Watch tonight's Summer Game Fest 2024 Opening Showcase here with us

Good afternoon. Excited? What do you hope to see?

masteratt says: I've got no expectations but late night Domino's will be ordered and Krispy Kreme doughnuts are ready as a treat as well. So whatever happens, I'm already guaranteed a good time 😁

Oof! Talk to me dirty.

Good evening! Let's see what's been going on then.

Bokeh Game Studios' horror game Slitterhead has already leaked ahead of the show.

Kami says: And good evening to you Bertie! Hope you got some nice cold beverages for this one (I'm all gunked up so it's hot chai tea all the way)

I have just wolfed down a sandwich in anticipation. Chai tea - mmm. I am a fan!

Miyamotosan says: I'm only here because I want to see if that Lego Horizon thing is real, and, I suppose REIX.

I'm not sure how I feel about Lego Horizon. I suppose it will be nice, but doesn't it lose a sense of the game if you brickify it? Still: lego dinosaurs!

Kami says: I'd be good with more Shadow of the Erdtree. And maybe that rumoured Medieval Doom (which if true should be called Heretic! IT'S HERETIC YOU HEATHENS!)

We'll only refer to it as Heretic! We shall refuse to acknowledge any other name.

LoudHonking says: Personally expecting Half-Life 3, a full fat brand new F-Zero, a massive Treasure Collection, Metroid Prime 4, Capcom Vs. SNK 3, Wario World 2, the simultaneous return of Power Stone, Rival Schools, and Darkstalkers, and a new SEGA console, just being realistic.

I like this list a lot!

This music is a bit of a mess, isn't it? Do people specialise in making pre-show music or is it just repurposed music? Eurogamer: asking the big question.

Lots of good shouts for games people want to see in the comments. Half-Life 3: check.

ChrisTapsellEG says: HELLO GAMERS

Chris! Do something outrageous that we can all see on stream! No pressure.

Weebleman says: I'm off the beer and snacks in the hope that I can resemble anything other than a middle aged dad when I go on holiday in a few weeks. This means that this show will either be brilliant and packed full of games i want or a massive, massive struggle.

Good man! Those washboard abs are just around the corner!

The showcase begins

10, 9, 8, 7... The show begins.

"Please welcome to the stage, the creator of The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley." And there he is, wearing a trendy jacket-blazer thing.

He's referencing people caring about the health of the industry, and for a moment, it looks like he's going to talk about the layoffs. He feints left, and then he does, he mentions the layoffs! He's talking about small teams and how they're having great success. Helldivers 2 is in there, Balatro, Hades 2, Palword.

"I look at this list and I get inspired that smaller teams can, and will, break through. It's a reminder to big companies that..." They have to treat their teams right. "There are many paths to success. And that's what makes this industry great."

At least he didn't ignore it this time. Though, with the backdrop of how much The Game Awards charges for a few-minute slot tonight, it maybe rings a bit hollow.

And now the games.

Lego Horizon Adventures announced

First up, it's Lego Horizon. It's a CGI cinematic to open it, but there's Lego Aloy and it looks bright and adorable. She's very chirpy - the game seems very chirpy. She can co-op with her pals The world is very appealing.

She can make homes. They're... having a disco for some reason. There's a huge Thunderjaw enemy - it's a big boss battle moment. She made a hotdog cart.

Lego Horizon Adventures announced. It's coming to PC, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. No Xbox. Couch and online co-op.

No More Room in Hell 2 announced

Torn Banner Studios now, the creator of the Chivalry series, with something quite different.

This is No More Room in Hell 2, a sequel to famous Source mod. Eight players start separately in the dark and it's up to you to find your friends and survive. With permadeath.

The trailer shows a person with a flashlight picking through a pitch dark world, revolver in their other hand. Zombies are in the world. There are bodies everywhere, the whole place has been ravaged. It's dark, it's creepy.

ChrisTapsellEG says: I can see Geoff checking his Twitter feed after every intro he does before the trailers

Haha!

Co-host Curiousjoi here now to announce a new Harry Potter Quidditch Champions game. Launches 3rd September for PC and consoles.

A social kind of party game now from the creator of Choo Choo Charles. It's 3D and you play as a kind of koala? It's very cutesy and silly. But now there are riot police. You play with up to 20 of your friends and you have to escape a prison by the looks of things. The koala things are digging at the walls with spoons, they're busting out. It's bright and colourful it looks quite fun. They all escaped on a helicopter but then it blew up.

Cuffbust it's called. Coming in 2025.

We're getting a quick glimpse at a Star Wars Outlaws trailer now, but the full reveal is coming on Monday in the Ubisoft Forward show, which we'll be covering.

It's a bombastic-looking Star Wars blockbuster. It looks good to me. Out 30th August - not far away now.

We're now getting a shot of the audience behind Geoff. CHRIS WHERE ARE YOU.

Gris team announces Neva

Nomada Studios now, the creators of the brilliant Gris, with their new game Neva. It chronicles the story of Alba, a woman bound to a wolf club. And we're getting a first look at gameplay.

It's a pastel dream, as you might expect from the team that made Gris. We're going to see more in the Day of Devs stream apparently.

Now, what's this? A montage of historical figures. Could it be... It's Civilization 7. And here's Sid Meier! I haven't seen him in an age.

Civ 7 is coming to PC and consoles next year. A full reveal is happening sometime this summer, he says.

Black Myth Wukong now. A short cinematic, but that's it. Coming 20th August. That was... brief.

FTJT says: Sid Meier looking like an old man. Which is fair, he's 70! But it's still got the passage of time pressing down on me

Bless him. What a legend he is.

We've lapsed into one of those Game Awards moments were a few VR games and advert reels fly by. A chance to catch our breath maybe.

Geoff's first guest now. They're working on a fantasy RPG called Metaphor. It's Katsura Hashiro and Shigenori Soejima from Atlus and the Persona series.

We're getting a run down of the 'archetypes' players can transform into, in the place of personas, I guess.

Now, a trailer.

ChrisTapsellEG says: I love moments like this. All these bombastic max volume trailers and then a couple guys come out and start talking at length about the metaphorical will to face your manifest insecurities

We're getting a look at new Batman game! The crowd goes wild. A VR game. The crowd goes less wild. It's Arkham Shadow.

We're seeing a story trailer. There's comissioner Gordon, by the looks of things. There's Bats! None of this is in-game. The official gameplay trailer is coming at Gamescom apparently.

Curiousjoi back to give us an update on a legendary fighting series that she's played every iteration of, she says. It's Fatal Fury!

We're seeing an anime-style cinematic for it, giving us a rundown of the characters. But hang on, there's the Street Fighter logo. What is going on?

A portal in SF6 has opened. M. Bison, Terry, Elena and Mai are coming to SF6.

And straight onto a curious-looking blend of strategy and action game. A William Wallace like warrior tears around a sketched-looking battlefield, cleaving apart foes. Roguelike, co-op, hack n' slash. Tears of Metal. No release date.

Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is coming 11th October.

It looks like... Dragon Ball.

ChrisTapsellEG says: Small old man aside for a moment: it is so loud in here that I can genuinely feel myself developing tinnitus in real time

I don't know why they have to make it so loud!

Kami says: I Can't Believe It's Not Tom Clancy!

Haha! Quite.

The free-to-play Delta Force game flashes by in a montage of 'looks super familiar'.

We're getting a look at the story content linked to Black Hawk Down, the Ridley Scott movie. I've still never seen it, you know. Is it any good? I certainly don't have the stomach to go to a flattened middle-eastern-looking city at the moment, to be honest.

Oh now we're getting an update on Fatal Fury. I'm confused. We're seeing a trailer of people playing arcade games, and now this must be the new game, all bright and bombastic like it came off the pages of a comic.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, coming early 2025.

God are we only 40 minutes in. There's not much shape to this show is there. It's a bit of a slosh of announcements.

Blumhouse Games announces a lot of horror games

Back to Geoff on stage. Now it's Blumhouse Games, the Five Nights at Freddie's film studio, and they're entering video games in "a big way", we're told. We see a trailer.

Crisol Theater of Idols by Vermila Studios. Crave Seasons from Perfect Garbage. Sleep Awake from Eyes Out. Fear the Spotlight from Cozy Game Pals. The Simulation from Playmestudio. Sam Barlow is involved somewhere.

There are a lot of games coming out under the label, evidently. It's a bit like a platform, or an anthology? It's not really clear.

Ah! Here's Jason Blum, the founder of the company, here to tell us all about it. What a Hollywood smile he's got. They're working on a sequel to Five Nights at Freddie's he says.

"Horror, to my great relief, is getting more and more popular... We wanted to take our approach to movies and apply it to games." They're giving independent creators a platform to make "the most f-ed things possible" and put them into games.

Louise Blain, the creative lead of Blumhouse Games now. She's telling us there'll be all kinds of horror sub-genres explored under their label. There's psychological stuff, cosmic horror. To be fair, it did look like a very eclectic list.

Bless her, she's frozen a bit on stage.

Fear the Spotlight is the first release coming later this year. 90s horror experience. Creepy but with a narrative. First trailer coming at Day of the Devs after the show.

A brand new Power Ranger game now with a retro feel. OH YES! It's like a pixelated beat-'em-up, like Turtles. It looks very big and wild. Oh and how it's changed to 3D for a motorbike section. I think this looks quite good. Mighty Morphin Power Ranges: Rita's Rewind, from Degital Eclipse.

SilverHawk89 says: I've just noticed Geoff's shoes

Oh what were they! I missed them.

Kami says: Fear the Spotlight WAS already on Steam but it's not available for "a significant update" >.>

Oh that's interesting.

Deer & Boy flashed past while I was chatting, a kind of pensive exploration game. From a one-person creator who now has a small team. A French person.

A new look at Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 now. There seems to be a strong focus on a more lively story this time around. It looks like the same hero from the first game to me? I'm a bit out of the loop with this one.

The game itself looks very similar, but presumably it's widened and deepend, and it looks more charismatic now, more story-led. Hmm, it's hard to tell. It's coming this year. We'll see!

Horror game Slitterhead formally announced

Well, this one leaked but here's Slitterhead for real. This is from Bokeh Studios. A man walks around a Japanese city and everything seems quite tame until some kind of goo starts infecting people and now they burst open into monsters. It's all gone a bit wild. Giant mantis are attacking a thin feminine character whose hands suddenly mutate into long thin claws. Now, they've manifested some kind of blood spear. Now, some kind of blood chaingun. Mulitple character are working together - multiplayer? They're swinging around the city.

8th November, that's coming.

HerrProduk says: I really want more indie horror games, but the Blumhouse model honestly worries me. They were the saviour of low budget, veneer movie making for like three years before economics caught up and they started focusing on shovel ware to forgotten streaming services, sub-student film level, to fund thr occasional enjoyable bit of low budget but we'll made schlock. It reeks of a media company trying to find market growth for their stock price, and while I hope we get some good games out of it and some indie publishers find q decent deal in it, I can't help but feel like this will be another wound up, dev forgotten studio story in a few years time.

I think those are very valid concerns.

Killer Bean, there, a wacky Roguelike shooter made by a single developer in LA, apparently. Geoff is keen to show really highlight the indies he's got here, which is fair enough I suppose.

Haven and Fury dev announces climbing game Cairn

Fury and Haven developer Game Bakers here now to announce their new game Cairn. It's a survival climber. We're hearing about the inspiration - one of the studio's founder's parents went to K2 but came back with only half of the expedition force. The climbing gameplay will be "very intense and realistic". "It's a face off between you and the mountain."

Again, more of it later at Day of the Devs.

But here's a first look. It's a cel-shaded, slightly stylised take on reality, but it's slow, painstaking climbing progress. It looks like you really feel the vertigo, the loneliess, the precariousness, of being on the face of a large rock. But you're not free climbing - you have a rope. You have a tent, too - you have to camp out on the rock face. It's an exploration in solitary climbing, this game, with all the frustration that comes with that.

Stanley Parable creator's Wandershop shown

We're seeing the new game from the Stanley Parable creator now. It's Wandershop, a game about running a fantastical kind of tea shop. It's a bit like a 3D Stardew Valley, to my eyes. But there's something darker going on behind all of this colour, soething subversive, I think. But what, we don't yet know - the trailer ends.

Wandershop is coming this year.

A couple of decent trailers fly by for bigger budget action game Unknown 9, and then a Soulslike-looking game Enotria, but it's a CGI trailer.

HerrProduk says: "This historical fantasy game looks good, but I have a fever... a fever for more mustaches"

That was a cracking moustache - probably literally, given how rigid it looked.

Among Us devs announce indie dev fund

Wonderful look over the shoulder from someone in the audience there. They looked distinctly unimpressed.

Victoria Tran and Forest Willard are here from the Among Us team now!

They're joking about announcing Among Us 2 and 3, and 4. But they do have something real to announce. They're referncing the layoffs and saying they wanted to help out a bit. Outersloth is an indie fund that's going to help some devs get their games out of the door.

"Outersloth is our passion project and dream for a better and more sustainable industry."

We're going to see a line-up of games they've managed to fund.

Thirsty Suitors dev announces new game

Outerloop Games new game Project Dosa is part of the fund! That's the Thirsty Suitors dev.

We're going to get a sneak peak of the Among Us TV show now. It looks like an Among Us cartoon show.

Sonic X Shadows Generations release date

A huge cheer for Sonic X Shadow Generations there! We're going to see Shadows powers and footage of his standalone campaign. And we're getting a release date.

Bit of dub step for the trailer there. Or is that jungle? Regardless, it fits really well. I hope it's in the game.

Coming 25th October.

Dune Awakening flashes by there with a CGI trailer. More about that at Gamescom apparently.

Uncapped Games now, a brand new development studio, with a bright and bombastic anime style trailer for some kind of shoot-'em-up? It's called Battle Aces and we're going to hear more about it from David Kim. It's an RTS! Remember those? It looks a bit StarCrafty. The idea is to make it approachable like HearthStone did card games, he says.

Hmm.

SilverHawk89 says: MMOs don't usually appeal to me, but Dune looks intriguing

Conan Exiles was good. I'm curious to see how they'll weave the storyline into that kind of game. Survival fits well with Dune, too. I bet the sandworms will be impressive!

A new level here for The Finals, it looks like, themed around ancient Japan. Season 3 is coming... oh next week.

Alan Wake 2 expansion Night Springs out tomorrow!

Hearthrob Sam Lake is here doing a brief reprise of his dance from Alan Wake 2. He's so dreamy.

Alan Wake 2 news. They're excited to announced a physical deluxe edition of the game, and a physical collector's edition of the game coming this autumn. You can pre-order from tomorrow. God. Really? Is this it.

Expansion content! Night Springs! Three episodes are in it with three familiar fan-favourite characters in "mysterious, terrifying and... quirky 'what if?' scenarios". "It was a chance for us to really go out there."

It's a shadow drop! Night Springs is coming out tomorrow!

That looked wild.

Amazon Game Studios now. Is this New World?

swedishfish says: That's Jesse Faden!!!

So, hang on, it has the characters from Control and Quantum Break in it?

New World Aeternum flashed by there. It's coming to consoles on 15th October, and you can play the game there from start to finish in single-player, or in co-op and in cross-play too.

The guides team will hate that I know nothing about Honkai.

Dark and Darker is out now!

Ironmace Studios now. A dark dungeon. Traps. Dark and Darker! This blew up in a demo on Steam not so long ago - like, really blew up.

It's a multiplayer, team vs. team kind of heist game. In a dungeon. And medieval style. It's brutal. PvEvP. We're seeing much more variety in it now than I saw in the demo!

Dark and Darker is live now, today!

Kunitso-Gami: Path of the Goddess from Capcom here. Avery colourful hack-and-slash game that takes place in a kind of Japanese nightmare, albeit a bright one.

Now Hyper Light Breaker, with full campaign co-op. It's coming late summer.

A cute little animals fighting game! In the style of Gang Beasts. Is it an add-on or a full game? Party Animals! It's not Gang Beasts at all. It hadd kart racing and a kind of Uno-looking game too. Hmm!

Weebleman says: Don't know how much the expansions for Alan Wake 2 are but you can upgrade to the deluxe edition for £12 at the minute. That gets you both extensions (Night Springs and The Lakehouse) and a few extra bits. Offers only on till the 12th of June though!.

Top tip!

Skate is coming this autumn

Skate now! We're seeing pre-pre-alpha footage. "We're still working it out," the trailer says.

Multiple characters all skating together, although it's not clear if that's what the game is like. Coming this autumn.

Kami says: Oh lol, all that for Skate.

That was an elaborate tongue-in-cheek moment!

Valorant coming to console this year

Live service game update time - this is the world we live in. First Palworld and the Sakurajima update, which looks very pretty and seems to pack an awful lot of new stuff.

Then Valorant. I wish I could play these games in the way they're being shown - pin-point accuracy. Valorant is coming to console. PlayStation 5 and Xbox S/X this year. Limited beta from 14th June. Everything we just saw was caught on console.

Riot sure paid for a long slot here.

We're seeing a trailer for Inside Out 2 now, of all things, because there's a video game character in it called Lance Slashblade, played by an actor who co-streams SGF or something. I'll totally watch the film. The character looks like he's taken from a PS1 game. The film is out next week by the way.

HerrProduk says: OK, I hate this. How long is this?

I know right! It's all money in the Geoff bank.

Funnily enough, Chris Donlan just wrote about Squad Busters in What We've Been Playing. He loves it.

Monster Hunter Wilds time. Here's Ryozo Tsujimoto, the series producer. The game is launching in 2025.

Gosh. They're deferring to Gamescom as well. The first hands-on is going to be there. All we're seeing here is a trailer.

Characters ride through a desert area on birdy dino beasts. Worm-like monsters burst out of the ground. There's mounted combat. We're getting a lok at a slithery, dragony monster thing. A bit of a Monster Hunter montage now. God that series has good monsters - I suppose it ought to.

The show is apparently going to close with a gameplay trailer for Phantom Blade Zero. This is the Sekiro-looking game. A twisted kind of action game. It's Soulsy but it's also quite Ninja Gaideny - there's lots of acrobatics and there's a speed to it that I've not seen in a Souls game before. There are some wonderfully weird enemies.

Show closes

That really is it.

That's it.

Geoff wasn't lying when he said it was light. There was a lot of deference to other shows happening this weekend and to Gamescom happening later in the summer. There weren't a lot of actual new announcements here at all.

Tom Phillips makes a good point, actually, that it was the most indie show in year, and it was. Geoff made a conscious effort to include them. Whether that was because he was light on actual announcements otherwise, we'll probably never know. Nonetheless, it's nice to see them up there.

Miyamotosan says: So long everyone. Congratulations to all who made it this far.

Yeah quite.

FTJT says: Civ 7, Deer & Boy, some of the outersloth stuff, Dune Awakening all looked potentially interesting. Metaphor too. But thin gruel generally

That's a nice summary. Fleeting looks at most of them, but they'll likely all turn out well.

HerrProduk says: Awl Da Best everyone. Even a muted game event still scratches the itch. See you soon.

Sage words. You're right. It's fun to get together for things like this, and let the excitement bubble, lest we forget that. I wish that these things were a bit more focused and had a nice bell curve of excitement to them, though.

FTJT says: Is the coverage/comments staying on for DotD/devolver, by the way?

Ah it's not I'm afraid - I'm off to bed. But you're of course welcome to chat here! We will mop up the announcements afterwards though.

Kami says: I'm gonna go snuggle the kitteh and hope these sinuses clear up so g'night all!

Ah that sounds perfect. G'night! And g'night all. Thank you for joining us and see you again on Sunday for the Xbox showcase/pantomime jeering.