The Game Awards will showcase 'at least 40 games', offer 'true next-gen-stuff'

This year, as we already know, The Game Awards will take place live, in-person at the Microsoft Theater on Thursday, December 9, 2021. But other than that, there hasn't been an awful lot of information about the show shared, to date. Luckily, The Game Awards organiser Geoff Keighley has shared some more information about what we can expect from the showcase in a new interview with Epic Games.

The most important part of the interview addresses the number of those eponymous games that'll be featured at the show. Keighley noted that 40-50 games will be included in the show in "some way or another" – we just hope they're not all announcements and new trailers (we can only write up news so fast on the night, after all). Given that "about half the show [is awards] and the other half is the announcements and premieres," it sounds like it's going to be a busy night moving at breakneck speed.

Keighley also said the show will feature "really cool next-gen stuff" but that likley means PS5 and Xbox Series X/S (which many people call current-gen, for what it's worth), so don't expect any games announcements for the Xbox Series Y/Z or PS6 or whatever.

"It's great to have celebrities, it's great to have music, but I think focusing really on games is important," Keighley told Epic. "Especially this year, there'll be a lot of content for 2022 and 2023 that will be showing us our kind of biggest lineup yet of world premieres and announcements."

If you were frustrated by the non-games elements of last year's show, then, fret not: Keighley is doubling down on everything video gaming this time around.

"What we really learned last year was at the end of the day, it really is the games and the trailers that drive the show."

That does mean we're going to see more stuff related to games, though – and that'll be in the form of trailer and sizzle reels for TV and film projects based on gaming IP.

If you thought the loathesome gaming trend of including NFTs in just about everything possible would also infect The Game Awards, we've got good news for you – Keighley has said "we're not doing any NFT stuff," but he is flirting with the idea of getting TGA into the metaverse. Hooray.

“We’re really interested in the metaverse style of how people watch the show," said Keighley. "We’re starting to explore the idea of finding new ways to distribute it using games and game technology. That’s actually kind of our next platform, right? We’re a show about video games, so of course, we should be airing it inside of video games if we can."

Expect some sort of Fortnite integration or something, then.

The annual December show had 83 million live streams in 2020, which was up 84% year-over-year. The Game Awards will once again be distributed as a free global 4K UHD live stream across more than 40 global video, social, and gaming platforms on December 9 (or the little hours of December 10 for us Europeans).