in the category with such powerhouses [the developers behind the winning games].” she said.