Another year, another Gamescom, another 5 days of game-trailers, reveals, developer talks, and Geoff bringing that golden retriever energy to the stage.
Goonhammer is going to be covering every day, so make sure to tune in for trailers, recaps, and opinions.
Starfield
Kicking it off with a musical segment from Starfield’s OST, and a live-action trailer to give off the vibe of the game. Starfield drops pretty soon, and the hype is growing and growing. Todd stays winning, as always.
Little Nightmares III
Hell yeah. Little Nightmares became one of my favourite games a couple years ago when 2 dropped. It’s vibes are unmatched, its aesthetics delightfully unhinged, and its story surprisingly gut-wrenching. CO-OP is always a cool include in games like this, and I’m excited to argue as we both misunderstand a basic puzzle.
Black Myth: Wukong
A slick new trailer for Black Myth: Wukong, a Souls-like RPG set inside a version of Chinese Mythology. It looks sick, and the gameplay got me excited to play it on release. I love a good Souls-like, sometimes more than I like Souls games. (Looking at you, Elden Ring.)
Killing Floor III
It’s Killing Floor. I liked Killing Floor. There isn’t much to go off without gameplay, but another iteration of a fun horde-shooter is always great, even though I don’t think 2 quite lived up to 1’s impact. Always a great time to waste a few hours though.
Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition
It’s Age of Empires 4, on Xbox! Revamped to be easier to play on controller. I’m not much of an RTS gamer so Age of Empires hasn’t been a personal favourite, but cool to see a port. And it’s out now!
Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon
It’s a two-part movie by Zack Synder, coming out on Netflix, with an unannounced video game ‘coming in the future’ which didn’t get many other details. This sucks.
Crimson Desert
I’d never heard of this game before Gamescom, but holy shit, this is packed with stuff. Like Dragon’s Dogma, Assassin’s creed vibes, with these ridiculous looking detailed environments and punchy gameplay moments. Worth keeping an eye on.
Payday 3
It’s Payday 3, with uh… a special mission with Ice-T. Sounds about right for Payday, yeah. New gameplay doesn’t reveal much new from the previous game, or even previous trailers, but it looks streamlined and as fun as 2, so hey, no notes.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Honey, it’s time for another yearly Assassin’s Creed content release. This time it’s a game. I’ve been pretty dour on Assassin’s Creed since Origins being a slog, which is a shame because I loved Assassin’s Creed up until then, even with the stinkers it put out. It’s cool to see a commitment to fully authentic voice acting this time though.
Tekken 8
It’s sequel century. Tekken 8s reveal puts the emphasis on the player-created character having a story similar to Street Fighter, but the generation-spanning drama about the Mishima bloodline will continue. Sweet.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
Ughhhhh. Listen. I’m not beyond enjoying CoD games or whatever, there’s a reason these games come out every year, but fuck man do I fucking hate open-world being shoehorned into everything. Open-world zombies. Open-world singleplayer. It literally does nothing but make the game worse. It just turns games into joyless chimeras of Ubisoft’s formulae and whatever made the game originally fun. It sucks.
Nightingale
A multiplayer survival crafting game?! Sign me up.
Snark aside, it looks cool, and I am genuinely a sucker for the genre. The building looks pretty fun, and the biomes being generated based on cards is a neat idea.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink
Onto the portion of Gamescom where the anime games make their triumphant appearance. Not much to say about Granblue Fantasy, but that big rock guy with the cannon arm looked sick.
Zenless Zone Zero
A little urban fantasy never hurt anybody. It looks pretty neat, but I can’t say I’m the target audience here. If you are, I’m sure you love it already.
Honkai: Star Rail
Like I said. Somebody likes these games. If it’s you, then rejoice, if it isn’t, then uh… skip.
Genshin Impact
Just another game that completely, and utterly, defies my understanding. I don’t get the concept behind gacha games, and the only thing I understand about Genshin Impact is that some of my students are utterly obsessed with it and call me old when I say I don’t get it.
Lords of the Fallen
Finally something I do get.
Lords of the Fallen was a little promising Souls-like game that came out a long while ago now, and it’s reboot is shaping up to be pretty tasty-looking. The developer has come a long way since then, and I personally loved the Surge, so I’m looking forward to this.
Sonic Superstars
Hey. It’s Sonic. I love Sonic. The sonic revival has been riding a good wave so far, and this is shaping up to be another fun entry into the 2d era.
Sonic Frontiers
And we’re back into the 3d. It looks alright, I think, but 3d sonic games are always impossible to judge until you play them and learn what game-breaking bugs were just left in for fun.
The First Descendant
A Nexon shooter. This looks… fine? It gives me Destiny and Anthem vibes, which aren’t great, but I’m not writing the game off on that alone.
Fort Solis
From what I can tell from the trailer and the interview, this is going to be an interactive story experience rather than your traditional game. At least, I think so? It didn’t seem totally clear.
Expeditions: A MudRunner Game
Back onto things I’m clueless about. MudRunner is a game that my friends went apeshit for and love playing but I literally cannot figure out why. I’m grateful there’s games like that out there to fill those niches, but man, I wish I just got it. An indepth simulator of driving rugged cars through rough terrain. Fun, if that’s your thing.
The Crew Motorfest
Latest entry into The Crew series. More cars. More racing. Party vibes. Neat.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
One of the biggest announcements a lot of people have been waiting for. Phantom Liberty is shaping up to be more than a massive story DLC for Cyberpunk, it’s actively overhauling the base gameplay experience to include what a lot of people felt was missing from the original release. It’s actually given me enough reason to install it and play it again. I loved 2077’s story, but the gameplay was painfully mediocre, and it really harshed any replayability for me. Getting hype.
Stormgate
A new RTS to scratch the Command & Conquer itch so many people have, and they’re even working with an original composer from the C&C series. Neat! C&C was probably one of the only RTS I actively played and enjoyed when I was younger, so seeing a successor type game is cool.
Last Epoch
The world’s best ‘Community driven ARPG’ shows off a new class, and a little hype trailer for the full release. Looks fun, but going head-to-head with Diablo is a bold move.
Marvel Snap
Here’s something I’ll shamefully admit. I’m a sucker for CCGs. I’ve put in an unhealthy amount of hours into Horus Heresy Legions, and Marvel Snap is looking pretty tasty to go play too.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Hell. Yeah. Giant robots fuck so hard and I’m here for it. This is a day 1 buy for me, hands down. Look at the fucking cycling on the railgun. God the mechs look so good. Take my money NOW.
Warhaven
A free to play multiplayer PVP game that might be good. I tried out the beta, and it wasn’t the worst thing, but it had a lot of room for improvement.
Mortal Kombat 1
More fuck yeah. Mortal Kombat rocks, and it will always rock. NRS games are the only fighting games I really stick with, and I’m a diehard fan of every release that comes out. The new story is shaping up to look cool, and all the re imagined characters are looking to be way more interesting than their original interpretations. Getting something that isn’t the same rehashed story from the 90s is such a breath of fresh air.
Ara: History Untold
A Civ-style RTS. It’s another one of those if you’re interested in these games, you’re interested. I’ve personally never been sucked in by them, though I’d love to be.
Diablo IV
Diablo’s first content expansion since release, and it’s all about Vampires baby. Vampires are cool.
Dustborn
A semi, sci-fantasy looking game about going on a roadtrip. It reminds me a lot of Road 96, a game I utterly adore, so I’ve got big hopes for this.
Thank Goodness You’re Here!
A game about being a weird lil’ fella doin’ weird lil’ things. The vibes are off-the-charts, and summons a lot of 80/90s British Cartoon vibes.
Alan Wake 2
Banger after banger after banger. Alan Wake 2’s been anticipated for fucking years now, and it’s great to see Sam Lake’s grimace every time he steps up onto the stage. Remedy are a near-and-dear developer to my, growing up and playing Max Payne with my dad, and seeing them still pumping out games they love (and rock) makes me happy. The Dark Place being stated to look like a gritty New York though is going to make me want a Max Payne reboot even harder though.
And that’s it for Day 1’s reveals! Exciting, if not predictable stuff (aside from the dickheads storming the stage) with plenty more to come. Stay tuned for Day 2’s reveals in the next article!
