The 2021 Game Awards will be held on Thursday, December 9, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, and will be hosted by Keighley. The show returns as an in-person event this year after becoming virtual due to the pandemic last year, but Activision Blizzard will play no role other than its previously stated award nominations.
The Game Awards producer and host Geoff Keighley has revealed that Activision Blizzard’s terrible, horrible, no good, very poor 2021 will continue, as the embattled video game corporation will not have a presence in this year’s awards presentation outside of its nominees.
In subsequent tweets, Keighley stated that The Game Awards are a time of celebration for the industry and that abuse, harassment, and predatory practices have no place in any firm or community.
Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 will not be featured at this year’s expo, according to Keighley in a statement to The Washington Post. That’s hardly surprising given that Activision Blizzard stated in February that neither title would be released until 2021. With Jen Oneal’s recent departure, the games may not be released until 2023 at the earliest.
Activision is nominated for two awards: best eSports game for Call of Duty and Best Ongoing, which is “given to a game for outstanding production of ongoing content that evolves the player experience over time” for Call of Duty: Warzone.
Activision President Rob Kostich is a member of The Game Awards’ advisory board, which also includes AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, Hideo Kojima, Nintendo President Doug Bowser, and Microsoft’s Phil Spencer.
