The Game Awards 2024 — our favorite Xbox announcements and game reveals

With all the announcements we just had, here are the TrueAchievements team highlights from The Game Awards 2024! Whether you were staying up all night for The Game Awards (we’ve lost count of how much coffee we’ve had) or catching the Geoff show during the daytime, you no doubt spotted an incredible number of reveals and world premieres. Even so, there were a few bits in particular which stood out for us…TrueAchievements team highlights — The Game Awards 2024While there might not have been much in the way of updates for those upcoming Xbox exclusives, we still saw a fantastic range of announcements, from release dates to world premieres, plus a wonderful why-is-this-happening bit of Geoff Keighley riffing with (or rather, being roasted by) the iconic Muppet characters, Statler and Waldorf. When it comes to actual games, however, here’s what stood out for us…Blackfrost: The Long Dark II The Game Awards was packed with so many wonderful reveals and announcements that it’s hard to pick just one highlight. However, I am a huge fan of Hinterland Studio’s The Long Dark, and when I saw those familiar frigid vistas and dancing Northern Lights appear in that Blackfrost: The Long Dark II trailer, I instantly knew which game I was going to champion. If you’re unfamiliar with The Long Dark, it’s a survival game that sees you trying to survive alone after your plane crashes in the rugged Canadian wilderness. You have to manage your hunger, thirst, warmth, condition of your equipment, and energy, all while trying to navigate to a new location and battling the elements and wildlife. At first, it can be pretty brutal, and every trip outside of your cozy shelter is a matter of life or death, but once you’re familiar with the game’s survival systems, you can get into a rhythm and really appreciate the gorgeous world Hinterland has built. Seriously, the atmosphere in this game is incredible, and there is nothing else like it in a video game. With Blackfrost: The Long Dark II, Hinterland is building upon everything that made the first game so special. According to the developer, Blackfrost is the “first survival game built ground-up as a survival RPG.” You’ll be able to build your own character, customize their attributes, and attempt to survive either on your own or in co-op with pals. There are also new hazards to avoid and new mechanics to get to grips with, such as a new Will to Live system that throws elements of psychological survival into the mix.Sadly, Blackfrost: The Long Dark II has only been announced for a 2026 early access release on Steam, so it seems it will be a while before it comes to Xbox. Fingers crossed Hinterland doesn’t keep us waiting too long! The Witcher 4If there was one thing I hadn’t even dared to hope for at The Game Awards, it was news of The Witcher 4 — let alone a six-minute-long reveal trailer with Ciri front and centre as the new protagonist.This trailer was enough to capture some of that same atmosphere from our first glimpses of The Witcher 3: harsh, dark worlds, gruesome monsters, and a distrust for all witcher-kind. The Witcher 3 introduced us to some impossible choices and then some totally unplanned consequences for those choices, and it looks like The Witcher 4 will do the same: we see Ciri trying to save a young woman, only to defeat the monster and find that woman dying anyway.I know we shouldn’t base our hopes too much on cinematic trailers, but it’s hard not to expect great things after The Witcher 3 turned out to be one of the greatest games of all time. This time around, it’s Ciri as the main character and on her own path to become an experienced witcher. Thankfully for all of us who’d miss him, Geralt will still feature — we even heard a few lines of that iconic gravelly Geralt voice at the end of the trailer.I can’t wait to hear more about The Witcher 4. I’ve got no idea when that might be, and we don’t have a whisper of a hint of a release window yet, but oh wow is it exciting just to know that we’ll be heading back to the world of The Witcher.Dying Light: The BeastI love gore, violence, and zombies in my video games, and I especially loved the first Dying Light, so Dying Light: The Beast was an easy choice for me as a highlight from this year’s show. There were many other fantastic announcements during The Game Awards too, so I also want to shout out Killing Floor 3 as another top announcement.Swinging back to my actual highlight, though, Dying Light: The Beast started life as DLC for the second game but has since grown into a standalone title. It’s set 13 years after the events of the original Dying Light, sticking us in the, surely worn-out, shoes of Kyle Crane once again. Where has Crane been all this time? Stuck in a lab being prodded by scientists for various experiments, because even during a zombie apocalypse humans still feel the need to prove that we’re the real monsters.The Beast’s setting means we’re heading back to a time closer to when the outbreak started in Harran, so expect more contemporary weapons compared to what we were slaying corpses with in Villedor. The latest trailer from Techland shows a return for vehicles, grenade launchers, pistols, flamethrowers, and more… oh, and Crane has abilities linked to a mutation caused by the experiments, so that could be fun! Dying Light: The Beast launches on Xbox sometime in summer 2025, and it’ll be free for players who own Dying Light 2: Ultimate Edition — bonus!We had some great announcements and reveals from The Game Awards, and even a few updates for our list of upcoming Game Pass games. What were your favorite announcements? Let us know in the comments!



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