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The Game Awards will air on December 10, 2020, and voting for the Player’s Choice game of the year is still open. Separate from the full nominee list, voted on by press and industry, the third and final round of the Player’s Choice vote has whittled the entries down to five games, with one a clear frontrunner.

The five titles, in order of votes right now, are as follows:

• The Last of Us Part II
• Ghost of Tsushima
• Hades
• Doom Eternal
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

You can vote for your favorite right here.

It’s a very PlayStation-heavy list, except for Hades–which is also the only game of this five to get a 9/10 review from GameSpot.

At the time of writing, The Last of Us Part II has 40% of the vote, and Ghost of Tsushima has 34%. As this is a player-driven vote, games that sold well naturally have an advantage, and both games have been huge success stories. The Last of Us Part II was the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 game, and Ghost of Tsushima was the fastest-selling new PlayStation IP.

Last year’s winner was Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but Nintendo fans seem not to have mobilized this year–Animal Crossing: New Horizons bowed out after round 2.

You can vote for the Player’s Choice award until December 7, at 11:59PM PT.

After years of development and multiple delays, CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is finally releasing on December 10. But launch is just the beginning. In addition to the expansions to the single-player campaign, which will be revealed later, CD Projekt Red has another team working on a standalone multiplayer game set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe.

But when is it releasing? CDPR has not locked in a date yet, but it probably won’t be soon. In terms of a release date for Cyberpunk 2077’s multiplayer game, CDPR says you should expect it to release in 2022 at the soonest.

CDPR executive Adam Kicinski recently spoke about the game during an earnings briefing. He said it’s not right to call it just a “mode” for Cyberpunk 2077.

Instead, it should be thought of as a standalone product. “So, first, we don’t call it modes,” Kicinski said. “It’s a separate dedicated production, a big production. We think about it as a standalone product.”

The Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer game is connected to the single-player game, but CD Projekt Red sees it as an “independent production” with a team working on it that’s separate from the team building the single-player game.

Kicinski went on to say that CD Projekt Red is purposefully keeping quiet on the multiplayer game right now, and that is likely to keep the focus on building hype for Cyberpunk 2077’s single-player game. Kicinski said people can expect news about Cyberpunk 2077’s multiplayer game to come during Q1 of 2021.

What we do know about the Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer game is that it will have some sort of microtransaction system, but it’s unknown at this stage what business model it will use. Regarding the microtransactions, CD Projekt Red has said the goal is to provide users with content to purchase that feels like a fair transaction for their money.

In November, a major Super Smash Bros. online tournament was canceled after a cease and desist from Nintendo, which took issue with the tournament’s use of the “Slippi” mod to play Super Smash Bros. Melee–a game released for the GameCube in 2001, and never re-released–online. Now, the controversy over that decision has spilled over into the competitive Splatoon 2 scene.

Heading into the December 5-7 weekend, Nintendo was advertising the upcoming Splatoon 2 North American Open on its Twitter channels, and promising a livestream. However, on the day, the stream was canceled, with a Discord announcement (screenshotted in this Reddit thread) not providing many details for what was happening.

Fans and players are pretty sure they know what happened, though. As commentator Slimy points out, about 30% of players in the competition had “FreeMelee”, or similar, in their usernames. It’s likely, although unconfirmed, that Nintendo canceled the livestream because of this.

As a result, “#FreeSplatoon” is now trending on Twitter.

Nintendo’s track record on esports and tournaments is not the best–Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the best-selling fighting game of all time, was removed from the EVO Online line-up after the physical event was canceled, as the Switch’s online infrastructure is not considered good enough to support a professional fighting tournament. EVO Online would ultimately be canceled over sexual misconduct allegations.

It remains to be seen if Nintendo will address its perception among pro players on its own system in the future.

The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red’s next big game, Cyberpunk 2077, releases on December 10, but that’s just the start. The game will be playable on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S through backwards compatibility, but the true next-gen editions aren’t releasing for some time longer.

When Does Cyberpunk 2077 Release For PS5 And Xbox Series X|S?

The bespoke editions of Cyberpunk 2077 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are penciled in for 2021 at the soonest. Business development boss Michal Nowakowski said of the new-gen editions, “When it comes to a proper, full-blown next-gen version, that’s going to come later.”

People playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S will see some improvements due to the power of those machines, however. “It will look better on next-generation consoles,” CDPR has said.

Whenever Cyberpunk 2077’s PS5 and Xbox Series X|S editions are released, they will be available as a free upgrade for those who bought the game already. It’ll need to be in the same family, though; if you have the game on PS4, you can upgrade to the PS5 version.

CDPR management has said the next-gen edition of Cyberpunk 2077 may release in 2021, or it might not; the studio has not settled on a release date yet.

Cyberpunk 2077 releases on December 10 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, along with PS4 and Xbox One. You can buy the game at a variety of stores, but if you want the highest amount of money to go to the developer, you can buy it from CDPR’s own digital store, GOG.

Keep checking back with GameSpot for lots more on Cyberpunk 2077 in the coming days, including our full review, guide coverage, and more.

Cyberpunk 2077 is not the only game from CDPR getting the next-gen treatment. The company’s previous big-seller, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, is getting upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and they will also be free.

Fall Guys will soon enter Season 3, bringing in new mini-games and features to its unique spin on game shows and battle royale. We’ll learn more in just a few days, and developer Mediatonic is already teasing some of the new costumes prior to a larger reveal.

In a post on the game’s official Twitter account, we see four new costumes for the game. They show off a red-nosed reindeer, a candle, a yeti, and what looks to be some sort of ice queen. It appears there is much more in store for Season 3, and we will see the game again on December 10 at The Game Awards.

Fall Guys and The Game Awards’ producer Geoff Keighley worked together on the Season 2 content reveal, as well. Keighley shared new costumes during Gamescom: Opening Night Live way back in August, and the theme was medieval. With Christmas almost here, Season 3’s theme certainly makes sense.

This will be just one of the big reveals at The Game Awards, too. During the pre-show alone, there will be five world premieres, and we expect several other high-profile games are likely being saved for the main event. You can vote on the awards at the official website, including for the new accessibility category. There will also be a new audio descriptive mode available via YouTube Gaming.

Activision has released some details on just how massive the Call of Duty franchise is, saying in a news release that the series has surpassed $3 billion in sales over the past 12 months. Additionally, the number of people playing Call of Duty and the hours spent in the games is breaking records. The milestones come after the launch of Black Ops Cold War, which one analyst believes is not selling as well as 2019’s extremely popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Activision’s numbers state that Call of Duty sales, or “net bookings” in the company’s parlance, are up 80% year-to-date, with units sold through up by more than 40%. The press release did not provide any further granularity on what the “units” is referring to.

The press release also mentioned that more than 200 million people have played a Call of Duty game in 2020, across all instalments. For console and PC specifically, the Call of Duty franchise has reached the “highest number of players in recorded history” in 2020. What’s more, November 2020 was the “biggest” November on record for the Call of Duty franchise in terms of monthly players and hours played.

An uptick in players and time spent on Call of Duty is expected, given the expansion of the series in recent years. Call of Duty: Warzone, the battle royale game, is proving to be extremely popular, with more than 85 million players since launch in March. Call of Duty Mobile, too, is doing very well with 300 million downloads in its first year. These are games that did not exist 18 months ago, and they are microtransaction juggernauts with their free-to-play business models. Additionally, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remastered was released this year, so it truly was a gigantic year for the franchise.

Warzone is primed for a big update soon, as the game’s Season One expansion will transform the game with new content based on Black Ops. The update was originally intended to release on December 10, but it was recently delayed to December 16.

The research group Cowen & Company released a note to investors regarding Activision’s statements about Call of Duty. The firm pointed out that Activision was not specific about Black Ops Cold War’s unit sales. Cowen & Company’s “rough best guess” is that unit sales are down about 15-20% compared to Modern Warfare.

Even 20% less would still be a huge number for Black Ops Cold War, which is expected to be the highest-selling game of 2020 in the US.