Hot Trends: VGX 2013: The High Points

I didn't watch the Spike VGX 2013 awards last night, and I'm glad I didn't. By all accounts it was an absurd affair, doing little to help lift video games and the people who play them out of the mire of stereotypes that surround the industry and its fans.

But if you sift through just the video game announcements themselves and watch a few trailers and avoid the rest of the show, there were at least a few points of light. No Man's Sky

Perhaps the most surprising, intriguing game presented at VGX this year was an indie space exploration sim called No Man's Sky.

The game is huge and pretty much entirely procedurally generated. You can go wherever you want, either on foot exploring a new planet, or via spacecraft.

Developed by Joe Danger developer Hello Games, the game sends players out to explore the unknown, do battle with one another, and simply immerse themselves in the universe. The whole thing is being built by just four people, which is pretty astounding.

"It's a huge game," said Hello Games' Sean Murray. "We wanted to make a game about exploration. And we wanted to make something that was real."

The game is coming to "next-gen" and, one suspects, PC. It looks like something you'd want to play using the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

You can-and you should-watch the trailer here. (I'd embed it, but unfortunately the types of videos we can embed here at Forbes are limited.) The Witcher 3

One of my, I don't know, top 5 most anticipated games of 2014 is CD Projekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

At VGX, a new trailer gave us yet another brief glimpse into the game's story and immense open-world.

In the trailer we see the wraiths, presumably of the titular Wild Hunt, and then see some gameplay footage of Geralt of Rivia exploring the world, engaging in combat that-hopefully-is much better than the previous two games, and another of the game's new monsters.

Basically any little peak at this game gets me excited. You can watch the new trailer here. Telltale Games Takes On Two New Franchises