10 predictions for The Game Awards 2025: Half-Life 3, Resident Evil Requiem, and more on Steam Machine please and thank you

Making educated guesses about The Game Awards 2025 requires delicately balancing wishful thinking and facts. This year, there happens to be a lot of crossover between the two.

I'm going to cast the die and make 10 predictions based on all the internet chatter I’ve been seeing about Thursday’s event, all qualified by research and the most likely scenarios with that in mind. 2026 is shaping up to be a huge one for new games of all shapes and sizes, with GTA 6, Fable, and a handful of upcoming Xbox Series X games still yet to receive an official release date, so it’s obvious I’m expecting to see a ton of announcements. Atop that, though, there's lots of whisperings I'm hearing about unannounced titles, sneaky hints from presenter Geoff Keighley, and wildcard wishlist items that actually don't feel so wild after such a stacked year. On that note, let's start with my first TGA 2025 prediction…

10. Geoff Keighley’s mystery statue will turn out to be a Half Life 3 announcement

When Geoff shared a mysterious image on Twitter last week, seeming to depict an intricately carved statue standing in the middle of a desert, everyone seemed to leap to every conclusion possible. Some draw links between the armor and that of characters in Sony Santa Monica’s God of War series, others insist that it must be an Elder Scrolls 6 clue, but I’m firmly on Team Half-Life 3 with this one.

Rumors of its existence have been rife in recent months, especially off the back of the Steam Machine’s impending return following the initial attempt by Valve a decade ago. Half-Life 3 could make for an excellent launch title for this second generation of the console-like mini PC. My next prediction hinges on that very topic.

9. We'll get a Steam Machine price reveal

Valve announced that a new edition of the Steam Machine is coming in 2026, and its specs put it in line with a PS5 in terms of frame rate and performance. One crucial piece of intel is still at large right now, though: how much one of these bad boys is going to set back your wallet. It’s hard to gauge right now, with the device supposedly cheaper than a high-end PC but still pricier than a console according to analyst estimates — but perhaps The Game Awards will clear that up for us soon.

8. Capcom will unveil the identity of Resident Evil Requiem's second protagonist

Look, I've been saying this since the game was revealed at Summer Game Fest, but Capcom has spent the past five months swerving questions on whether a certain Raccoon City hero will be making an appearance in Resident Evil Requiem, and that has always felt like tacit confirmation to me. It's no wonder that Leon getting a reveal at The Game Awards is one of the hottest rumors around, especially since we now have confirmation that the game is going to be showing something off that same evening. Paired with a sneak peek at the decidedly RER2-looking third-person gunplay earlier last week, courtesy of known Resi pundit DuskGolem on Twitter, it's safe to say I am prepared to be vindicated by my firm assertion that Leon will, in fact, show up in Requiem alongside Grace.

There's also the fact that a recent GameStop storefront leak has revealed more details about the steelbook physical editions of the game, with mention of "cosmetics for [Resident Evil 8 protagonist Ethan's daughter] Rosemary Winters". The description has since been edited, so I'm holding out hope that these might be alternative skins for Grace Ashcroft rather than confirmation of Rose being in the game herself, but it looks pretty certain that we'll be finding out more about the RE9 steelbook and that mystery second protagonist at The Game Awards after all.

7. Hideo Kojima will show off OD – and maybe drop a release window

I'd be surprised if Kojima himself isn't in attendance, especially with Death Stranding 2: On The Beach nominated for multiple Game Awards this year, which makes me confident that OD (aka Overdose) news is incoming.

The mysterious upcoming horror game is already looking and sounding incredible, with early clips featuring hyper realistic graphics and spine-tingling performances from its star-studded cast. Kojima gave us our latest sneak peek just a few months ago, and I'll bet there's more where that came from. It might be too soon to hope for a firm release date, but I'll be happy with a ballpark figure at this point.

6. The future of Assassin's Creed will start to take shape

With Assassin's Creed Shadows' launch now almost 10 months behind us, it's high time Ubisoft gave us a closer look at the upcoming Assassin's Creed games we know about yet have little intel on. Assassin's Creed: Codename Hexe is supposed to be next up to the plate, last seen years ago when a cryptic teaser trailer led many of us (myself included) to the firm belief that something witchy this way comes.

Meanwhile, confirmation of remakes in the works at Ubisoft has stoked hopes for a Black Flag remaster to also be on the way, with one determined investigator having rifled through Steam's backend files to suggest that it could come as soon as March. There's definitely something brewing over at Ubisoft, and it sounds like Thursday might bring at least a few of them into the light...

5. Fable will come out of hiding

I'm going to need Xbox to meet me halfway and show its hand at The Game Awards. The majority of new Xbox games we know of right now have no release date attached to them yet, especially with one upcoming RPG in particular supposedly targeting a 2026 launch. I've been seeing lots of whisperings about Fable's presence on Thursday, and after being noticeably absent at Gamescom and Summer Game Fest, I have to agree that we are past due a temperature check.

True, all past Fable trailers made their debuts during bespoke Xbox Games Showcases in 2023 and 2024, but Playground Games is running out of time to remind us to keep an eye on its upcoming epic as the new year draws closer.

4. We'll get an actual trailer for Forza Horizon 6

When Forza Horizon 6 was announced earlier this year, many racing fans were hyped – but many were also kind of underwhelmed by the fact that, well, we haven't actually seen anything except a handful of panorama stills and a titlecard. Its 2026 release window has been set, meaning we really should be getting our first proper look at it before the year is out.

The Game Awards would be the perfect place for that debut, presenting a firmer release date as well as a proper trailer – but I have more (educated) release date wishes where that comes from.

3. Pragmata and Onimusha will finally get release dates

When I sat down for my Resident Evil Requiem hands-on back in August, I also had the chance to play two other upcoming Capcom games: Pragmata and Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Even a handful of months ago, I was thoroughly impressed by the quality of each, which has me convinced that they must be much further in development than I'd initially thought.

It could also just be that Capcom had perfected those particular slices of the game in time for my hands-on, but with all three of the above titles slated to launch in 2026, I wouldn't be surprised if The Game Awards erases the lingering question marks over two of them. There's also that fact that Pragmata has been delayed in the past already, so it's more than likely that it's closing in on the finish line as we know it.

2. Vampires rule (again)

2026 is going to be a vampire kid's dream come true. It's me, I am vampire kids. But for that dream to become a reality, I need release dates for The Duskbloods and The Blood of Dawnwalker at The Game Awards this Thursday.

We've seen quite a lot of the latter, with developer Rebel Wolves having gone into great detail regarding protagonist Coen's vampire by night, human by day affliction and what that means for the game's RPG and combat elements. The same can't be said of The Duskbloods, however, an upcoming Switch 2 game from the studio that brought us Elden Ring and Bloodborne. All we know right now is that Duskbloods will be a PvPvE multiplayer game with a brooding vampire touch, and with the Nightreign DLC officially launched as of earlier in December, I'm thirsty for what else FromSoftware has been cooking up. As long as it has fangs, of course.

1. A new Zelda game will make me rethink not getting a Switch 2

Now, this prediction is closer to wishful thinking than it is working off a rumor, but I say it to you now: I think we're going to get a glimpse at the next Zelda game, and I think it'll happen soon. Nintendo's latest console launched this summer, and even with the likes of Donkey Kong Bananza, Metroid Prime 4, and Mario Kart World, I've never felt close to caving.

But The Game Awards has a chance to change all that by simply confirming that something new is happening for the Zelda IP, even if it's not a full announcement. Those are usually reserved for homegrown Nintendo Direct showcases, I k now, but what better way to make the Switch 2's first Christmas truly special than by hinting at the future of one of its flagship IPs making a platform-exclusive debut in the next year or two?

We've ranked the best games of 2025 if you need a reminder of what an incredible 12 months it's been.