Some of the year's best video games will be honoured at The Game Awards, set to take place in Los Angeles on Thursday.
The ceremony will be held at the Peacock Theatre, hosted by Geoff Keighley, a Canadian gaming journalist, who helped found the awards in 2014.
Prizes will be given out in 26 game categories and six esports categories.
The ceremony will also feature surprise appearances from the gaming world and trailer reveals for coming titles.
Here’s an overview of what to expect from the event, as well as details on when and how to watch.
Awards and categories
The biggest award of the night will be the Game of the Year award.
There are six titles up for the award – Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Resident Evil 4 and Super Mario Bros Wonder.
Other major categories include Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction and Best Score and Music.
An award will be given to a game chosen by fans in the category of Player’s Voice, which will be picked through online voting.
In the esports categories, the top awards are Best Esports Game, Best Esports Athlete and Best Esports Team.
Some titles have swept the nominations this year, with Alan Wake 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 both receiving eight nominations each. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 follows with seven nominations.
The game publisher with the most nominations is Nintendo with 14. This is followed by Sony Interactive Games and Epic Games, both with nine nominations each.
Entertainment and surprises
The event attendees will be treated to a performance by the Game Awards Orchestra, who will perform a medley of music scores from all six games nominated for the Game of the Year award.
There’s always anticipation for new announcement and trailer reveals at the event, and this year is no different.
Fans of the massively popular Grand Theft Auto series were expecting a trailer for the coming GTA 6 to be revealed at the event. But publisher Rockstar Games recently announced the trailer would be revealed on their YouTube channel on Tuesday.
Fans can still look forward to a trailer reveal of Hideo Kojima’s next game, a sequel to the groundbreaking Death Stranding game.
There is also excitement building for other announcements, including a new Fortnite game mode, new downloadable content levels for last year’s Game of the Year award winner Elden Ring and big announcements from both Xbox and Sega.
How to watch the awards live
The Game Awards this year will be held on Thursday at 5pm Pacific Time, which will be on Friday at 5am in the UAE.
The ceremony will be available to watch live on several platforms on the award’s official channels, including YouTube, Twitch, X, Facebook and Instagram.
Fans can tune in 30 minutes before the stream for a pre-event show.
More information on times and a full list of the nominees are available at thegameawards.com
