The Game Awards, the video game industry’s annual year-end celebration, will return live on Thursday, December 10, 2020 as a free digital livestream available across more than 45 global video platforms.
Last year, The Game Awards reached 50 million global viewers, including a peak live concurrent audience of more than 7.7 million fans.
With the world unable to safely gather in one physical location, The Game Awards will adapt a multi-city approach to the 2020 broadcast. The show will air live in 4K UHD from studio locations with no in-person audience in Los Angeles, Tokyo and London. The three host cities for The Game Awards will be digitally connected for an innovative celebration with live award presentations, musical performances, and spectacular world premiere game announcements.
The Game Awards will welcome some of the top names in entertainment to take part in the video game industry’s biggest annual year-end celebration, streaming live and free across more than 45 platforms globally, which begins on Thursday, December 10 at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT.
The Game Awards will feature a special performance by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, along with appearances by (in alphabetical order) Brie Larson, Christopher Nolan, Gal Gadot, JackSepticEye, John David Washington, Josef Fares, Keanu Reeves, Nolan North, Reggie Fils-Aime, Stephen A. Smith, Tom Holland, Troy Baker, and more surprise guests to be announced.
Lorne Balfe is returning as the Music Director and conductor of The Game Awards for its 2020 multi-city broadcast, and will be conducting the world-renowned London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) from London’s famous Abbey Road Studios.
In Tokyo, the music of the Persona franchise will be performed during The Game Awards pre-show.
Additionally, The Game Award will feature more than a dozen new game announcements, and updates on existing games, including the reveal of the new map for the indie phenomenon Among Us.
This year’s Game of the Year nominees are Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo), DOOM Eternal (id Software/Bethesda), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Square Enix), Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch/SIE), Hades (Supergiant Games), and The Last of Us Part II (Naughty Dog/SIE). Highlighting the games from the past year that truly transformed entertainment, created camaraderie and community and pushed the envelope on innovation, this year’s diverse list of nominees includes 95 different games, individuals and teams spanning across a multitude of gaming genres and platforms.
Without a live-in person audience, fans around the world and thousands of live co-streamers will participate and virtually interact with the show across social media, through live in-game experiences, and via interactive extensions on leading streaming platforms.
The Game Awards also announced that it will present a new award starting in 2020, Innovation in Accessibly, that recognizes software and/or hardware developers that are pushing the medium forward by adding features, technology and content to help games be played and enjoyed by an even wider audience. The Innovation in Accessibility honor joins the Global Gaming Citizen program, the Games for Impact award, and other, to be announced initiatives, as ways to highlight those helping grow and diversify the types of people that create and consume video game entertainment.
Once again, The Game Awards will serve as a launching pad for a weekend of instantly playable game content, in-game drops, demos and live streams that celebrate the exciting future for video games across PC, console, mobile and mixed reality experiences. The Game Awards Sale will be available across all major PC and console gaming platforms, giving fans access to special discounts on nominated games and other special offers. The Game Festival, first launched in 2019 as an all-digital consumer event, will return and offer fans limited-time playable demos on upcoming games from both major studios and independent developers. More details on The Game Awards Sale and The Game Festival will be released in November.
The Game Awards is executive produced by Geoff Keighley and Kimmie Kim. LeRoy Bennett returns as creative director for his sixth year, and Richard Preuss returns as director for his fourth year.