Last night Microsoft took to the stage to show off a bunch of upcoming games. Though nominally aimed at the console crowd, there’s near complete crossover between the Xbox and PC these days so there’s plenty of interest to see. As usual the full show is above and we’ll have individual games below.

Dying Light 2

Techland showed off a new chunk of gameplay from their upcoming zombie bashing parkour adventure Dying Light 2. The trailer gives us a look at some vistas across the city as well as plenty of wall running, zip-lining, and grapple-hooking action. It looks like the rooftops will be even more inter-connected than the first game and a parachute even makes getting to ground level a breeze.

Flight Simulator

Though a bit rambling, this eight minute segment shows off some of the new features that have already arrived in Flight Sim but also upcoming features such as the Junkers Ju-52 and Volocopter. There’s also a very short teaser for the Reno Air Race expansion coming in Fall 2021 which will introduce fighter style racing planes that do incredible speeds at low altitudes.

Age of Empires 4

The Age of Empires 4 devs have been working on short, informative films that explore historic subjects. Perhaps not news eager fans of the series wanted but we do have a few minutes of informative footage about the mighty trebuchet.

Wasteland 3: Cult of the Holy Detonation

Worshipping a nuclear reaction is the kind of comedy guff you’d expect from a hacky Fallout game, right? Well, not any more because inXile are bringing a nuke worshipping cult of mutants to Wasteland 3 in the second DLC (described by Game Director David Rogers as a “Wasteland style dungeon crawl”) which is coming on 5 October 2021.

Sea of Thieves

Swashbuckle-em-up Sea of Thieves will be receiving a Borderlands themed set of ship skins that paints your floating pirate pad in gaudy red and yellow while plastering another game’s logo all over it. These new skins will be available for free as part of the Mayhem set.

State of Decay 2: Homecoming

State of Decay 2 is getting a whole new map, Trumbull Valley from the original State of Decay. The trailer doesn’t show much aside from action but with six new camps to establish and new weapons, the new map should provide plenty to do even if there aren’t any new quests. Homecoming is releasing on 1 September 2021.

Stray Blade

Introduced by Leonad Kausch, Game Director at Point Blank Games, this action RPG puts you in the role of an adventurer and his short-statured anthropomorphic wolf companion exploring a monster filled place called The Forgotten Valley. Victories in battle will change the game world, for example clearing a bandit camp may result in monsters taking over the area. Stray Blade is coming in 2022.

Psychonauts 2

Psychonauts 2 has been on many gamers wishlist for so long it’s hard to believe it’s finally out. In case you fancy a trip to the good old days (i.e. yesterday) when it wasn’t you can check out the launch trailer above.

The Gunk

From what we can gather from the trailer, there was a planet that was once a paradise until something called the Gunk showed up and turned everything grey and boring. That’s the game you’re going to be playing. We genuinely had no idea there could be so many different shades of grey. Why did we ever bother inventing colour film?

Forza Horizon 5

Eight minutes of gameplay from upcoming arcade racer Forza Horizon 5 shows off what looks like the game’s intro mission called Race to Horizon. Most Horizon games start off with the player jumping between vehicles for a fun showcase of crazy things to do in fast cars so it makes the perfect showcase for what to expect when the game releases later this year. The new Ford Bronco is also heavily featured, a series of SUVs famous for one very slow police chase involving a beverage named American Football player in 1994.

And that wraps up the show. Dying Light 2 is looking great as always, we’re eager to wall run and drop-kick zombies across a new city. Stray Blade is also an interesting idea, but it remains to be seen if the changing game world will have any real impact on the story and progression or whether it’ll just be superficially replacing one group of loot dispensing monsters with another. There’s more to come out of Gamescom in the coming days so stay tuned.