The second (technically third) day of Gamescom has wrapped up with a gigantic six hour show full of indie games and reveals. Because that’s a LOT of stuff and this post would be fifty thousand words we’re going to save you the effort of reading all that and just pick out some highlights. If you want to check out everything you can watch the whole show above.

Blood of Heroes

Ever wanted to see a viking adjust his battle girdle? Boy are you in luck. This CG trailer shows two warriors going at it in an arena and when one dies a winged being appears to resurrect them for another go in the arena. Blood of Heroes is a PvP melee combat game and is running an open beta currently accessible through the game’s site, info at the end of the trailer. We’ve also embedded some gameplay for you to enjoy.

Synced: Off Planet

As expected, we’ve got a second look at Synced which explains a bit more of what the game’s about. The game will be a PvPvE survival crafting third person shooter where players have to compete for resources on a world ruled by technological monsters called Nanos. These monsters can also be weakened and then subverted to provide an AI companion.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

Jake Sullivan of Firaxis joined the stream to talk more about their Marvel game Midnight Suns. We learn that The Hunter is fully customizable by the player and in-lore is the offspring of evil demon Lilith. Unfortunately the rest of his talk was a circlejerk of gushing over Marvel comics and characters, presumably so they don’t get sued into oblivion by Disney.

Serial Cleaners

Crime scene cleaning game Serial Cleaners got a new trailer taking a look at the game’s four characters; Lati, Psycho, Vip3r, and Bob. Each have their own skills, such as Vip3r being able to activate electronics and hack systems, and their own ways of dealing with the various guards around the crime scenes. Serial Cleaners is coming in early 2022.

Cantata

This turn based strategy game pits three forces against each other on an alien world; one force basically stealing the lifeblood of the planet to power their machines while the other one wants to eradicate their enemies for “the god below.” The final force is a race of AI that defied their masters and are monolithic lumbering machines.

Loopmancer

Loopmancer is a 2.5D action game set in a cyberpunk world that looks like it took heavy inspiration from Sleeping Dogs’ Hong Kong and sprinkled in a little bit of Shadow Complex for good measure and it looks fantastic. The gameplay trailer shows speedy looking combat against humans, mechs, and mutants across a variety of areas where environmental hazards can play into combat. As the name implies, the game will feature a rogue-lite style looping mechanic where environments can change between runs and new weapons and abilities are unlocked via progress. We’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

There Is No Light

This spectacle fighter is set in the ruins of civilization, where humans live underground and something called The Great Hand serves as a god, taking children as sacrifice. Players will take on the role of a parent whose child is taken by The Great Hand. Naturally, this involves stabbing everything in your path and if the above trailer is anything to go by every single battle is going to look absolutely gorgeous. A demo is available via Steam and the game is expected to release in November 2021.

tERRORbane

tERRORbane is something. We’re not entirely sure what but it involves glitches and errors and multiple gameplay styles like JRPG, action adventure, platformer, cards, text adventure, and who knows what else because the above trailer is bonkers. Games have explored manipulating intentional “glitches” and altering programming before but never in such an eclectic style. The game is releasing in Q1 2022.

Roots of Pacha

Roots of Pacha is a crafting and cultivation game similar to something like Stardew Valley except it’s not set on modern farm but instead in prehistoric times. Players will take on the role of members of a tribe living on an island between two rivers and will develop hunting, agriculture, tools, and food processing. As players progress their village will grow and develop. You can even ride on animals! Roots of Pacha is releasing in 2022.

Arcadian Atlas

This TRPG is set in a world of magic and civil war where a ruthless queen and illegitimate heir (oxymoron, we know, shut up) vie for the throne. Players will build their team from twelve different classes and the skills available to them. The game looks like it’s inspired in equal parts by the venerable Final Fantasy Tactics and long-running Mercenaries Saga series.

Terror of Hemasaurus

This Rampage style game puts you in the role of a kaiju tasked with just wrecking everything. The monsters can collapse buildings, which will sway and fall with 2D physics, and there are tiny cute doggos running around, which you’ll inevitably stand on but they are there and that still counts! Like its obvious inspiration, Terror of Hemasaurus will also be playable in coop.

Falling Frontier

Built by a solo developer, this sci-fi RTS game puts you in command of a fleet of space ships, stations, and logistics. Wait what? That’s right, like other much-loved strategy games such as Wargame and Hegemony you’ll have to supply your vessels with ammunition and fuel for them to continue moving around and fighting. Ships will also be customizable, with hardpoints that allow equipment and weapons to be swapped out. Destroyed ships drift and are torn apart by physics too, looking quite nice as they disintegrate.

Timberborn

Timberborn is a post apocalyptic city builder where humans are long gone but beavers have learned how to build things other than dams. The game world flips between wet and dry seasons and you have to build to survive droughts. This trailer focuses on a new faction called the Iron Teeth, which look like they’re just grey compared to the normal brown beavers? Regardless, the game looks incredibly complex and engaging and we’d love to get our hands on it.

Shadow of Conspiracy: Section 2

This trailer has left us with a lot of questions. Questions like; Why is the depth of field so bad? Why is the bloom so overpowering? Why is the lens flare obscuring 99% of the action at any given time? Why does your knife have a barcode? And why do you loot things out of people’s asses? These questions aside, this washed out first- and third-person shooter has a flying car, some cool guns, and an industrial style sci-fi city reminiscent of G-Police. If the graphical effects are reigned in so we can actually see what’s happening this might end up being pretty interesting.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

The launch trailer for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous sure does a lot to invoke memories of much loved Dungeons & Dragons CRPGs of the past with talk about choices and becoming different things. The gameplay shown meanwhile focuses more on flashy magical effects and awkward looking melee animations. Pathfinder is releasing on 2 September 2021 for PC.

DokeV

Black Desert Online devs Pearl Abyss’s new creature collecting open world game DokeV has been an intriguing prospect since that first energy filled trailer dropped and made us immediately fall in love with it. There’s not really any new information in this segment but the devs talk a little about their intentions and process. Confusion still reigns over just what the game is, with the official site referring to it as an MMO at one point, but devs refuting that, but also talking about logging into the server. Looks like we’ll have to wait for more clarification in the future.

That’s the end of our highlights from the show. Loopmancer and Roots of Pacha left excellent impressions right from the start and we’ll definitely be keeping a closer eye on them going forwards. And by that we mean we’ll get sucked into farming in Roots of Pacha and lose a year of our lives designing the perfect farm to maximise growth and profits because we’re nerds. Shadow of Conspiracy: Section 2 looked like it was full of what in the early 2000’s would’ve been called “eurojank” in the shooting segments but then had a flying car and industrial cityscape that looks incredible.