The Game Awards 2018: How to Watch Live And What to Expect [Video]

With eight category nominations apiece, Wild West adventure "Red Dead Redemption 2" and fantasy action epic "God of War" are among several titles contending for overall Game of the Year at 2018's edition of The Game Awards. In existence since 2014, and descended from the Spike Video Game Awards that ran for ten years from 2003, The Game Awards present themselves as a mixture of promotional preview and retrospective celebration (or pre-Holiday shopping reminder), intrinsically associated with Canadian producer, host, and hype-man Geoff Keighley.

New looks at "Anthem" (February 2019), "Rage 2" (first half of 2019), and "Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey" (date TBA) have been confirmed. Season 7 of wildly popular battle royale game "Fortnite" is to begin on December 6 and the game's Creative Director is to be present for a world premiere; likewise, Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" is another December 7 launch and company executive Reggie Fils-Aime has promised "something special" to mark the occasion; Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, is another known stage presence.

Keighley has said that over 10 new games will be announced. Role-playing adventure studio Obsidian Entertainment, recently acquired by Xbox, is to announce a pre-existing project with the same publisher behind "Ancestors," and it has two of the "Fallout" franchise's creators on board. There's reasonable speculation that PlayStation's 1999 kart racer "Crash Team Racing" is being revived, and a new "Dragon Age" fantasy action adventure is anticipated.

Plus there'll be a presenters' cameo from Joe and Anthony Russo, directors of 2018's biggest box-office blockbuster "Avengers: Infinity War" and its 2019 counterpart, as well as "Stranger Things" creators Matt and Ross Duffer. Other celebrity presenters include actors Jonah Hill, Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz and Aisha Tyler, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, and a number of high-profile YouTubers and Twitch streamers, while several video game composers have been invited, with musical performances afoot.

The Game Awards 2018 are to be livestreamed on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, PlayStation, Steam, Xbox Live, Mixer and Caffeine from 5:30pm PST on Thursday, December 6, equivalent to 8:30pm EST, and then 1:30am Friday, December 7 UTC / GMT, 7am India Standard Time, 9:30am Beijing, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia, 1030am Japan and South Korea, and 12:30pm in Sydney, Australia.

International partners include Tencent QQ, DouYu, Wegame and PandaTV in China, NicoNico in Japan, AfreecaTV and KakaoTV in South Korea, and Tamago and Bigo Live in Southeast Asia.