13 Predictions for what will be revealed at The Game Awards

On December 7, we are about to have The Game Awards, or TGA’s, broadcasted online and people will see which games win certain awards. But perhaps the real reason why people turn in is not so much the awards themselves, but for the world premieres that Geoff Keighley tends to hype up. This year in particular Keighley has announced that there will be 13+ world premieres at this show. There have been some solid reveals in the past ranging from the Uncharted 3 during the Spike Days to the Psychonauts 2 crowdfunding announcement. People are starting to get eager about what the premieres are this year. Though one reveal that Keighley already confirmed that we’ll get World Premiere footage for the desert map in PUBG. I mean, it’s a big deal for PUBG players to finally see this desert map in action. However, the fact that one of the reveals Keighley is pushing is a map might get people’s expectations in check thinking we may get more world premieres for DLC rather than actual game announcements. While I'm expecting a fair amount of DLC premieres, I think there’s still some room for some monster game announcements as well as some meaty gameplay footage for some big 2018 games. Here I’m going to make 13 predictions on what game, DLC, remasters and ports and gameplay footage reveals I think we’ll get at the game awards. Also I'll update on this blog to see how right and wrong I am (I'll probably be mostly wrong, but we'll see).

DLC:

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle will reveal a new DLC pack with Rayman as a new playable hero: So first things first, this DLC is going to be announced when Kingdom Battle wins best strategy game. Normally the Game Awards do this by giving one the awards to the winner in a rather unceremonious way. Then they transistion to a World Premiere that's either tied to the game or with the game's publisher/developer. Honestly I’m sure all the other strategy nominees are quality games, Kingdom Battle ended up being this strange crossover that got massive attention and frankly I think its a lock to win Best Strategy Game.

As far as the DLC itself, this was actually leaked back in late November, but it wasn’t too descriptive on what it was going to include. It did state there would be 16 new weapons, 8 new challenges, 5 co-op missions and a brand new world with a new playable hero. When this serviced, people were predicting characters like Wario, Waluigi, Rosalina, Daisy and even Pauline as being one of those potential new heroes. As much as I’d love any of those characters to be playable, I’d think they’d have a Rabbid variant and the DLC mentions 1 new hero. The character and world I see is not even Mario themed. Instead, I think we see a Rayman crossover out of this with Mario and Rabbids going to Rayman’s universe. It’s plausible since Rabbids started off as Rayman characters but they spun off into their own franchise and honestly it would be a missed opportunity to not have Rayman and Mario in the same game

Destiny 2 DLC: I was going to say this was going to be another one of those DLC announcements after a certain game wins a award. However, looking at Destiny 2’s competition in the categories its nominated for, I’m not so sure if Destiny 2 will bring home any awards. It will lose best multiplayer to PUBG and maybe lose best action game to Cuphead. Maybe it wins best audio design? Either way, I think we’re going to get some new Destiny 2 content revealed in some fashion. I’m not sure what the content will be if its going to be additional single player content or a new multiplayer mode. I just have a sneaking feeling we’re going to get Destiny 2 DLC announced at the Game Awards. If not, PSX would probably be the likely place for it.

Assassin’s Creed Origins DLC will be FF15 themed: So this is getting some suspicion from players that have found something hidden that hints at DLC. Players have found a secret room that hints at potential DLC that might be tied to Final Fantasy 15. The room has some squares on the bottom of a wall that look like the squares from the SquareEnix logo. Not to mention there are Egyptian engravings of FF15 characters like Noctis. Then if you walk through the wall in front of you, there is a blue dungeon that leads to an empty alter. However, people are speculating that once the DLC is complete, it gives you access to Noctis’ sword or other Final Fantasy weapons. All this talk about an AC/FF crossover may come out of nowhere for some, but if this is leading to FF15 inspired DLC, this isn’t the first time these two franchises crossed over. FF15 had a Assassin’s Creed themed festival where you can have AC themed mini games and missions so it makes sense that AC would get FF content into its game soon.

Legend of Zelda BOTW DLC Pack 2 Release Date: So Nintendo confirmed that the second DLC pack for BOTW is suppose to come out around Holiday season in 2017. If Nintendo wants to make up their own word, they should release another trailer for the DLC pack at the Game Awards. This might be another trailer that will come from BOTW winning one of the awards (Maybe for Best Switch game) We’ll see more footage than what we saw in the E3 Direct and finally get a release date. In fact, I think this will be one of those trailers that will have a “you can get the game NOW” messages. It might be available after the show, but this would be a good way to end the wait for Zelda fans wanting to play the second DLC pack.

Game Footage of Already Announced Games:

Anthem will reveal some more gameplay footage: Oh EA, you could really use some positive coverage right now huh? 2017 might very well be EA’s worst year not only in this generation, but perhaps ever. First Mass Effect Andromeda was a buggy and poorly acted disappointment and then they closed Vicseral, the makers of Dead Space. Later NFS Payback was underwhelming and now Star Wars Battlefront 2 has gotten in so much trouble with microtranactions that it got the attention of both the government of Belgium and the state of Hawaii for possibly condoning gambling with a Star Wars theme. Oh and the beta for EA Sports UFC 3 is suppose to be another microtransaction/loot box mess according to .

Anthem is probably the best thing going for EA right now. Its being developed by Bioware and it’s a new IP where its an online multiplayer role playing game. It lets players take over mech suits called Javelins which all have different weapons and have jet packs that look fun to control. We haven’t seen anything from this since E3 and I think at some point, this game will get extended gameplay footage to be revealed. Perhaps we’ll see what the multiplayer interface would look like and see an expedition between 2 players but in a different world. We saw a jungle environment in the E3 gameplay reveal, so maybe a desert or snow environment instead?

Psychonauts 2 will get new footage: Its been 2 years since Psychonauts 2 got announced and fans who loved the original did what they could to crowdfund the sequel. Its been a while since we’ve seen anything on this game and honestly, I think the time is right that we’ll get a new trailer at the Game Awards. It won’t be a full on gameplay reveal as I think we’ll see a supercut of some of the game’s cutscenes seeing where the plot has gone since the events of the original. However, we’ll see gameplay as we’ll see what knew psychic tricks Raz can do ever since the original. We’ll also see what the “mental worlds” will look like and give Psychonauts fans a release date for 2018 to end the trailer.

Hey guess what? We’re getting another Death Stranding CG trailer tease: Geoff Keighley has confirmed that Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro will be at The Game Awards to present one of the awards. Not to mention that there are Twitter pictures of Hideo and Mads Mikkelsen spending time together. It could just be Hideo sharing pictures with him and Mads, but people are getting exciting hoping for more Death Stranding footage. You know what, I think we’ll see more. I don’t know if we’ll see any actual gameplay since the game itself seems far from even being 40% complete, but we might get a new actor reveal in another bizarre trailer.

Red Dead Redemption 2 will get a meaty gameplay video: Hey remember when Rockstar announced RDR2 for 2017? Well they decided to delay it until 2018 which surprised nobody because Rockstar games never meet their initial release date. We haven’t seen any footage of this in a while and I feel Rockstar should have something in store either for The Game Awards or PS experience. I think its more likely to be The Game Awards where we’ll see a 2-5 minute gameplay reveal as well as an official release date for when it coming out next year. I can see this being shown if RDR2 wins the most anticipated award. Also seriously Rockstar, Spring 2018 isn't that far away. Rockstar PR are normally masters at hyping up audiences for their upcoming games. I'd be shocked if RDR2 isn't shown off at all either here or PS experience.

Remasters/Ports:

Blizzard will announce porting one of their games onto the Switch…and it will be Hearthstone: With the Switch being such a runaway success, it has gotten plenty of third party developers/publishers to show support. Bethesda has shown massive support with Skyrim, DOOM and Wolfenstein II on the way, EA has released FIFA and even Rockstar released L.A. Noire onto the Switch. Blizzard is one of the few big developers that hasn’t released anything yet, but I think we get a reveal for one of their games going over to the portable home console. As their first Switch port, they’re going to bring Hearthstone over.

On one hand, I think many Switch owners would hope for something higher profile like Overwatch heading over, and the hearthstone announcement could disappoint some. I can even write a whole article itself on how much sense an Overwatch port on Switch would make. Lower the graphics for the system, amiibo support for Nintendo themed costumes (Dedede Reinhardt and Wario Roadhog would be the best), maybe a Nintendo guest character like Samus or an Inkling if Blizzard is willing to play ball. But Honestly I don’t think Overwatch will get ported on the Switch and instead, Blizzard will port Hearthstone over. It makes perfect sense porting a mobile card game on a system that lets you play games on the go. Hearthstone would also make the first Blizzard game to be on a Nintendo console since Starcraft 64. Yes Blizzard has not been supportive on Nintendo’s hardware for years, but I think Blizzard will be willing to test the waters by porting Hearthstone over and see how that version sells.

Shenmue 1+2 Remastered Collection: A very small amount of people are wondering if we’re going to see Shenmue 3 at either the Game Awards or at the PS experience. We did get a, well, emotionless trailer of Shenmue 3 earlier this year, but I don’t think we’ll see anymore footage in 2017. As a way to make up for the lack of Shenmue 3 news, I think the time is right for Yu Susuki to come out on stage or give permission to Keighley to announce a Shenmue 1 and 2 HD Remaster collection. Listen, knowing what we saw of the Endurance Run of the first Shenmue, I don’t think this is an entirely good idea to Hd-ify one game that’s a hot mess. However, it makes perfect sense to announce this to hype up Shenmue 3 and perhaps give this generation of gamers a chance to play these games that are deemed by some people as classics. Of course, this would only happen if Sega allows it.

Actual Game Announcements:

Soul Calibur 6 will be announced after Tekken 7 wins best fighting game: Honestly looking at the fighting game award this year, there may be 5 nominees but its really between Injustice 2 and Tekken 7 for the award. So here’s what I’m thinking, they give the Best Fighting game award to Tekken 7 and then Harada will hint at another classic 3D fighter of Namco’s that will return. This then cues a short, 30-second CG trailer with Siegfried and Nightmare fighting each other and we get a voice over saying “Soul Calibur 6!” There’s actually been some leaks going on about SC6 that is it planned to be announced at some point whether its going to be the Game Awards or E3 next year. Honestly this is the show for Namco to announce SC6 since Sony recently stated that Namco is going to be a No Show for PS Experience. But honestly, I think they show an announcement trailer at The Game Awards and then some footage later in 2018. We'll probably get guest characters on the way, but that will be too early to reveal. If Injustice 2 wins, then we won’t get the SC6 announcement and instead get footage of TMNT in Injustice 2.

A New Indie game will be announced: This one is admittedly vague because I don’t know what studio is announcing what in particular. I do think that we’re going to see a reveal of a brand new indie IP at the game awards from a pretty prominent indie dev. Whether its Digital Devolver or Yacht Club, I think we are going to see something new but no particular release date will be shown. If I have to be super specific, I'll say Digital Devolver will show a rather outragous new game where you play as a commando alligator and its like Metal Slug but aesthetically is a mix of Talespin and Natural Born Killers. It will be called Chomp-mando. Wait for me to be super wrong with this one.

New Super Smash Bros for Switch or Deluxe version will be announced: Nintendo was giving away free tickets to the game awards to any lucky fans out there. This could be a hint that maybe either BOTW or Odyssey is going to win GOTY, but it could just be Nintendo being nice to its fans by giving them a chance to attend the show. Plus I think Nintendo is giving away tickets because they might have a special reveal ready for the show. The potential DLC announcements aren’t gonna be enough. Some people are saying Metroid Prime 4 will show up at the awards, but I think that title is still so early in development that they’re waiting until next E3 to show Prime 4 off. I gut feeling tells me there is going to be a new Smash Bros game that will be announced for the Switch. OK, maybe not an entirely new game because I think it might be Smash Bros for Wii U Deluxe. Still, its been rumored for a while that Smash Bros is coming to the Switch and I think if there’s anytime to announce a new Smash or an upgraded port, it might be the Game Awards. The game will probably show familiars like Mario, Link, Kirby, Marth and the Villager fight each other, but I’m thinking we’ll get some new character announcements like an Inkling, Spring Man from Arms and/or a third party character (maybe Snake returns).