GamesCom ONL 2022 Roundup
Gamescom 2022 Opening Night Live seems like a little while ago now, but there were a bunch of decent announcements at Geoff Keighley’s end-of-summer bash, so today I’m going to recap all the important info.
The event kicked off with Everywhere, the new game from Leslie Benzies, a former Rockstar employee who was part of the team responsible for making great success of Grand Theft Auto V Online. The description of what exactly Everywhere is was a little bit fluffy, it looks like Fortnite, and sounds like Roblox, plus there’s a high chance there are going to be NFTs and Metaverse stuff in here. I’m interested in seeing more, but there wasn’t really much to go on other than the announcement.
Dune Awakening was announced, which is a new open-world survival MMO by Funcom. This was a cinematic trailer and looks to be building on the resurgence of Dune. Sony announced their DualSense Edge wireless controller, which is much like the Xbox Elite Controller. This has customisable sticks, paddles, and grips, and is no doubt going to cost an arm and a leg. The Callisto Protocol was back with another trailer and Glen Schofield had a chat with Geoff hyping up the game, which is coming out in Winter 2022.
The Lords of the Fallen was discussed, by Hexworks Studio, which looks much like Elden Ring. No doubt we’re about to see a deluge of Elden Ring-like’s coming in 2023 and 2024. Team17 announced Moving Out 2. Hogwarts Legacy got a new trailer, plus a release date of 10th February 2023.
Randy Pitchford was next on stage talking up New Tales from the Borderlands, which is available in October 2022. Dying Light 2 DLC from Techland is also due in October. Tortuga, a Pirate’s Tale was discussed with a trailer plus Team17’s Marauders was also shown off.
Bungie was here with their new trailer for Destiny 2 Lightfall, showing off the neon city of Neomuna on Neptune, also showing off the new darkness subclass Strand. This was the same trailer shown at the Destiny 2 showcase on the same day, which we’ve talked about in the what’s next for Destiny 2 section. Lightfall is set for 28th February 2023.
Sonic Frontiers got a new trailer, plus a release date of 8th November 2022. That seems very soon considering the state of the trailers, but we’ll see how things go for Sonic Team. Parallel Studio revealed Under the Waves, which is being published by Quantic Dream. Return to Monkey Island got a new trailer and a release date of 19th September, which is very soon. I’m excited about this one given it’s a point-and-click adventure game.
Brandon Sanderson talked about Moonbreaker, by the creators of Subnautica. This is a game about miniatures, where you can battle, move them about the board and ‘paint’ them in a virtual world. Similar to Xcom and Hearthstone, there is a beta for this one in September 2022. Friends vs Friends was shown off, which is a deck-building first-person shooter.
Lies of P, which was the talk of the show, looks like a Bloodbourne-like Souls game with Pinocchio. This is coming to Xbox Game Pass day one, coming sometime in 2023. Stranded: Alien Dawn is coming out via early access in October 2023 and had a new trailer. Then Atlus Fallen was shown, which is a new fantasy action RPG from the developers of The Surge.
Genshin Impact’s 3.0 update was shown off, plus there was a mini-HoYoVerse showcase with Honkai: Star Rail too. High On Life got a new trailer, the first-person shooter with talking guns from Justin Roiland creator of Rick and Morty. This time we saw a boss fight, and the game is looking better and less annoying with each trailer.
Telltale’s The Expanse was shown, which is coming Summer of 2023. Plus we saw Hard space Shipbreaker from Blackbird Interactive, which is all about salvaging trash in space in zero-g. There was more Sci-fi action with Scars Above.
Wyrdsong got it’s first teaser trailer, a new role-playing game from Something Wicked Games. The studio is made up of Bethesda’s Fallout and Skyrim games ex-staff. Next, we had Ottomans and Malians civs for Age of Empires 4, in DLC coming soon. Then a new trailer for Gotham Knights, showing off Harley Quinn. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to see anymore Gotham Knights… let’s just play the game shall we?
Hideo Kojima then came out and announced his new podcast, which is also going to feature Geoff Keighley with a regular news segment. Interesting. We now have Sakurai with a YouTube channel and Kojima with a podcast, watch out content creators.
Where the Winds Meet is a fun-looking Chinese action game. Park Beyond is a new theme park simulator. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide got a trailer, which actually looked very good. Blacktail – A Witch’s Fate is a new first-person adventure game from Parasight and Phantom Hellcat is coming to consoles and PC. Smilegate’s Crossfire X just got a big update, although it’s going to take some serious surgery to save that game in the West.
ONL ended with the announcement, or re-announcement of Dead Island 2, which is being picked up by Nottingham-based studio Dambuster and is coming 3rd February 2023. February 2023 already looks packed full of games, so we could be in for a rerun of 2022.