If you are in Cologne this week, you will find the place overtaken by cheerful nerds, as Gamescom, the world’s biggest gaming event, descends upon the city once again. (I first went in 2009 – before that it used to be held in Leipzig, a city home to a famous absinthe bar; perhaps this is why my memories of it are somewhat hazy.) Over 300,000 people are expected to visit the Koelnmesse to play upcoming games and enjoy each other’s company, to the extent that it’s possible to enjoy anyone’s company in a giant crowded convention hall with woefully insufficient food options.
The event began, as is now tradition, with a showcase of games (pdf) whose publishers could afford the hundreds of thousands of euros necessary to show a trailer on an official livestream. (There was also a live performance of a piece of music from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the big, weird French hit of the year so far, as a welcome interlude.) As ever, I am here to spare you from watching a full two hours of trailers and pick out the most interesting stuff. Without further ado:
The big hitters
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was the big opener: our reporter Alyssa Mercante got a full introduction to its futuristic military paranoia, which you can read about later this week. PlayStation is being pretty quiet in general at the moment, but Sony and Sucker Punch’s Japanese historical action game Ghost of Yōtei made an appearance and is looking honestly splendid – after Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ very successful take on feudal Japan earlier this year, samurai appreciators are truly being spoiled this year. It’ll be getting some extra multiplayer content in 2026.
Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem, meanwhile, came out with an upsetting new demo in which its young protagonist, Grace, follows her mother around a darkened apartment complex full of supernatural murderers; attenders will be able to play it, too. And there was a first look at the next game from the developers of Black Myth: Wukong, the huge Chinese folklore-based hit from last year, featuring a ghost-catching god riding on a gigantic, unsettlingly realistic-looking tiger. It’s called Black Myth: Zhong Kui.
For me, though, the biggest news was new footage of Hollow Knight: Silksong, the mysterious sequel to one of my favourite games of all time. We haven’t seen anything at all of this game since 2022. It is still due to launch this year, and I am wildly jealous of anyone who gets to play the demo on the show floor.
Unexpected announcements
World of Tanks – a game that is exactly what it sounds like – has been around for ever, and to be honest I remain as baffled by it today as I was in the early 2010s, when its immense popularity in Europe and Russia made it one of the biggest games in the world. Its forthcoming 2.0 update is a huge presence at the show, but its developer Wargaming also has a brand new game coming out … which also very prominently features tanks. Heat is the OTT cartoonish counterpart to World of Tanks’ historical battlefields, and it does look rather fun.
We also saw a new game from Ron Gilbert, creator of Monkey Island (and Maniac Mansion, for the real OGs). It’s not a pixel art adventure game like his previous work. Instead, Death By Scrolling is a shooter where you’re stuck in purgatory trying to avoid the Grim Reaper. There’s a distinct Vampire Survivors look to this.
Most gladdeningly, though, there’s a new Lego Batman game that looks genuinely delightful. It’s called Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, and it takes you on the whole Bruce Wayne journey from origin to Gotham hero, drawing on everything from the Nolan shows and comics to the beloved Arkham Batman games.
Old games getting new stuff
A couple of notable announcements from a seemingly endless stream of updates to existing games. Venerable online role-playing game World of Warcraft is huge in Germany, so Gamescom is a good place for it to debut its new Midnight expansion: it’s playable on the show floor, and Blizzard is running several developer panels dishing more details. Cult of the Lamb, a deceptively cute game about a resurrected sacrificial lamb who murders demon heretics while building his own devoted following, is also getting a “full-length” new chapter called Woolhaven.
Modern updates to cult-classic series from the 00s
There’s a huge trend this year for resurrecting fondly remembered but not particularly bestselling game properties from a couple of decades ago, perhaps powered by the huge success of remasters such as Capcom’s Resident Evil re-runs. Ninja Gaiden 4 is looking exactly as violent and challenging as you’d want if you suffered through the original games on Xbox. Silent Hill f, meanwhile, which our reporter Tom Regan recently played in Japan, looks truly horrifying, with its traumatised schoolgirls, unnatural convulsing skinless monsters and eerily deserted smalltown Japanese setting. And it’s not officially a new Dead Space game, but Bloober Team’s new sci-fi horror Cronos: The New Dawn looks like the Dead Space spiritual successor we truly deserve.
Lastly: this one is a sequel to a game from the 90s, but nonetheless, fingers crossed for Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2, which has been in development hell for an absolute age. It’s out 21 October, and its first-person vamp fighting looked potentially exciting.
We’ve got a couple of reporters on the ground in Germany, so look out for more from Gamescom very soon. In the meantime, here is a very useful Steam event page showing pretty much every game that’s playable at the show (or that debuted a trailer), which is an extremely good idea – it makes it much easier to wishlist and keep track of the ones that catch your eye.
What to play
I have just started playing Herdling, in which you are an alpine shepherd guiding a herd of strange creatures out of a grimy city and back to their natural mountain habitat. The creatures themselves are rather sombre things, awkward fluffy mammoths with curly horns and dolorous eyes. It reminds me of The Last Guardian, except instead of trying to guide just one obstinate flying cat-giant through a crumbling ruin, there are several creature-friends to wrangle, of various sizes (the little ones are more lively). I’m finding it a little awkward to play, because the animals have minds of their own, and I must admit that the crushing sense of responsibility that I feel for them is making my slightly worried about what lies ahead; I’ve been here before with these emotionally manipulative indie games.
Available on: PS5, Xbox, Switch, PC
Estimated playtime: 4-6 hours
What to read
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Thomas Hobbs investigates the making of 50 Cent: Bulletproof, the faintly ludicrous but memorable 2005 shooter starring the rapper himself – who the development team never even met: “This was a game about these dudes from the hood, and yet here was this white guy from the north-west of England writing all their in-game dialogue.”
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Every now and then, someone writes in to ask why we don’t cover smartphone games much on the Guardian; the truth is that despite the many millions of people who play games on their phones, very few seem to want to read about them. Longtime games journalist Maddy Myers probes this interesting discrepancy over at MobileGamer.
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Someone has gone to the trouble of recreating several of the excellent songs from Netflix mega-hit KPop Demon Hunters within Animal Crossing (via Kotaku). I get such a kick out of the effort put into this beautifully pointless creativity.
What to click
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Mafia: The Old Country – by-numbers action game is elevated by Sicilian period setting | ★★★☆☆
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Drag x Drive – wheelchair basketball that might give you wrist cramp | ★★☆☆☆
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‘I didn’t realise the game’s impact for years’: the making of the original Football Manager
Question Block
No question this week as we’re down to the wire reporting from Gamescom – but please, if you’ve got a question about anything to do with video games, or anything else to say about the newsletter, hit reply or email us on [email protected]. I apply myself with equal rigour to serious AND silly inquiries.