The Game Awards takes place tonight

The night owls among us should set their alarms for 1:30am tonight for the now annual The Game Awards.

Presenters this year include none other than Hideo Kojima himself (which perhaps alludes to the tantalising hprospect of some possible Death Stranding gameplay, or at least an esoteric trailer involving, erm, otters and pencils?), Guillermo Del Toro, motion capture extraordinaire Andy Serkis and Jack Black.

The core of the event are the actual awards themselves. Categories include Game of the Year (PUBG or Zelda, presumably), Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score/Music, Best Audio, Best Performance, Best VR/AR Game, Best Esports Game, Best Chinese Game and many more.

However, as explained to VentureBeat, many viewers are just as interested in the accompanying trailers and reveals as they are the awards themselves.

“At least two games are brand-new game worlds that no one has ever seen before,” host Geoff Keighley said. “It becomes a sport to guess which ones they will be. It’s not the Oscars. It’s not the GDC awards. It’s The Game Awards. It’s a balance of awards and games that are coming in the future.”

Keighley also addressed how he tries to keep the show relevant without descending too far into cynicism.

“We can reference some of that stuff and it would be wrong to not reflect the zeitgeist,” he said, specifically referencing the Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot box saga. “There could be a lot of snark about the industry in general, but I really want something that is positive and uplifting that celebrates our love of video games.”