Best Reveals From Gamescom Opening Night

This past Tuesday marked the beginning of Gamescom and Opening Night Live. With E3 being lackluster this year, I was hoping Gamescom would deliver some exciting new game announcements and gameplay from upcoming titles. Without further ado here is a breakdown of the announcements that I found most intriguing from Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live this year.

First off, I want to discuss some news for previously announced titles. There was a new story trailer for Gotham Knights, and as a huge Batman fan, this trailer definitely got me more interested in the game than the previous gameplay walkthroughs. The combat in particular still looks clunky, to say the least. I think I’m more excited by the upcoming Suicide Squad game but remain hopeful that Gotham Knights could also provide an experience that can rival Rocksteady’s Arkham games.

Additionally, we saw a brief trailer for Hogwarts Legacy, focusing on dark magic and teasing a potential dungeon area of some kind. I wish we could have seen more, as this is one of my most anticipated releases for next year.

There was also an extended gameplay and story trailer for the upcoming Souls-like, Lies of P. Though I enjoy the concept behind this game, I wish it wasn’t quite so blatant with the From Software influence. Nonetheless, the gameplay certainly did look cool and the enemy design was top-notch. I would love to see more Grimm fairy tales turned into action RPGs like this, as the dark fantasy aesthetic meshes quite well with the classic German folklore.

Over on the horror side of things, there was some additional gameplay for the upcoming Dead Space-inspired Callisto Protocol showcasing some inventive and gore-filled combat. As someone who is looking to get more into horror games, I’m keeping my eye on this one.

Now onto the new IPs, and there were quite a few that got me excited. My absolute favorite of the bunch was the Chinese martial arts action game, Where Winds Meet. I’ve always found Wuxia (literally translated as “martial heroes”) films to be a little awkward but enjoy the style and grand sweeping narratives that are typical of the genre. Although the gameplay didn’t run seamlessly, I was impressed by how well it captured the elements that make Wuxia great. I strongly feel a game adaptation of this style will ultimately be more fun for me than the films.

Another RPG that managed to capture my attention was Atlas Fallen. The CGI trailer didn’t do much for me at first, though I did enjoy the desert theme. It’s the last few seconds of gameplay showcasing some fun-looking traversal and flashy combat that got me invested. Deck 13 is the studio behind Atlas Fallen, and their previous credits include titles like The Surge and Lords of the Fallen. I’ve heard a lot of positive things about The Surge in particular, so I’m willing to try this out next year when it releases.

There was also an extremely brief teaser for an upcoming title called Wyrdsong. Although no gameplay was shown, the teaser states that the project has a lot of industry veterans (particularly from Bethesda and Obsidian) behind it. The game is apparently “set in a fictionalized version of Portugal in the Middle Ages,” according to the press release. Certainly interesting enough, but it is difficult to really speculate how the game will turn out as of now.

As a strategy game fan, I was incredibly excited by the upcoming game from Unknown Worlds, the developer behind Subnautica. Moonbreaker is a virtual tabletop game where you can customize every miniature figure using an in-game army painter and other tools. The team here developed the sci-fi world of Moonbreaker in close collaboration with bestselling fantasy author, Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson is one of my favorite authors and I’m excited to see him expand into the video games industry.

The final game I would like to highlight here is the upcoming hack-and-slash game, Phantom Hellcat. The art style for this one looks absolutely phenomenal. The gameplay looks to be a mix of both 3D and 2D, as the short trailer showcases some traditional side-scrolling levels with a focus on platforming.

All in all, I was certainly impressed by this year’s Opening Night Live. Hopefully, some of these titles will showcase more gameplay during the subsequent days of Gamescom.