The Game Awards 2022: What you need to know

The Game Awards 2022 are quickly approaching, and we’re ready to sit back and leave milk and cookies out for Santa Geoff as he prepares to drop a bag of trailers down our chimneys. It may appear like Nintendo has few options this year, but the Switch is doing well and Nintendo is still the second-most-nominated publisher, after Sony Interactive Entertainment and tied with Annapurna Interactive.

The Pre-Show will kick off the Game Awards broadcast on Thursday, December 8 at 4 p.m. PT / 7 p.m. ET. After the pre-shows conclude, the main ceremony will begin at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET.

The duration for the 2022 Game Awards has not yet been confirmed, but it will be lengthy. The 2021 Game Awards lasted roughly three hours, so we anticipate the same length for this year’s presentation. IGN will also be conducting a live post-event show that you can watch after the event.

The awards themselves are the first thing you can expect from the Game Awards this year. There are 31 categories, each with five nominations, including several genuine contenders for Game of the Year in 2022. This year’s front-runners for Game of the Year are Elden Ring and God of War: Ragnarok, both of which IGN rated a 10 out of 10. Both of those games have been nominated for several awards and will almost certainly win a couple of them.

The Game Awards has traditionally included major disclosures of new games. We’ve seen Elden Ring and Sonic Frontiers in the past, so we’re hoping to see some more exciting surprises during the 2022 presentation. Given that this is the first live Game Awards ceremony since 2019, there will almost certainly be a slew of outstanding speakers to discuss upcoming games in depth.