It’s that time of year again when we celebrate games big and small and their developers with a slew of new announcements spread over multiple hours to keep viewers on their toes.

The Game Awards 2024 are set to begin in less than 24 hours on December 12th, which usually brings with it a slew of new fighting game reveals, but what is most likely to show up at this round?

We expect to see at least a few new trailers and announcements starting with the pre-show, which is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. ET, and possibly continue through the entire event, which lasted three days become an hour and a half last year.

However, only one of these has been confirmed, and several other big titles have new DLC content and titles on the horizon that they’re likely looking to introduce to a larger audience.

As for the awards themselves, Tekken 8, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, MultiVersus and the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection are all in the running for best fighting game.

Tekken is also nominated for Best Multiplayer Game, going up against Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Helldivers 2, Super Mario Party Jamboree and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

But enough of that, let’s talk about what revelations might be coming, starting with the most likely of all.

Bandai Namco has the only confirmed fighting game announcement we’re aware of at the moment, as the Game Awards will reveal the final season one DLC character for Tekken 8.

Although Anna Williams has already been teased at the Tekken World Tour Finals, it seems more likely that she will open the second season.

We think there’s a very high chance that Season 1’s final character will be a guest fighter, and you can find much more on that in our latest Tekken crossover pick story to see who has the best chance of being to create it.

While they haven’t confirmed anything for the show yet, the Game Awards would be a really good place for Bandai Namco to show off what they’ve been working on for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, considering it’s also nominated for Best Fighting Game .

The Season Pass is said to include over 20 playable new characters (presumably including transformations), but they have only featured Gamma 1 and 2 from Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and Glorio and Vegeta (Mini) from Dragon Ball Daima in their artwork only.

Since the game has been out for a few months now, it’s probably time to show off the new fighters in action.

And fans are definitely ready to see Beast Gohan and Orange Piccolo in Sparking Zero too.

Originally this was going to be a little further down the list, but that changed earlier today.

An open beta test for Virtua Fighter 5 REVO appeared to have leaked online a while ago. Therefore, it would be a smart move to make this announcement at the Game Awards to raise awareness about the upcoming title and get more people to try the series for free for the first time.

However, since we’re getting this as another updated version of VF5, that means a real Virtua Fighter 6 is probably still years away from reveal/release.

But perhaps this is all designed to fuel hype for a bigger return sooner than expected.

We already know that Fatal Fury’s Mai Shiranui is the next DLC character for Street Fighter 6’s second season and that she will be released sometime this winter.

She would have been much higher on the list here, but in an unexpected move, Capcom released Mai’s teaser trailer last week.

The developer has continued to maintain close ties with Geoff Keighley’s game shows over the past few years and even revealed the Season 2 DLC cast at Summer Games Fest this year, so we’re not ruling out more games being featured at the Game Awards .

Maybe they just got the teaser out of the way to offer a second teaser or gameplay trailer this week… or maybe they’ll just end up showing the same teaser again.

At this event, NetherRealm Studios is basically in the same boat as Capcom.

Mortal Kombat 1’s next DLC character for Khaos Reigns is Conan the Barbarian, and Ed Boon also showed off a short teaser of him last week.

NetherRealm also has longstanding ties to Keighley’s shows, so there could be more footage of Conan in action or his interactions with other cast members.

But it’s hard to really say at this point.

Arc System Works revealed Elphelt at the Game Awards last year (though she technically leaked early on), so they were able to do the same here in Guilty Gear Strive Season 4.

Venom is scheduled to come to the game sometime in the winter of early 2025, so it would be a longer wait than Elphelt, which released right after the announcement, but this would still be the place to get the most looks at the blind fighter.

Or maybe ArcSys is holding him back another week for CEOtaku 2024, where the developer usually brings something to show its fighters.

The first season content of Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising wrapped up with Vikala some time ago, but ArcSys and Cygames have already confirmed that more is on the way.

With Versus Rising also nominated for Best Fighting Game, it would be a good idea to take a much better look at Sandalphon, who has been one of the most sought-after characters since the original fighter’s release.

But perhaps they’ll save him for CEOTaku or, more likely, Sandalphon for the 2024 Granblue Fantasy Fes in Japan next week.

Fatal Fury would have been much higher on our list as SNK have also appeared regularly on Keighley’s shows in recent years, but we now have some doubts about the timing.

The Game Awards coincide with SNK’s release of Vice and Mature for The King of Fighters 15, as well as a major new balance update. Therefore, we are not sure whether the developers want to gain anything from their own current title.

City of the Wolves still has about five more characters to reveal before its release next April, so there’s a good chance.

We’re just not really willing to spend money on it at the moment or get our hopes up too high.

Although the Hunter x Hunter fighting game was originally scheduled to release in late 2024, it was pushed back to add rollback netcode and more polish.

While we technically already know Nen Impact’s full starting lineup, there are still a few characters left that aren’t receiving actual trailers yet.

Maybe we could see Morel and/or Kite appear on the pre-show at some point tomorrow, although we don’t put much stock in that.

This definitely seems like the kind of reveal ArcSys would have in store for CEOtaku or another anime-focused event.

That wraps up all the fighting games we think might be coming up with new reveals for the Game Awards in just a few hours, but let us know what you think/hope for what’s to come and if we’ve missed anything.

You can watch the awards ceremony with us on stream tomorrow and we’ll update stories and information as they come out.