The Game Awards is the annual celebration of gaming that tries to be both E3 and the Oscars, with varying results. This year’s show was over three hours long, and only focused on a handful of actual awards and acceptance speeches. The rest was all about trailers, world premieres, and the occasional musical performance.
While we loved seeing more gameplay footage and trailers for games like Horizon Forbidden West, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and Elden Ring, none of them were new announcements. Some of them had even been announced years ago, but partially thanks to the pandemic, still haven’t released yet — but should be coming in 2022!
But we’re looking at the brand new, world premiere trailers. Below you’ll find new games only, including Star Wars: Eclipse, Rumbleverse, Wonder Woman, and… an open world Sonic game? Don’t expect any firm release dates, however. Most of these games are still a long way away.
Sonic Frontiers
Sonic, meet Zelda! Sonic Frontiers is an open world action-adventure that looks like the blue hedgehog was dropped into Breath of the Wild. And we’re okay with that! The Starfall Islands includes all the usual Sonic biomes of forests, ruins, and deserts. Hopefully Sonic won’t be slowed down by a pesky stamina system.
Release: Late 2022
Star Wars Eclipse
A new Star Wars game was announced at The Game Awards, developed by Quantic Dream (Detroit: Become Human). Like their previous narrative-focused games, Star Wars Eclipse will feature multiple playable characters with meaningful choices that change their story. It’s set a long, long time ago, 200 years before the start of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.
Release: TBA
Wonder Woman
Good news: We’re getting a Wonder Woman game! It’s gotta be better than Wonder Woman 1984, right? Wonder Woman is being developed by Monolith, most known for the well-received Middle-earth action games.
Release: TBA
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
A classic horror film franchise is getting the game treatment. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is being published by Gun Media, who also published Friday the 13the: The Game, a survival horror online multiplayer game where one player plays as the killer.
Release: TBA
Alan Wake 2
Remedy acquired the rights to their 2020 action-horror game Alan Wake from Microsoft in 2019, and earlier this year released Alan Wake Remastered as part of a publishing deal with Epic Games. At The Game Awards they announced their next project, Alan Wake 2. The sequel continues the story of haunted writer Alan Wake, but plans to dip deeper into the horror elements.
Release: 2023
Dune: Spice Wars
Old school gamers will get a big kick out of the Dune: Spice Wars announcement, a 4x RTS coming to Steam early access in 2022. Aside from being a classic science fiction novel, 1992’s Dune 2 is widely cited as the first modern real-time strategy game, helping inspire the likes of Command and Conquer and Warcraft. Multiple factions vying for control of a planet laden with resources is the perfct backdrop for an epic strategy game.
Release: 2022 (Steam Early Access)
Star Trek: Resurgence
Dramatic Labs, a studio of over a dozen ex-employees of Telltale games, announced their debut game, Star Trek: Resurgence. Resurgence looks to follow the mold of a Telltale game with an emphasis on story, characters, and choices and a big-name licensed property to explore. Hopefully they’ll fare better than the original company did.
Release: Spring 2022
The Expanse: A Telltale Series
And speaking of Telltale, they’re back! Sort of. The company reformed in 2019 after an ugly closure, and their first project is a co-development with the Life is Strange developers based on the popular sci-fi series, The Expanse. The show just started its sixth and final season on Amazon Prime this week. The game follows popular side character, Carmina Drummer (Cara Gee), the leader of a scavenger crew around the Belt.
Release: TBA
Rumbleverse
It’s not a bunch of game announcement with at least one new cartoony Battle Royale. Iron Galaxy is developing Rumbleverse, a free-to-play, 40-player brawler inspired by professional wrestling. There are no guns here, just big personalities, bright costumes, and suplexing your opponents off a skyscraper.
Release: Feb. 15, 2022
Slitterhead
If you ever wanted a Silent Hill game with an extra serving of truly terrifying body horror, than Keiichiro Toyama is here for you. The Silent Hill developer’s new game, Slitterhead, by his studio Bokeh Game Studio looks like it should satisfy fans looking for a scare.
Release: TBA
Nightingale
My personal favorite reveal trailer at this year’s The Game Awards goes to Nightingale, a survival crafting game by Improbable and Inflexion Games. Players can journey alone or with a group in this shared world of scavenging, building, crafting, and surviving against Fae-inspired world of giants and monsters. All while looking quite dashing in Victorian garb.
Release: 2022 (PC Early Access)
ARC Raiders
ARC Raider is a cooperative third-person shooter that looks to be following the footsteps of other co-op looter shooters such as Destiny and Outriders, complete with a sci-fi theme. It will launch as a free-to-play online game on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022.
Release: 2022
