In The Matrix Resurrections, Keanu Reeves wins The Game Awards in 1999

Thomas Anderson, aka Neo, is the reality The Matrix created for him. Resurrections of the MatrixThis isn’t the Anderson that the original trilogy fans will recall. Anderson is still a programmer, but a vastly more successful one than a cubicle-dwelling “program writer” for respectable software company MetaCortex from the original 1999 movie.

Resurrections, he’s a rockstar video game designer and responsible for a blockbuster trilogy of games called … The Matrix. The Matrix is another example of reality writing. The Matrix — the multiple-layers-deep fictional video game — is also a Game of the Year award winner at The Game Awards.

[Ed. note: This post contains minor spoilers for The Matrix Resurrections.]

The world as viewed by Resurrections of the Matrix, which premiered on Wednesday, Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards existed 15 years earlier, and The Matrix, a game designed by Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) took home its top prize in ’99. Keighley on Sunday revealed that director Lana Wachowski asked for a TGA statuette to use in a key scene, and he was happy to retcon them into his show’s hall of fame.

This naturally sparked a hilarious parlor game on Twitter. The Matrix That year was the best? Even if there wasn’t an awards series with the kind of wide audience (and entry pool) as The Game Awards, the leading games publications of the day recognized some landmark works, which means Keanu’s game really had to be something else.

Deus Machina is the name of Anderson’s studio; it’s not Eidos’ RPG series coming in second. (Although Deus ExIt was launched less than one year after its original launch. The scene is basically a meta-joke about the Matrix films’ popularity; three video games that Anderson designed were huge hits, so naturally Deus Machina’s parent company — literally Warner Bros., by the way — is demanding a fourth.

Can you blame them? All the video games! The Matrix The company shopped hard for its first GOTTY. The shareholders would fire any C-suite officer who didn’t milk that kind of an IP:

• Chrono Cross (Square/SquareSoft)
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (Neversoft/Activision)
• EverQuest (Verant Interactive/Sony Online Entertainment).
• Final Fantasy 8 (Square/Squaresoft)
• Soulcalibur (Project Soul/Namco — launched Sept. 1999 for Dreamcast)
• Silent Hill (Team Silent/Konami)
• System Shock 2 (Irrational Games/Electronic Arts)
• Syphon Filter (Eidetic/989 Studios)

Other people have also mentioned Shenmue, but it launched in Japan on Dec. 29, 1999, and in the West one year later, so it probably wouldn’t have been in the candidate pool of an awards show airing in the first week of December. What about Quake3It was a pioneering work in multiplayer shooting, but it was launched on Dec. 2, 1999. This was another great achievement in 1999. Gran Turismo 2Dec. 11, in Japan, and Dec. 23, in the West.

The MatrixWould have won out, too. Amazing Tournament, Epic Games’ arena shooter that garnered multiple Game of the Year awards and nominations in 1999. Epic Games, who produced the game in 1999, finds it a little awkward. The Matrix AwakeningsUnreal Engine 5 is a tie in to ResurrectionsThe film features a number of Deus Machina employees, including Kim Libreri (chief technology officer) and Donald Mustard (chief creative officer).

Ouch! The TGAs have been called many things, but that’s cold! Also, Lana Wachowski is fortunate that the first film premiered in 1999 — one of the few years in that time when Hideo Kojima didn’t launch a game. Had Metal Gear Solid come one year later, we’re Not sure his good friend Geoff Keighley could have gone along with this sight gag.

Just kidding. Anyway, if Keanu Reeves is a presenter at The Game Awards 2022, for the third year in a row, it’s a good bet this scene will be re-enacted. In which case, we’d ask Keighley and his production company not to stage it on a rooftop bar, and to maybe reposition The Game Awards Orchestra if it’s back in L.A.’s Microsoft Theater.