These games rolled big at the DICE Awards

The DICE awards took place last week in Las Vegas. Who won big? Also, PlayStation’s latest State of Play showed some new games while providing release dates for others, and Epic breaks down the the year in numbers on their platform. All this and more. Let’s go! 

PlayStation’s latest State of Play

Sony held a State of Play last week with a number of new games and other announcements. A few of our favorite announcements include:

Tides of Annihilation

Darwin’s Paradox!

Directive 8020

You can check out all the details from the event here. Apart from new game trailers, a few other announcements include:

• Days Gone Remastered was announced for PlayStation 5, and arrives April 25. 
• Release dates: Borderlands 4 comes out Sept. 23 while Metal Gear Solid Delta arrives Aug. 28. 
• Lies of P is getting a prequel expansion.
• Dave the Diver is teaming up with the Yakuza series for DLC.

The 2024 DICE Award winners are…

The 30,000 members of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences voted for their games of the year, and the winners were announced last week at the DICE Awards. 

Astro Bot took home the top award as Game of the Year and the most awards with five. Other games winning multiple awards include Helldivers 2 with four awards, Balataro (three) and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (three).

The DICE Awards are distinctive because they are chosen by the people who actually make video games. Here is a full list of the winners:

• Game of the Year: Astro Bot
• Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction: Animal Well
• Outstanding Achievement in Game Design: Astro Bot
• Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game: Balatro
• Mobile Game of the Year: Balatro
• Immersive Reality Game of the Year: Batman: Arkham Shadow
• Immersive Reality Technical Achievement: Starship Home
• Online Game of the Year: Helldivers 2
• Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year: Balatro
• Sports Game of the Year: MLB The Show 24
• Role-Playing Game of the Year: Metaphor: Refantazio
• Racing Game of the Year: F1 24
• Fighting Game of the Year: Tekken 8
• Family Game of the Year: Astro Bot
• Adventure Game of the Year: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Action Game of the Year: Helldivers 2
• Outstanding Technical Achievement: Astro Bot
• Outstanding Achievement in Story: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design: Helldivers 2
• Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition: Helldivers 2
• Outstanding Achievement in Character: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones
• Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction: Black Myth: Wukong
• Outstanding Achievement in Animation: Astro Bot

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Epic’s Game Store grows

The Epic Games Store, the second-largest digital gaming storefront and home to Fortnite, posted their 2024 year in review. The store continued to grow, and reached 295 million users on PC. Some interesting numbers include: 

• Users spent $1.09 billion on the Epic Games Store and played a total of 7.72 billion hours of games. 
• Over 1,100 games were added to the Epic storefront. 
• The Epic store gave away 89 free games over the year, a total of 595 million were claimed.
• Epic’s top games of the year were Genshin Impact, Rocket League, Honkai: Star Rail, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Fortnite. None of these were released in 2024. 

Epic also breaks down some of their plans for 2025, including gifting games, pre-loading advanced orders and a revised search. 

Side Quests (more stories worth reading)

🪦 Game artist Viktor Antonov passed away last week. He is best known for his work on Half Life 2 and Dishonored. 

🎙️ The Masked Singer is launching a mobile game ahead of the season 13 premiere. 

🎸 Electronic Arts passed on buying a number of Activision properties, including Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and studio Blizzard. 

🚫 Steam made its ban on games that rely on in-game ads more straightforward and explicit. 

♟️ More than half of board game giant Asmodee’s net sales come from just five product lines, two of which are Magic and Pokemon.

🫠 Power connectors on Nvidia’s 5090 graphics cards are melting and damaging the units. 

📊 Sony sold 9.5 million PlayStation 5s last quarter, selling over 75 million since its inception. 

🧰 Overwatch 2 is bringing loot boxes. 

⚾ Pokémon Go is partnering with Major League Baseball stadiums for special baseball-themed rewards.

🔇 Discord now lets users mute people without them knowing.

📈 PUBG maker Krafton reported "record-breaking earnings" in 2024, with full-year revenue jumping 41.8% year-on-year to $1.85 billion.

👺 World of Warcraft’s big goblin patch is launching on Feb. 25.

⚖️ Roblox revenue increased 29% in 2024, but the company is reportedly being investigated by the SEC. 

📱 Nintendo's smartphone apps have topped 900 million downloads.

📈 Remedy’s revenue rose 49% during their 2024 fiscal year, and Alan Wake 2 recouped its development costs. 

⛔ The owners of the company behind the ARMA and DayZ own a Czech outlet accused of publishing disinformation and pro-Russia talking points.

📅 The next Diablo 4 expansion arrives in 2026. 

📱 Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was delisted on the iOS store with an “unfixable” bug.

🕶️ The next Mortal Kombat movie will feature Karl Urban as Johnny Cage. 

New Releases this week:

Check out our article on 10 New Games to Play in February.

2/18: Ale Abbey (PC)
2/18: Avowed (Xbox and PC)
2/18: Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)
2/21: Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii (PlayStation, Xbox and PC)

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