Technologies
Game Awards 2022: Start Times and How to Watch
This year’s award show is expected to be shorter than in the past.

The Game Awards is the annual award show bringing together the biggest companies in gaming and honoring the year’s best titles. The ceremony, hosted by Geoff Keighleylater this week, showcases plenty of trailers and announcements for upcoming titles, keeping the show from being a stodgy suit-and-tie affair. This year’s award show will also be «significantly shorter» than in the past.
Game of the Year nominees include God of War: Ragnarök, Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Stray and A Plague Tale: Requiem. We also know that we’ll get more information on Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Tekken 8, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Sky: Children of the Light, a new game from Jenova Chen, the mind behind 2012’s Journey. Presenters will include HBO’s The Last of Us’ Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, Final Fantasy VXI producer Naoki «Yoshi-P» Yoshida and Animal from The Muppets.
How to watch The Game Awards 2022 on YouTube, Twitch and everywhere else
The 2022 Game Awards will be broadcast from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday starting at 4:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 a.m. GMT. It will stream live on every major platform, including:
- YouTube in 4K
- Twitch
- Facebook Live
- Steam
- Oculus Venues
- IGN
- GameSpot
- TikTok Live
- Trovo
- Instagram Live.
Select IMAX theaters will also showcase The Game Awards, giving fans not in Los Angeles a premium experience. Those in Los Angeles who want to go see the show live are out of luck as tickets are no longer available for purchase.
What announcements to expect at The Game Awards 2022
Past Game Awards have given us glimpses at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Death Stranding and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. This year, fans can expect a new game from publisher 505 Games and Fortnite maker Epic Games. A teaser site is live that showcases the fictional beach side town of Rockay City.
Other than that, not much more has been teased. But if previous years are any indication, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see at least one heavy-hitter from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. A new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would surely get people excited, as would Alan Wake II, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Dead Space and the new Korean title Stellar Blade.
The Game Awards 2022 Nominees
This year’s nominees can be found throughout 31 categories, with everything from best game direction to best esports event. Obviously, game of the year is the most anticipated award, but best narrative, art direction, score and music, character performance, and indie will surely get lots of attention. Below is a list of every game nominated.
Game of the Year
- A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asobo Studio/Focus Entertainment)
- Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Horizon Forbidden West (Guerrilla Games/SIE)
- Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Monolith Soft/Nintendo)
Best Game Direction
- Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Horizon Forbidden West (Guerrilla Games/SIE)
- Immortality (Half Mermaid)
- Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
Best Narrative
- A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asobo Studio/Focus Entertainment)
- Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Horizon Forbidden West (Guerrilla Games/SIE)
- Immortality (Half Mermaid)
Best Art Direction
- Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Horizon Forbidden West (Guerrilla Games/SIE)
- Scorn (Ebb Software/Kepler Interactive)
- Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
Best Score and Music
- Olivier Deriviere, A Plague Tale: Requiem
- Tsukasa Saitoh, Elden Ring
- Bear McCreary, God of War Ragnarök
- Two Feathers, Metal: Hellsinger
- Yasunori Mitsuda, Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Best Audio Design
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (Infinity Ward/Activision)
- Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Gran Turismo 7 (Polyphony/SIE)
- Horizon Forbidden West (Guerrilla Games/SIE)
Best Performance
- Ashly Burch, Horizon Forbidden West
- Charlotte McBurney, A Plague Tale: Requiem
- Christopher Judge, God of War Ragnarök
- Manon Gage, Immortality
- Sunny Suljic, God of War Ragnarök
Games for Impact
- A Memoir Blue (Cloisters Interactive/Annapurna)
- As Dusk Falls (Interior Night/Xbox Game Studios)
- Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over The Age/Fellow Traveller)
- Endling – Extinction is Forever (Herobeat Studios/HandyGames)
- Hindsight (Team Hindsight/Annapurna)
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games/Finji)
Best Ongoing Game
- Apex Legends (Respawn/EA)
- Destiny 2 (Bungie)
- FINAL FANTASY XIV (Square Enix)
- Fortnite (Epic Games)
- Genshin Impact (HoYoverse)
Best Indie
- Cult of the Lamb (Massive Monster / Devolver Digital)
- Neon White (Angel Matrix/Annapurna)
- Sifu (Sloclap)
- Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team/Finji)
Best Debut Indie
- Neon White (Angel Matrix/Annapurna Interactive)
- NORCO (Geography of Robots/Raw Fury)
- Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team/Finji)
- Vampire Survivors (poncle)
Best Community Support
- Apex Legends (Respawn/EA)
- Destiny 2 (Bungie)
- FINAL FANTASY XIV (Square Enix)
- Fortnite (Epic Games)
- No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Best Mobile
- Apex Legends Mobile (Lightspeed & Quantum/Respawn/EA)
- Diablo Immortal (Blizzard/NetEase)
- Genshin Impact (HoYovese)
- MARVEL SNAP (Second Dinner Studios/Nuverse)
- Tower of Fantasy (Hotta Studio/Perfect World/Level Infinite)
Best VR/AR
- After the Fall (Vertigo Games)
- Among Us VR (Schell Games/InnerSloth)
- BONELAB (Stress Level Zero)
- Moss: Book II (Polyarc)
- Red Matter 2 (Vertical Robot)
Best Action
- Bayonetta 3 (Platinum Games/Nintendo)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (Infinity Ward/Activision)
- Neon White (Angel Matrix/Annapurna)
- Sifu (Sloclap)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (Tribute Games/Dotemu)
Best Action/Adventure
- A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asobo Studio/Focus Entertainment)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Horizon Forbidden West (Guerrilla Games/SIE)
- Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team/Finji)
Best Role Playing
- Elden Ring (FromSoftware/Bandai Namco)
- Live a Live (Square Enix/Nintendo)
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Game Freak/Nintendo/TPCI)
- Triangle Strategy (Artdink/Square Enix)
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Monolith Soft/Nintendo)
Best Fighting
- DNF Duel (Arc System Works/EIGHTING/NEOPLE/NEXON)
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R (CyberConnect 2 Co. Ltd/Bandai Namco)
- The King of Fighters XV (SNK/Plaion)
- MultiVersus (Player First Games/WB Games)
- Sifu (Sloclap)
Best Family
- Kirby and the Forgotten Land (HAL Laboratory / Nintendo)
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Traveller’s Tales/WB Games)
- Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (Ubisoft Milan/Paris/Ubisoft)
- Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
- Splatoon 3 (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Best Sim/Strategy
- Dune: Spice Wars (Shiro Games/Funcom)
- Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (Ubisoft Milan/Paris/Ubisoft)
- Total War: WARHAMMER III (Creative Assembly/Sega)
- Two Point Campus (Two Point Studios/Sega)
- Victoria 3 (Paradox Development Studio/Paradox Interactive)
Best Sports/Racing
- F1 22 (Codemasters/EA Sports)
- FIFA 23 (EA Vancouver/Romania/EA Sports)
- NBA 2K23 (Visual Concepts/2K Sports)
- Gran Turismo 7 (Polyphony Digital/SIE)
- OlliOlli World (Roll 7/Private Division)
Best Multiplayer
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (Infinity Ward/Activision)
- MultiVersus (Player First Games/WB Games)
- Overwatch 2 (Blizzard)
- Splatoon 3 (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (Tribute Games/Dotemu)
Most Anticipated
- FINAL FANTASY XVI (Square Enix)
- Hogwarts Legacy (Avalanche Software/WB Games)
- Resident Evil 4 (Capcom)
- Starfield (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)
Content Creator of the Year
- Karl Jacobs
- Ludwig
- Nibellion
- Nobru
- QTCinderella
Best Adaptation
- Arcane: League of Legends (Fortiche/Riot Games/Netflix)
- Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (Studio Trigger/CD Projekt, Netflix)
- The Cuphead Show! (Studio MDHR/King Features Syndicate/Netflix)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Sammy Group/Paramount Pictures)
- Uncharted (PlayStation Productions/Sony Pictures)
Innovation in Accessibility
- As Dusk Falls (Interior Night/Xbox Game Studios)
- God of War Ragnarök (Sony Santa Monica/SIE)
- Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox/Devolver Digital)
- The Last Of Us Part I (Naughty Dog/SIE)
- The Quarry (Supermassive Games/2K)
Best Esports Game
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve)
- DOTA 2 (Valve)
- League of Legends (Riot Games)
- Rocket League (Psyonix)
- VALORANT (Riot Games)
Best Esports Athlete
- Jeong «Chovy» Ji-hoon (Gen.G, LOL)
- Lee «Faker» Sang-hyeok (T1, LOL)
- Finn «karrigan» Andersen (FaZe Clan – CS:GO)
- Oleksandr «s1mple» Kostyliev (Natus Vincere, CS:GO)
- Jacob «Yay» Whiteaker (Cloud9, Valorant)
Best Esports Team
- DarkZero Esports (Apex Legends)
- FaZe Clan (CS:GO)
- Gen.G (League of Legends)
- LA Thieves (Call of Duty)
- LOUD (Valorant)
Best Esports Coach
- Andrii «B1ad3» Horodenskyi (Natus Vincere, CS:GO)
- Matheus «bzkA» Tarasconi (LOUD, VALORANT)
- Erik «d00mbr0s» Sandgren (FPX, VALORANT)
- Robert «RobbaN» Dahlström (FaZe Clan, CS:GO)
- Go «Score» Dong-bin (Gen.G, LOL)
Best Esports Event
- EVO 2022
- 2022 League of Legends World Championship
- PGL Major Antwerp 2022
- The 2022 Mid-Season Invitational
- VALORANT Champions 2022
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 4, #193
Three of the four categories are especially tough today. Here are hints and the answers, for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 193, for April 4.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
I only solved one of the four categories for today’s Connections: Sports Edition on my own, so if you need help, you’re not alone.
The yellow category was pretty simple, but after that I couldn’t make any connections. It might help if you know a lot about a certain NBA player’s resume. Read on for hints and the answers.
Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.
Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta
Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Do better.
Green group hint: March Madness.
Blue group hint: Six-time all-star.
Purple group hint: Think Wimbledon.
Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Yellow group: Not meeting expectations.
Green group: Teams in the Women’s Final Four.
Blue group: Teams Kawhi Leonard has played for.
Purple group: Ends in a piece of tennis equipment.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is not meeting expectations. The four answers are bust, disappointment, dud and failure.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is teams in the Women’s Final Four. The four answers are Bruins, Gamecocks, Huskies and Longhorns.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is teams Kawhi Leonard has played for. The four answers are Aztecs, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is ends in a piece of tennis equipment. The four answers are bracket, eyeball, horseshoes and internet.
Quick tips for Connections: Sports Edition
#1: Don’t grab for the easiest group. For each word, think about other sports categories it might fit in – is this a word that can be used in football, or to describe scoring options?
#2: Second meanings are important. The puzzle loves to use last names and even college names that mean other things, to fool you into thinking they are words, not names.
#3: And the opposite is also true. Words like HURTS might seem like a regular word, but it’s also the last name of at least one pro athlete.
Technologies
Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know
A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone?
Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space.
Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want.
For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.
How to set up Back Tap on iPhone
Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.
On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.
Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.
You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.
Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.
For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.
Technologies
All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free
Bad news: Mario Kart World will cost $80. Good news: These classic games will get free revamped versions for Switch 2.

Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch event on Wednesday has upset some fans for one key reason: pricing. The new console will be released on June 5 at a starting price of $450, and it will have new games, like Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders and Donkey Kong Bananza. But those games could cost as much as $80 (and that’s before factoring in possible tariffs).
Fortunately, Nintendo has also announced that some Nintendo Switch games will get free updates to improve playability on the upcoming console.
«By connecting your Nintendo Switch 2 to the internet, you can download free updates that may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games,» the company posted.
Here are all the Nintendo Switch games that can get a free update for the Switch 2.
- Arms
- Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury
- Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
- Game Builder Garage
- New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
- Pokemon Scarlet
- Pokemon Violet
- Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain
Nintendo also announced that other Switch games will have upgraded versions of the base game, called Switch 2 Editions. These games, which include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, may offer improved graphics, unique ways to play the game with the Switch 2 hardware, and other features.
You can buy a digital or physical copy of these games if you’re purchasing them for the first time. But Switch 2 Edition games are not free if you already own the Switch version of one of these games, so you’ll have to buy an upgrade pack to play the updated version.
It’s unclear how much Switch 2 Editions of games and upgrade packs will cost, and it’s also unclear how upgrade packs will work with physical versions of Switch games.
The Nintendo Switch 2 will also be backward compatible with certain games. While we don’t know all the Switch games that will be playable on the Switch 2, we know some Switch games have startup (PDF) or in-game (PDF) compatibility issues with the upcoming console.
For more on the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, here’s what we know about the upcoming console and what to know about games like Mario Kart World and Duskbloods.
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