Two games I liked from The Game Awards

This past December 11th, The Game Awards took place, and as every year, a ton of new games were announced. Among everything that was shown, there were two games that really caught my attention:

Coven of the Chicken Foot

In the trailer you see a little grandma going on an adventure with the help of a forest creature. Mechanically, the game reminded me a lot of The Last Guardian. The studio director, Bruce Straley, mentions that the idea was to explore how they could innovate on the concept of “companions” in a game, making them more reactive to the player’s actions.

Bruce Straley spent 18 years working at Naughty Dog, where he directed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and The Last of Us (alongside Neil Druckmann). In both games there are NPCs that accompany the player, so it’s interesting to see how that experience is reflected in this new project. I highly recommend this Polygon interview if you want to read more about the game’s background.

What caught my attention the most was the visual style, the character design, and the mechanics shown in the trailer. Bruce describes it as a “character-driven puzzle game,” and I think that’s exactly the kind of game that attracts me the most.

Bradley the Badger

An “action platformer” that turns into a bit of a “satire” of other video game genres, with mechanics that break the fourth wall. The trailer looks really fun, and the gameplay proposal — platforming, puzzles, combat, and “genre switching” — looks great.

Who’s making this game? A new studio called Day 4 Night, founded by the Lead Designer of Red Dead Redemption, Christian Cantamessa, and the creative director of Mario + Rabbids, Davide Soliani. The studio started on October 3rd, 2024, just about a year ago; I think that, for such a short amount of time, what they have looks very promising.

Some thoughts about these games and The Game Awards

It’s interesting to see who’s behind the trailers that caught my attention and to learn that the developers are veterans who have worked on some of the most well-known franchises. As an indie developer, I’ve gotten used to games made by people who are “just starting out” or working on their first game. But the “best” games are usually the result of many years of experience.

The second thing I think about The Game Awards is that they should probably change the name of the event to something more like Game Trailers. I don’t want to add much more to the criticism of the event; I think Geoff Keighley is truly passionate about video games, and the event he puts together every year gives us a chance to get excited, much like E3 used to. But for an event called The Game Awards, 90% of the time is spent on new game trailers, some award categories are announced in lightning rounds, and the winners don’t even receive their awards on camera or give a speech.

Again, I think the event itself is good and serves a purpose, but it could be more honest about what it really is. A Trailerathon?