Game Awards 2022: The Game Awards open with Al Pacino monologue, a win for Christopher Judge
Christopher Judge #ChristopherJudge
The Washington Post 3 hrs ago Mikhail Klimentov, Riley MacLeod, Shannon Liao, Alyse Stanley, Jonathan Lee
The 2022 Game Awards are live. The ceremony, an hours-long celebration of video games and their surrounding communities, also serves as a promotional vehicle for upcoming games: Much of the event’s runtime is devoted to trailer reveals and game announcements. Video game industry figures including developers, esports athletes, actors, executives and streamers attend the event as guests, presenters and nominees. In the past few years, celebrities have joined the proceedings as well. Daniel Craig, the actor, Hozier, the musician, and Animal, the muppet, are all expected to appear in this year’s show, which will be held Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
The Game Awards will be available to watch on all major social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The show will also be streamed in a public Game Awards Discord server.
Geoff Keighley, the former journalist who created and produces the Game Awards, will once again host the event; content producer Sydnee Goodman will host the pre-show ceremony.
Before the awards ceremony, the Game Awards announced its third list of Future Class members. Future Class comprises 50 individuals from across the games industry — including developers, influencers and accessibility consultants, among others — who represent the industry at its most thoughtful and inclusive. The full list of members can be found here.
Follow Washington Post Gaming on YouTube for live streams, gaming news and analysis
Our writers and editors are watching the live broadcast remotely, highlighting the biggest news from the show below. Shannon Liao is reporting from the event’s venue in Los Angeles.
8:43 PM: ‘Stray’ wins best indie game of the year
The indie hit “Stray” from French studio BlueTwelve just won best indie game of the year.
“I want to thank everyone involved in making this game,” said producer Swann Martin-Raget. “It was really a work of love and passion.”
Martin-Raget went on to specifically thank “Stray’s” publisher Annapurna interactive and the team’s partners, families, dogs and of course, their cats.
Read the full story.
By: Jonathan Lee
8:43 PM: Chris Judge’s heartfelt acceptance speech highlights the early moments
Chris Judge, who took home the first major award for his performance as Kratos in “God of War: Ragnarok,” threw a wonderful, heartfelt change-up into the early quick pace of this year’s Game Awards.
After winning, Judge took the stage, tracked down Al Pacino to hug him, swore into the microphone and then proceeded to issue a stream of thank yous that started with his mother and brother and then rolled on … and on … and on. In full, from the time Judge took the stage, the acceptance speech ran nearly nine minutes — a veritable eternity in Game Awards time. And Al Pacino was waiting on the stage in the background all the while.
It was sweet, it was warm, it was wholesome and it never ever ever ever ever would have happened at the Oscars. Eventually, around the 8:30 mark of the speech, music slowly started to play him off the stage. In all, he thanked his mother, brother, his children, Santa Monica Studios (the maker of the game), studio head Yumi Yang, God of War lead Cory Barlog, “Matt, Rich, Dorrie, Bruno, Erica, Bea, everyone who made that volume so special and so sacred, everyone at every level,” “Ragnarok” director Eric Williams … and there were still four more minutes to the speech.
Host Geoff Keighley has already caught on to the appeal, referencing it with a pair of one-liners after it concluded (including that Judge was trying to give away some free Steam Decks, which Valve is randomly giving away every minute during the live airing to viewers watching on Steam). Safe to say, it’ll be among the top moments of the night when all is said and done.
By: Mike Hume
8:40 PM: Analysis from Jonathan Lee
Bear McCreary is killing it on the hurdy gurdy during this live performance of “Blood Upon The Snow” from “God of War” with Hozier. Fun fact, McCreary used this same instrument for the killer intro song of the pirate show “Black Sails!”
8:30 PM: The next Bayonetta game is a prequel, ‘Bayonetta Origins’
Platinum Games announced “Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon,” which depicts the eponymous hero as a child on a quest to save her mother. Before she was the witch known as Bayonetta, she was named Cereza. The upcoming prequel is a top-down action adventure game, unlike the mainline games which are in third-person.
The game is set to release March 17, 2023 on the Nintendo Switch.
By: Jonathan Lee
8:28 PM: Kratos means a lot to fans, no more so than actor Christopher Judge
The actor behind Kratos, Christopher Judge, got emotional during his acceptance speech for best performance at this year’s Game Awards, talking about the work that went into “God of War: Ragnarok,” particularly its themes of fatherhood.
Judge, a father himself, played the demigod in “Ragnarok” and the 2018 series reboot. During his speech, he thanked Cory Barlog and Eric Williams, two of the leads behind God of War from day one, who spoke with The Washington Post last month about the trajectory of Kratos’s character development over the course of the decades-long series.
Read the full story here.
By: Alyse Stanley
8:27 PM: ‘Judas,’ from Bioshock creator Ken Levine, teased
Keighley just teased “Judas,” a new game from Ghost Story, a studio founded by Ken Levine, the creator of the BioShock franchise.
No additional information around platforms or release date were shared.
By: Shannon Liao
8:24 PM: Supergiant Games announces ‘Hades II’
Indie developer Supergiant Games announced “Hades II.” The reveal trailer depicted a woman with a wreath crown fighting against a shadowy opponent in witch’s robes. The protagonist is on a quest to kill Kronos, the primordial Greek god of time, and to save her unnamed father.
As with the first game, “Hades II” will be developed in early access.
Review: ‘Hades’ is a storytelling masterclass with ample lessons for other games
By: Jonathan Lee
8:20 PM: Christopher Judge takes home best performance of the year
Christopher Judge won best performance of the year for his role as the vengeful demigod Kratos in “God of War: Ragnarok,” receiving his trophy from none other than Al Pacino. Pacino arrived as a surprised guest and presenter for the category.
“S—,” said Judge, in shock. “Now I see why I couldn’t get more than a plus one.”
Judge, who came dripped out in a gold blazer and bleached blonde locks, profusely thanked his mother and his children. He also thanked the team at Santa Monica Studio, specifically shouting out directors Cory Balrog and Eric Williams. He quipped that his opportunity to play Kratos was the first time that trickle-down economics worked and told co-star Sunny Suljic (who played Kratos’ son, Atreus) that he had voted for him to win.
Review: ‘God of War Ragnarok’ improves on its predecessor in every way
By: Jonathan Lee
8:15 PM: Al Pacino presents award for best performance
As actor Al Pacino gets onstage, the crowd cheers and even game developers are drawn into the spectacle. They guffaw at his jokes.
“In truth, I don’t play a whole lot of video games,” Pacino said, while adding that his children play and he’s impressed.
Pacino added that he’s entertained by the unique and immersive way that video games tell their stories. Pacino said that as an actor, he’s learned that fundamentally, regardless of the platform an actor uses, it’s about storytelling. He said he was here to celebrate actors in video games.
By: Shannon Liao
8:15 PM: Here are all of tonight’s Game Awards winners so far
The Game Awards has 31 categories, from best narrative to best esports team. While all eyes may be on the highly anticipated game of the year award, contests for best game direction, indie, score and performance are sure to generate plenty of buzz. New to the lineup this year is the best adaptation award for video game-inspired shows and movies. Here’s who won Thursday night so far:
Best mobile game: Marvel Snap (Second Dinner Studios/Nuverse)
Best fighting game: Multiversus (Player First Games/WB Games)
Best esports game: Valorant (Riot Games)
Best esports athlete: Jacob “Yay” Whiteaker (Cloud9, Valorant)
Best esports team: Loud, Valorant
Best esports coach: Matheus “bzkA” Tarasconi (Loud, Valorant)
Best esports event: 2022 League of Legends World Championship
Best family game: Kirby and the Forgotten Land (HAL Laboratory/Nintendo)
Best performance: Christopher Judge, God of War Ragnarok
By: Alyse Stanley
8:13 PM: Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, is here, after a day of bad news for Microsoft
Phil Spencer is in the audience of The Game Awards. It’s not that surprising — you might’ve heard that it’s video games’ biggest night — but it’s probably a rough day for the head of Xbox. Earlier, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. If you’ve got questions about what that all means, we’ve got answers at the link below.
Read the full story.
By: Riley MacLeod
8:08 PM: ‘Among Us’ reveals gameplay of upcoming Hide ’n Seek mode
“Among Us” studio Innersloth announced in June 2021 that it is working on an official implementation of a hide-and-seek mode, a popular unofficial game mode created by players, and revealed gameplay for the first time today.
Hide-and-seek mode inverts the typical formula of the multiplayer social deduction game by having impostors announce their identity, giving the rest of the players a head start to first hide and then hunt them down before the crew members can finish their tasks. An official release date was not announced.
By: Jonathan Lee and Jonathan Lee
8:05 PM: Kirby just won an award. Learn about the character’s real-life inspiration
Did you know about Kirby’s real-life inspiration?
“John Joseph Kirby, a Washington, D.C., native, was an attorney who helped lay the foundation of equitable voting rights policies in the United States and who worked toward law enforcement accountability during social unrest,” wrote Gene Park in 2019. “Kirby … also spent time as a civil servant and activist who bore witness to modern democracy’s greatest and ongoing challenges.”
Read the full story.
By: Mikhail Klimentov
8:00 PM: ‘Horizon: Call of the Mountain’ gets new gameplay trailer
Guerrilla Games’ VR foray for its award-winning dystopian Horizon series, “Horizon: Call of the Mountain,” showed off some of the terrifying robo-critters the game’s protagonist will face in a new gameplay trailer.
Thunderjaws and Bellowbacks have always been huge critters to tackle with a bow and arrow, but they manage to look even more formidable from a first-person view. The game releases on PlayStation VR on Feb. 22, 2023.
Perspective: VR is funny. Why isn’t it pitched that way?
7:59 PM: Analysis from Mikhail Klimentov, Assignment editor for Launcher, focusing on video games, esports and the Internet
The pre-show has shown an admirably diverse set of games so far, but there is one commonality: There are a lot of trailers with dogs in them. Some are even pettable. I’m not complaining.
7:50 PM: Jacob ‘Yay’ Whiteaker just won best esports athlete. This one’s a no-brainer.
Jacob ‘Yay’ Whiteaker, a “Valorant” player on Cloud9, just won the best esports athlete award. We just about called this one in an interview in September, when we asked him what it was like being the best player at the game’s world championship.
“From a statistical standpoint, I’m definitely the best player,” Whiteaker said. “But in terms of how I feel about that, I don’t know. I don’t know if I feel a lot. … While I’m the best player in ‘Valorant’ … it’s just ‘Valorant.’ It’s a video game.”
Read the full story.
By: Mikhail Klimentov
7:45 PM: ‘MultiVersus’ wins Best Fighting Game
DC Comics’ competitor to the Smash Brothers franchise, “MultiVersus,” has won Best Fighting Game at Thursday’s Game Awards. It’s the first title from Player First Games.
In a heartfelt speech, director Tony Huynh thanked fans and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for taking a chance on his fledgling studio.
Read the full story here.
By: Jonathan Lee
7:43 PM: Dead Cells x Castlevania is coming
Dead Cells and Castlevania are teaming up. The Beheaded from “Dead Cells” is teaming up with Alucard and Simon Belmont of “Castlevania.” Seeing as how “Dead Cells” was heavily inspired by the Castlevania series, this is a fitting DLC for studio Motion Twin’s signature game.
“Return to Castlevania” is slated to release in early 2023.
By: Jonathan Lee
7:41 PM: ‘Marvel Snap,’ which won best mobile game, is great to play on the toilet
Card game “Marvel Snap” took the trophy for Best Mobile Game. “Marvel Snap” is the brainchild of Ben Brode, former game director of Blizzard Entertainment’s “Hearthstone.”
“We came up with the idea for ‘Marvel Snap’ pretty quickly,” Brode told The Washington Post. “In fact, it was so fun so fast, we actually put it on pause and said, ‘Look, we’ve got to explore some other stuff. We can’t have this good of an idea this quickly.’ ”
It’s also a great game to play on the toilet!
Read the full story.
By: Jonathan Lee
7:39 PM: People are bringing their best fashion to The Game Awards
The Game Awards this year look well dressed compared to previous years, after attendees noted a Kotaku article that called out game developers for their various states of dress.
One attendee, Dayna Eileen, executive editor for CG Magazine, told The Washington Post, “That article came out and everybody started panicking. And literally I was at the mall, we need to buy everything new.”
Eileen reconsidered her entire outfit after seeing the article and decided on a pair of fashionable tights paired with a black dress. Other stylish attendees told The Post that they had indeed seen the story and took it into consideration when dressing up.
By: Shannon Liao
7:20 PM: Analysis from Jonathan Lee
The preshow hasn’t started yet, but I’ve seen an unending wave of people using their Prime subs on the Game Awards Twitch channel. Is there an entire population of Twitch viewers who reserve their Primes every year just to spend it on the Game Awards?
7:15 PM: ‘Stray,’ a game with a meow button, has 6 nominations
“Stray,” BlueTwelve Studio’s charming game where you play a cat exploring a dystopian city full of robots, is up for six awards at the Game Awards tonight, including game of the year. Its other categories include best action/adventure, best indie and best debut indie. TL;DR: The cat game is good.
Playing video games with an animal star can be a stressful experience, but luckily “Stray’s” cat protagonist can’t get seriously hurt. You climb to places you shouldn’t, solve some light puzzles, sit in robots’ laps — and there’s even a button that lets you meow. Our reviewer, Alyse Stanley, wrote of the game: “It’s adorable. It’s devastating. It unspools a haunting thread about humanity but also encourages you to lose a lot of time just running around doing silly cat things … That juxtaposition had me invested in the game from start to finish, and its poignant themes haven’t left my mind in the days since.”
Read our full review below.
Read the full story.
By: Riley MacLeod
7:12 PM: Analysis from Riley MacLeod, Assignment Editor, Launcher
Whatever wins game of the year tonight, I’d like to be on the record as against considering a year’s worth of games and deciding one of them is “the best.” There is no Ultimate Best Game, As Bound By Time. Free your minds, people.
7:09 PM: ‘Vampire Survivors’ gets surprise mobile release
Eagle-eyed fans of bullet hell “Vampire Survivors” spotted the game’s arrival on iOS and Android ahead of the Game Awards Thursday. The game, previously only on PC, pits players against an ever-growing horde of monsters and tasks them with surviving a 30-minute round.
I recently picked the game up on PC, and while I haven’t played a ton of it, I already get why so many people can’t stop raving about it. For starters, there aren’t actually any buttons to press — you select from a cast of playable characters, each with their own power boosts and starting weapon, and then you just walk around the enemies while your character fires on their own. As you level up, you can add new weapons and abilities, as well as improve the ones you have. There’s a wealth of strategy (or so the YouTubers who are way better at the game than me tell me), but the core gameplay is so simple and yet so captivating that I played late into the night as soon as I launched it, even if I’ve barely survived longer than 10 minutes so far. It’s definitely worth checking out if you haven’t yet.
By: Riley MacLeod
6:55 PM: ‘Elden Ring’ is a must-play game you might be too intimidated to try
Let’s get this out of the way: “Elden Ring” is hard. It’s also confusing. It’s also great. The prize-awarding hive mind behind the Game Awards seem to think so too, giving From Software’s latest Souls-like seven nominations, including game of the year.
You might not be a fan of the Souls-like genre — hard-as-nails combat games that feature twisty, atmospheric levels, giant bosses and tons of lore. Our reviewer, Gene Park, called “Elden Ring” possibly “the easiest entry point for beginners looking to try a Souls game,” but these games still require patience, attention and perseverance. If you’re a fan of Souls games, or finally ready to become one, you’ll find, as Gene did, “a game about discovering and pushing the limits of possibility. It dares you, over and over, to keep pushing, making this unlike any other adventure I’ve experienced.”
Read our full review here.
By: Riley MacLeod
6:45 PM: What is GOTY nominee ‘A Plague Tale: Requiem’?
“A Plague Tale: Requiem” is up for five awards at the Game Awards, including best narrative and game of the year. If you missed the game’s October release or aren’t familiar with it, we’ve got you covered.
“Requiem” is a sequel to 2019’s “A Plague Tale: Innocence,” which captured gamers’ attention with its 2017 E3 trailer featuring horrifying swarms of rats. “Innocence” told the story of Amicia and her little brother Hugo navigating a plague-ridden, 14th-century France.
“Requiem’s” plot follows immediately from that first game, leaning more into its supernatural elements and offering players more gameplay approaches and spaces to explore. Our reviewer, Reid McCarter, wrote that “Requiem” could feel a little too real so long into our modern-day pandemic, but that the game “reminds us that others, today and in the past, feel or have felt our same confusion, fear and grief. In this, it makes an argument not for hiding the toll of so much pain away in the shadows but of bringing everything out into the light of day so we can try to hear what notes of hope sing through the darkness.”
Read our full review below.
Read the full story.
By: Riley MacLeod
6:35 PM: ‘God of War Ragnarok,’ with 10 nominations, is a must-play game
At tonight’s awards, “God of War Ragnarok” leads with 10 nominations in nine categories (the actors for Kratos and Atreus, the game’s two protagonists, are both up for the best performance award). In his November review, writer Gene Park said “Ragnarok,” the sequel to 2018′s “God of War,” “improves on its predecessor in every way.”
“When it comes to gameplay, [‘Ragnarok’] is an iterative sequel to the 2018 PlayStation 4 smash hit, but that doesn’t tell the whole story,” Park wrote. “ ‘Ragnarok’ by Santa Monica Studio is the best told story in a video game in 2022.”
Read the full review below.
Read the full story.
By: Mikhail Klimentov
6:20 PM: Game Awards demo fest adds adorable indie offerings to Steam
In partnership with Thursday’s Game Awards, the online games storefront Steam has rolled out free demos of upcoming indie games for a limited time — and many of them look downright cozy.
Slap on a mushroom cap in “Mail Time” for a pint-size, cottagecore adventure through the woods, or groove out with “Bits and Bops,” an adorable tribute to the Rhythm Heaven series on the Nintendo DS. Also available is “Mineko’s Night Market,” a highly anticipated adventure game/social simulator themed around cats and Japanese culture. There are eight demos in total — check them out here.
How long these demos will be available remains unclear. Previous demo offerings have stayed up about two weeks before being removed from Steam’s storefront.
By: Alyse Stanley
6:05 PM: Most of The Post’s games team thinks ‘Elden Ring’ will win GOTY
An informal poll of staff working this live blog revealed that almost everyone thinks “Elden Ring” will win game of the year tonight. No shade to the five other great nominees: “A Plague Tale: Requiem,” “God of War Ragnarok,” “Horizon Forbidden West,” “Stray” and “Xenoblade Chronicles 3.” FromSoftware’s “Elden Ring” just feels like the behemoth of the group.
There was one dissenter: Alyse Stanley, an editor on our team.
“I don’t think ‘Stray’ will win, but man am I routing for that game,” Stanley said. “My guess is between ‘God of War Ragnarok’ and ‘Elden Ring,’ but I’m leaning a bit more toward ‘God of War Ragnarok.’ It has a broader audience appeal given FromSoftware’s reputation for brutally challenging gameplay, and that’s often been a deciding factor when equally universally acclaimed games face off toe to toe.”
By: Mikhail Klimentov
5:50 PM: What to expect at the 2022 Game Awards
Since its debut in 2014, The Game Awards has been described as “The Oscars for gaming,” and a popular venue for video game developers to reveal and promote upcoming projects.
Last year’s event included appearances from movie stars Simu Liu and Keanu Reeves, and this year promises to be even more star-studded with presenters from Hollywood and the gaming industry. “Glass Onion” actors Daniel Craig and Jessica Henwick as well as director Rian Johnson will be there. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” the upcoming television adaptation of the critically acclaimed Last of Us series, are also making an appearance. Industry veterans Reggie Fils-Aimé (the source of the “my body is ready” meme), Ken and Roberta Williams (the husband-and-wife duo who blazed a trail for the adventure game genre) and Josef Fares (the video game developer who memorably declared “F— The Oscars” during the 2017 Game Awards) are all returning. Musical artists Hozier and Bear McCreary will perform “Blood Upon the Snow” from “God of War: Ragnarok” at the show.
During a Twitter Space chat on Dec. 3, Keighley said this year’s award show will be “significantly shorter than in past years.” Keighley told VentureBeat that the main show will be around 2.5 hours. In comparison, the 2021 Game Awards main show ran a little over 3 hours.
By: Jonathan Lee
5:35 PM: Here are The Post’s picks for the best video games of 2022
We haven’t published our official game of the year list (more on that next week!) But throughout the year, we kept a running list of the best games of 2022 as we were playing and reviewing them. Not every great game is on there; we never got a chance to play “Tunic” or “Citizen Sleeper,” for example. Still, the list captures 17 great games, across PC, consoles and even phones, that are worth your time if you care about playing great video games.
Read the full story.
By: Mikhail Klimentov
5:30 PM: Here are all of tonight’s Game Awards nominees
This year’s Game Awards nominees can be found throughout 31 categories celebrating excellence in game design, esports and character performance, among others. “God of War Ragnarok” dominated the lineup this year with 10 nominations, followed by “Elden Ring” and “Horizon Forbidden West” tied with seven each. All three are in the running for game of the year alongside indie darling “Stray,” which racked up six nominations, and JRPG “Xenoblade Chronicles 3.”
Here’s a full list of the nominees:
Game of the year:
Best game direction:
Best narrative:
Best art direction:
Best score and music:
Best audio design:
Best performance:
Games for impact:
Best ongoing:
Best indie
Best mobile game:
Best community support:
Innovation in accessibility:
Best VR/AR:
Best action game:
Best action/adventure:
Best role playing:
Best fighting:
Best family:
Best sim/strategy:
Best sports/racing:
Best multiplayer:
Content creator of the year:
Best debut indie:
Best adaptation:
Most anticipated game:
Best esports game:
Best esports athlete:
Best esports team:
Best esports coach:
Best esports event:
By: Alyse Stanley