The Game Awards 2024 ceremony (Dec. 12) was one of the best in years, mixing tons of surprises with welcome updates on video games that we’ve all been wondering about. This also meant learning more about upcoming space games and being shocked by new reveals that made our sci-fi-loving hearts very, very happy. These are the projects you should keep tabs on in 2025 and beyond.
On top of new game reveals and fresh looks at ongoing projects, we also got updates on Mech Break ahead of its spring 2025 launch (an online mech-based action game which had a pretty solid beta) – and on Helldivers 2‘s long-awaited third enemy faction and new batch of content (all free), which shadow-dropped just as the trailer arrived. Democracy won’t spread itself across the cosmos, so get to work.
‘Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet’ (Naughty Dog)
Naughty Dog’s return to sci-fi marked the end of the ceremony, and was arguably one of the biggest reveals of the night. After being stuck in the universes of The Last of Us and Uncharted for almost two decades, a new IP has entered the chat (with four years of development under its belt). Sadly, no release window was revealed.
The Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet story follows “a dangerous bounty hunter” named Jordan A. Mun. The basic pitch? She ends up stranded and alone on the distant, enigmatic planet of Sempiria, a world “whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago.”
‘Project: Robot’ (genDESIGN)
If you’d been wondering about Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus) and his team, who’d been absent since 2016’s The Last Guardian, we received an intriguing answer last night. We were all treated to an evocative teaser trailer depicting a cloaked person climbing what looks like a mech as some sort of natural disaster approaches on a barren world.
Little else is known at this point, but we’re all excited to learn more about what’s next from one of gaming’s greatest minds. No release window for this game either. In fact, Project: Robot is a placeholder title, so don’t expect this one to launch anytime soon.
‘Turok: Origins’ (Saber Interactive)
While Nightdive Studios’ remasters of the OG trilogy have been fantastic, Turok has been in a weird spot when it comes to getting new entries for a long while. You might still remember 2008’s grounded reboot, which was reasonably successful but failed to spawn a new saga. Out of nowhere, a third-person shooter reboot from Universal and Saber Interactive has arrived, and it looks rather interesting.
The game is being described as a co-op adventure that can also be played solo and features “advanced weaponry” and “powers that evolve your suit.” It’s yet another full reboot of the canon (or so it seems). After so much time away, it might be just what the franchise needs. There are dinosaurs to battle and an alien invasion that looms on the horizon. What more do you need at this stage? We’re willing to bet on this one after Saber’s spectacular work on Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2. Expect it to arrive in 2025.
‘The Outer Worlds 2’ (Obsidian Entertainment)
After it was announced back in 2021, we hadn’t heard anything about the follow-up to 2019’s first-person RPG The Outer Worlds. Well, do we have some good news for you! The Game Awards gave us our second-ever look at the game with actual gameplay, and even promised a 2025 release window.
It looks fittingly funny, colorful, and thrilling. No details yet on the crew that will be accompanying us on our journey across the stars this time around though. Despite the surface-level similarities, this isn’t a riff on Starfield‘s formula, but it could be a nice alternative for those looking for something more focused on deeper role-playing.
‘Borderlands 4’ (Gearbox Software)
After the dreadful Borderlands movie, fans were dying for news on the fourth installment in the long-running ‘looter shooter’ Borderlands game series to wash away the bad taste.
Despite the initial CG intro sporting a slightly different visual style, the actual in-game footage shows a Borderlands game that looks adequately Borderlands-y. Mind you, the new vault hunters don’t exactly wow with their designs, but we haven’t even met them yet; a lot could change between now and its unspecified 2025 release date.
‘Steel Hunters’ (Wargaming Group)
After a brief CG intro, a pretty explosive trailer for Steel Hunters was introduced. It’s been reported that alpha tests have been happening for a while, but not much had been revealed publicly. Now we know it’ll be a free-to-play PvPvE shooter with big mech battles that look both fast-paced and weighty.
The official Steam page for Steel Hunters states that six ‘duo teams’ duke it out while trying to extract from the ‘Hunting Grounds’ of “a green but abandoned Earth.” The sci-fi setting alone looks enticing, and those mech designs are looking awesome and quite varied. If Wargaming is treating this project with as much care as World of Warships and Tanks, we could be looking at yet another entry in the best mech games of all time list.
