The Geoff Keighley-produced and hosted video game awards show, succinctly titled The Game Awards, has quickly become one of the most recognized and star-studded industry events in its short history. The fourth annual show is set for Thursday night, December 7, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Rest assured, though, you don’t have to be in attendance to get in on the action. Here’s how to watch and what to expect from The Game Awards.
How to watch
As we mentioned, The Game Awards have become incredibly popular in a short amount of time, and that’s represented by its streaming options. For the second straight year, Twitter will live-stream the show worldwide. The two-hour awards show kicks off at 5:30 p.m. PT. Alongside the stream, Twitter will have user polls, live comments, and continuous updates. To be a part of the conversation, Twitter will also give users who tweet using the hashtag #TheGameAwards a special event emoji.
Beyond Twitter, the show will also be hosted on other streaming services, including YouTube and Twitch. You can see the YouTube stream directly above this post.
What to expect
The Game Awards has 29 different award categories, each with five to six nominees for a grand total of 102 games and people up for awards. Naturally, many will care to see which game takes home “game of the year” honors. In what has easily been one of the best years for games in quite some time, this award is perhaps surprisingly easy to predict. Persona 5, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and Horizon Zero Dawn have all proved to critical and commercial hits, but it’s hard to see any of those games besting The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey.
You have the power to prove us wrong though, as you can vote for your favorites in each of the award categories via The Game Awards site, through Facebook messenger, and Twitter DMs.
Please, though, vote for Cuphead for “best art direction” and “best score/music.”
In addition to celebrating the best games of the year, also expect some new information for upcoming games. At the 2016 show, legendary game developer Hideo Kojima showed off a new trailer for his mysterious and fascinating upcoming title Death Stranding. He will be presenting at this year’s show as well, along with star Norman Reedus and creative collaborator Guillermo del Toro.
