For one night in 2005, the Mojave Desert glowed green. Microsoft inexplicably launched its then-new console, the Xbox 360, with a release event in a hangar in the desert. A Microsoft executive told Gizmodo in 2005 that it was supposed to resemble Burning Man, the art festival where Silicon Valley’s rich reenact the prelude to a BioShock game.. Another executive called it an “Xbox 360 oasis.” Journalists and Xbox fans—it was both a press event and a player launch party—lounged on beanbags to play the hottest new console at one of dozens of stations. Microsoft served alcohol from paneled domes that are now synonymous with covid-era outdoor dining.
These sorts of big budget gaming events, where companies spared no expense on luring press and fans into weird places—all in the name of promoting new hardware or games—don’t exist much anymore. But 20 years later, an artifact channeling that bygone era has reemerged, once again, this time in the Colorado desert: a mysterious demonic statue with the bodies of the damned etched into its sides.
The Game Awards’ portal to hell
The Game Awards overseer Geoff Keighley posted a photo of the mysterious statue with a geocode pointing people to an area of Joshua Tree National Park, just off of Yucca Mesa Road. Tendrils glow red from the statue at night, illuminating the screaming skeletons of both humans and creatures. Several people who’ve visited the statue have posted about it on social media and Reddit. Apparently, a security guard watches over the relic—”cool dude,” according to Reddit user TautSexyElfKing—and the statue makes sounds. Another person instructed others to knock on the door, saying something else will knock back.
“It was very ambient and hellish sounding,” TautSexyElfKing said. “Almost like it was a doorway and on the other side was a large cavern with demons lurking about the other side. Maybe some light growling-ish sounds. There wasn’t anything I could make out in particular that would be a hint or anything”
To the unaware, it looks like the kind of thing you might find at Burning Man, or maybe an altar for worshipping the devil. But Keighley’s post is a signal to gamers that this is an Easter egg—a marketing stunt. It’s working, not because it’s hyping people up for any specific game or console, but because it’s pushing people toward Keighley’s pride and joy: an end of year bash produced, owned, and hosted by the man himself.
The statue itself is ambiguous enough that spectators can map it onto whatever’s at the top of their Game Awards World Premier wishlist. It’s off Yucca Mesa Road, so it must be for Half-Life 3. The demonic symbols are an obvious reference to Diablo 4‘s next expansion. No, wait—maybe that’s God of War. It’s essentially a hell portal, which clearly means Doom. I don’t know, maybe Elder Scrolls 6? Or, perhaps, Keighley is simply himself opening a portal to hell and intends to destroy the whole dang world.
no one is considering that Geoff is simply opening a hell portal https://t.co/XKEgj6N3e6
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) December 2, 2025
Apparently everyone is wrong, according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who said it’s not Diablo 4 or Elder Scrolls 6. “I don’t currently plan on reporting what it is, sorry, but it’s a good one,” he wrote on a gaming forum. ” Regardless of the answer, The Game Awards wins—the statue has gotten enough buzz that people will, certainly, tune in to see what the statue is teasing.
It’s a little more easily digestible than, say, the Frog Fractions 2 ARG that went unsolved for literally two years spanning nearly two dozen games on Steam and a book in a California library. Then there’s the Halo 2 ARG called I Love Bees, which spanned three months, jars of honey, and several pay phones, or when Electronic Arts launched copies of Mass Effect 3 into space using weather balloons. (The people who found the copies, inevitably plummeting back to earth, could play the game early.)
Keighley’s Game Awards statue doesn’t seem to necessarily be an alternate reality game. It’s hard to say if it’s really leaving any clues for gamers to decode or just there to power the hype cycle. It feels more aligned with the chaotic churn of algorithmic virality that everyone’s seeking these days—a weird thing in a weird place, easily photographed or videotaped and circulated on TikTok, Reddit, and elsewhere. It’s working.
The new AAA realty
Companies have done these sorts of things for highly-anticipated, big budget games like Overwatch (big action figures in big boxes), God of War (big axe in London), and Horizon Forbidden West (big mechanical monsters). The difference, of course, is that it’s obvious what these installations were promoting. The danger in the Game Awards statue is that people will end up let down by whatever game it’s tied to.
Events like The Game Awards were born to market AAA games; Keighley fills the show with commercials for the latest and greatest big-budget blockbusters from the industry’s mega-companies, backed by a booming voice boasting a world premiere announcement or new gameplay trailer. The biggest of these, games like The Witcher 4 or Marvel’s Wolverine, barely need the extra eye-balls while everything else gets lost in the shuffle. Homegrown debut hits like Balatro and Expedition 33: Clair Obscure, meanwhile, come out of nowhere and dominate the zeitgeist without the help of giant marketing machines. While some companies hope to manufacture a fraction of that cachet with big showcase moments, it’s no longer obvious that they’re for sale. To hear some tell it, the old AAA gaming model has reached “the end of days.” We’re a long way from cosplaying Area 51 for a midnight console launch.
But I suppose that’s not Keighley’s problem. People might not remember whatever the statue ends up being for but they’ll tune into The Game Award to find out. He gets to hype his show either way.
