On the face of it, The Game Awards is about recognising the best video games, studios and performers from the past year.

Of course, what gaming fans really care about are the new game announcements, trailers and surprise reveals that have become a staple of the annual event.

For UK viewers, The Game Awards 2024 will be broadcast from 12.30am until around 4am GMT on December 13. That's 4.30pm PT US time.

You can watch the action unfold live by clicking play on the YouTube embed below.

In terms of what fans can expect, The Game Awards 2024 will feature a new trailer for Mafia: The Old Country.

The news was confirmed on X (formerly Twitter): "Mafia The Old Country has been confirmed for a full world premiere reveal on Thursday during The Game Awards."

Borderlands 4 will also make an appearance at The Game Awards, although whether it's gameplay or cinematics is yet to be seen.

"Prepare yourselves! We’re about to crank things up to the next f*****g level at The Game Awards," reads a Borderlands tweet.

"Who's ready to get their first look at the most ambitious Borderlands yet?!"

Likewise, It Takes Two and Brothers A Tale of Two Sons director Josef Fares has told fans that his studio's new game Split Fiction will be shown at the event.

Hideo Kojima will make an appearance, while The First Berserker: Khazan, Tekken 8 DLC and Dune Awakening are also expected to be shown.

Of course, the real fun is trying to guess the surprise reveals. Speaking on the Kinda Funny Games videocast, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier told viewers to expect at least two really big announcements.

"What can I say without getting in trouble..." Schreier said. "So I know about a couple of announcements that'll be there, and they would qualify as big announcements.

"That said, like, big announcements are games that won't be out for years. I think there's a good chance that you'll see one or two teaser trailers for a game that is like 2026 or even later in many cases."

According to Schreier, viewers will be shocked by at least two of the announcements.

One of the big rumours is that Resident Evil 9 will be announced during the event. Considering Resident Evil Village launched back in 2021, the timeline would certainly make sense.

FromSoftware recently confirmed that it is working on various new titles covering multiple genres. Perhaps one of these games will make an appearance during The Game Awards?

Then there's the Nintendo Switch 2, which is tipped to launch in 2025. It's more likely Nintendo will unveil it during a Direct event, but stranger things have happened. Perhaps we'll get an Xbox Series X mid-generation upgrade instead.

And finally, there's GTA 6. With the first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer making its debut just over a year ago, some fans think we may see GTA 6 Trailer 2 at The Game Awards.

However, this seems unlikely given Mafia The Old Country has already been announced for The Game Awards. Mafia publisher 2K and GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games are both subsidiaries of Take-Two Interactive, which makes it unlikely both games will make an appearance during the event.