The Game Awards Guest List Includes Shawn Layden

The Game Awards are set to air tomorrow, December 6, 2018. The hype continues to roll out, as well as little teases and confirmations from official sources, possibly getting ahead of leaks, possibly all part of Geoff Keighley’s master plan. Either way, a press release was just sent out for the event, which includes a final (sans surprises) guest list, and additional details on the show that haven’t been announced before. Also, that guest list includes a name of particular interest to the PlayStation community: one Shawn Layden, chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios.

It may come as a surprise to see Shawn Layden on the list, as he has been at the front of all the things the PlayStation brand is not participating in this year, including E3 2019, and of course the company’s own PlayStation Experience, which is skipping North America this year. Perhaps Layden is reintroducing us to a certain Bandicoot as he has in the past, or perhaps he’s simply presenting an award. Either way, he’ll be there, and that’s certainly an early surprise ahead of tomorrow’s show.

Here’s the full guest list so far from the press release, which of course includes at least one non-human, and doesn’t include surprises planned for the show:

Shawn Layden

Phil Spencer

Jeff Kaplan

Jonah Hill

Cristoph Waltz

The Russo Brothers

Pepe the King Prawn

Aisha Tyler

Joel McHale

Rosa Salazar

Rivers Cuomo

Brendon Urie

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins

JackSepticEye

The Game Awards will also be featuring live musical performances, including one teased earlier from Devil May Cry 5. In this press release, we finally get a confirmation that the performance is “Devil Trigger,” the battle theme for protagonist Nero. Here are the other confirmed musical guests:

Hans Zimmer

Harry Gregson-Williams

Lorne Balfe

Lena Raine

Sara Schachner

The press release closes out stating we’ll be seeing world premieres from Fortnite, Obsidian Entertainment, Anthem, and Far Cry in addition to “more than ten new game announcements.” That seems to suggest the new Far Cry project is not counted in that ten, but we’ll see how things shake down tomorrow night.