The Game Awards 2025: Sage’s Highlights
by Sage Ashford
With The Game Awards over, there are a massive pile of announcements for everyone to sift through once again. Not everyone was able to sit through the entire three and a half hour show, or have time to look up all the announcements. Still, we’ve collected several of the biggest ones for gamers to be on the lookout for.
Surprisingly, one of the best announcements came during the pre-show. Developer Day 4 Night’s action-adventure game Bradley the Badger starts out looking like a stereotypical platforming game, only to quickly transform into something completely different. It’s platforming star Bradley will traverse multiple worlds relying on mechanics that allow him to manipulate the game worlds to try and get back to his home in this love letter to video games.
From GPTRACK50 and former Capcom producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi comes action RPG Stupid Never Dies. This title follows a timid zombie named Davy who’s inspired to brave a dangerous dungeon to revive Julia, a frozen human girl he’s fallen in love with. This is the kind of insane title that gaming could always use more of, and the only problem is this probably should’ve been outside of the pre-show.
Archetype Entertainment returned with a glimpse at sci-fi action RPG Exodus. This new trailer offered a better look at the gameplay and environments than we’ve seen in the past, while also finally giving us the game’s basic premise. In Exodus, players become Jun Aslan, who learns of his distant relationship to the Travelers, beings wielding incredible technology. Thanks to that heritage, Jun can tap into the Traveller technology and hopefully save his home planet. Anyone expecting Exodus to release this year is mistaken, though, as the game finally revealed it’s coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, the Epic Games Store and Steam sometime in early 2027. I’m guessing this was probably the first of many games that had to get pushed into next year because of Grand Theft Auto VI.
Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast had a lot to show at the Game Awards, as they also provided a glimpse of Invoke Studios’ first game, Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons. It’s merely a teaser trailer so there wasn’t any gameplay, but we do know it’s going to be a third-person single-player game. In Warlock, players become Kaatri, a warlock who makes a pact to gain incredible powers to protect against dark forces. As teaser trailers go, this one was perfect though, as it promised a gameplay debut during the summer of 2026, and a release in 2027.
Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi left RGG Studios several years ago to form Nagoshi Studios with NetEase. Now, we’ve finally seen what he’s working on with the announcement of Gang of Dragon. The game follows Shin Ji-seong (played by actor Ma Dong-seok), a member of a Korean crime syndicate who operates in the city of Kabukicho in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Yes, this game looks almost identical to Yakuza, but now there are considerably more guns and some sleek cars involved, according to the game’s Steam page. So basically they merged Yakuza with Sleeping Dogs. The only downside to this trailer is that there was no release date at the end.
Kepler Interactive is really crushing it with choosing interesting-looking indie titles to publish. Orbitals is a co-op adventure game from Shapefarm, where players take on the role of Maki and Omura, two explorers trying to protect their space station from a deadly cosmic storm. Orbitals is clearly inspired by classic anime of the late ’80s and early ’90s, and looks absolutely stunning. Even the cutscenes look incredible, thanks in part to them working with animation house Studio Massket. Confirmed to be launching in 2026, Orbitals is confirmed as a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive.
People often argue about Geoff Keighley hyping up games a little too much before they’re announced, but this is certainly one time where he was completely justified. After almost ten years away, Capcom has brought back Mega Man in Mega Man: Dual Override. Meant to celebrate the 40th anniversary, Mega Man: Dual Override launches for all consoles (including PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch) in 2027. This announcement comes just days after Capcom mentioned they wanted to revive “core IPs” like Devil May Cry, Ace Attorney, and Mega Man. That said, it’s hard not to hope for a 3D Mega Man game, so may this be just one of the things they’ve got planned for their 40th anniversary.
