Last night was Gamescom’s official Opening Night Live show where we got a look at a whole bunch of games from various developers including the new Call of Duty, Far Cry 6 and a bunch of others. As usual the entire show is above if you want the fluff and individual games are below if you want the good bits.

Saints’s Row Reboot

We got a slick CG trailer for the reboot of open world parody series Saint’s Row that shows four of the new characters stealing a weapons shipment from a biker gang called the Panteros. Of course there’s a guy with a helmet that can display faces and the requisite hipster kid. We’ll be honest, we were hoping for more Johnny Gat but the trailer has us intrigued. Saint’s Row will be releasing on 25 February 2022.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

We’ve had rumours of a Firaxis developed Marvel game for quite a while and we all assumed it would be XCOM Avengers but it’s actually a tactical RPG. The CG trailer features a bunch of fan favourite characters including Wolverine, Blade, Ms Marvel, Iron Man, and a whole bunch of others. The character we see being resurrected in the trailer is called The Hunter and will be the player character.

Call of Duty: Vanguard

We’ve dropped in the full thirteen minutes of this section because most of the info comes from Geoff talking with Sledgehammer devs but there is a trailer for the game’s story mode too. Vanguard will be telling the story of the earliest special forces soldiers, though we’d expect a heavy dose of jingoism and fiction, it wouldn’t be CoD without them. We also get a gameplay look at one of the game’s characters; female sniper Polina as she defends Stalingrad from the German invasion. We soon see the character pick up a revolving shotgun (think a revolver, but shotgun size) that looks fictional but bears striking similarities to the MTs255 (which would make it a time traveler from 50 years in the future) but more interestingly we see the ability to mount the weapon on cover and blind fire while crouching behind obstacles. Other than that, it’s typical Call of Duty fare. Vanguard is releasing on 5 November 2021.

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite also got a new CG trailer for season 1 of the multiplayer. It features a woman escaping through streets, evading Covenant forces before Spartans land and proceed to murder everything, as they do. We also see the same woman later drilling recruits, presumably as some kind of instructor or commander. Halo Infinite will be launching in an incomplete state on 8 December 2021, missing campaign coop and multiplayer Forge modes which are expected to come in season 2 and 3 respectively.

Cult of the Lamb

From developers Massive Monster (The Adventure Pals) and publisher Devolver Digital comes this cutesy horror game about forming a cult of lamb worshipping animals. The trailer is a mix of animated segments and gameplay that shows building and action based combat. We are intrigued.

Midnight Fight Express

This game originally debuted at last year’s show but now it’s back with another action packed trailer showing all kinds of situations from fighting in train yards, on ships, jet ski chases, a priest type guy with a rocket launcher. It looks pretty crazy. Midnight Fight Express is coming in Summer 2022.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

Eagerly anticipated beat-em-up Shredder’s Revenge also showed off a bunch of new gameplay featuring April O’Neil kicking Foot Clan butt with a variety of moves like swinging a camera around, a flying butt attack, and a literal mic drop.

Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles

A brief trailer for Demon Slayer shows off a little of the combat and flashy attacks we can expect from battling spider demon Rui in-game. Frankly, it doesn’t even come close to the sheer style and energy of the effects used in the anime battle but the crucial moment wasn’t shown so there’s still hope. Demon Slayer is releasing on 15 October 2021.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania

Simians in spheres simulator Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is branching out to include other characters, we’ve already had confirmation of Kiryu from Yakuza being playable and today we’ve got cat burglar Morgana from Persona 5.

Splitgate

Portal using arena shooter Splitgate got a trailer for what they’re calling season zero which includes a new map and a mode called Infection. We’ll be honest, we know nothing about the game so we don’t know if this is a good thing but new modes and maps usually are. Season zero is available now.

Riders Republic

We also got another look at Ubisoft’s extreme sports sandbox Riders Republic. It’s just a bunch of people on bikes, snowboards, and wingsuits while characters talk over it but the real news is that the beta has been extended until 28 August 2021.

Century: Age of Ashes

Dragon based dogfighting game Century: Age of Ashes got a new trailer showing off a bunch of dragons flying around shooting stuff at each other but more importantly it got a release date: 18 November 2021.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

It’s been quite a while since we saw anything of the latest Lego Star Wars. This new gameplay trailer shows off a fair bit of fighting on foot, and in vehicles mixed with a heavy dose of the Lego games’ trademark family friendly humour. The Skywalker Saga is coming in Spring 2022.

Synced: Off Planet

Another game that originally debuted at Gamescom a couple of years ago returns with a new story trailer showing Generic McProtagonist talking about how the world ended because of a technology called Nanos. The Nanos are robots or something, the trailer doesn’t make it quite clear, but they can be interacted with to “sync” with them and control them. The trailer doesn’t make it clear if this means player control or just an AI companion though. We should get more info later in this year’s Gamescom.

The Outlast Trials

Canadian devs Red Barrels have revealed The Outlast Trials, a 1-4 player solo or cooprerative horror survival game where players take part in trials meant to unlock some hidden potential. By the looks of the trailer there’ll be plenty of monsters to avoid and plenty of beatings to receive if caught by them. The Outlast Trials is coming in 2022.

DokeV

Finally something actually eye-catching and interesting: DokeV is a creature collecting action adventure game full of colour and energy. The gameplay shown has characters traversing the game world on flying umbrellas, skateboards, jet skis, and hoverboards and shows them fighting the game’s collectible monsters with all kinds of wacky weapons like inflatable mallets and water balloon rocket launchers. It also looks like players can team up with their monsters for special attacks and take part in other activities around the world. The graphics and special attacks just ooze style. There’s also someone riding an alpaca and that’s great. Now if only there were less problematic focusing on the asses of children in K/DA style hotpants and disparity in how the male and female outfits behave.

Jurassic World Evolution 2

Jurassic World Evolution 2 got a new trailer showing off alpha in-game footage of various dinos being dinos as well as some of the methods you’ll be interacting with them such as airlifting them, building facilities, and landscaping. Here’s hoping you can train a pterosaur to take a big flying dump all over your guests at the hotdog stand. Jurassic World Evolution 2 is releasing on 9 November 2021.

Far Cry 6

Ubisoft’s latest dictator deposing shooter Far Cry 6 got a new trailer that shows off more of why big bad Anton is the big bad – ruthlessly killing a boat full of people, oppressing his citizens, and all to protect some kind of tobacco based cancer cure. It’s okay, we were mouthing “WTF” while watching it too because it’s one of the dumbest things we’ve ever heard. It looks like the resistance won’t be clean-cut good guys either, with talk about the winners of revolutions being the most feared. Far Cry 6 is releasing on 7 October 2021.

Vampire The Masquerade: Blood Hunt

This new trailer for battle royale game Blood Hunt focuses on the fancy pants (literally!) vamps of the setting: the Toreador. It’s full of vampire powers like cutting down bullets with a sword, leaping great distances, teleporting, and of course munching on the necks of unsuspecting people. Blood Hunt is coming out in Early Access on 7 September 2021.

Park Beyond

We think Park Beyond will be a theme park designing and management game but this CG trailer seems to be more focused on the lame “quirky” characters than anything of substance. Park Beyond is coming in 2022.

JETT: The Far Shore

Originally shown off at a PlayStation show a couple of years ago, JETT: The Far Shore is a game about exploring a mysterious planet to secure a future. There’s more shades of brown than a colonoscopy and the characters move like they’re holding back a turtle head but those landscapes look like a load of fun to blast across at high speed. JETT: The Far Shore is releasing on 5 October 2021.

New World

Amazon’s MMO New World got a new trailer full of CG fluff and zero substance except for the info that an open beta will be launching on 9 September 2021 ahead of the game’s 28 September release.

Tales of Arise

It’s not announced for PC, and the trailer was for a mobile game and demo but we’ve included violin virtuoso Lindsey Stirling’s on-stage performance as a nice palate cleanser because watching a woman prance around with a violin is what passes for culture in this industry.

Jumanji: The Curse Returns

We got a teaser trailer for a new Jumanji game watermarked with a “not actual gameplay” disclaimer so it may as well have just been a logo because we can’t take anything away from that thirty seconds of nothingness. 10/10, star of the show.

Age of Empires 4

Our second look at Age of Empires 4 thankfully leaves the trebuchets behind and instead lets us get a look at the game’s strategy and units. Sadly there’s no laser shooting cheat cars to be seen so our usual Age of Empires strategy is in trouble. More tactically minded players can probably find some use for the variety of ranged and melee units though. Age of Empires 4 is releasing on 28 October 2021.

Valheim

The much anticipated Hearth & Home update for viking survival game Valheim got its own animated trailer but also a release date of 16 September 2021. That’s all, nothing to see here. Move along.

CrossfireX

This gameplay trailer initially looks like generic shootbang but by the end we’ve got optical camo, mechs, and special units that are mutants, or something? It’s not clear but they do look cool and seem to have special abilities like a short range teleport and melee weapons.

Sifu

We’ve been keeping a close eye on snippets of gameplay put out by the Sifu devs on Twitter for quite some time and have been consistently impressed with how physical and technical the speedy hand to hand combat looks. There’s plenty of that on show in the gameplay trailer plus a release date of 22 February 2022. We’ll be marking that date in our calendars.

That wraps it up for new stuff. I’m going to be brutally honest here: we watched this show twice (once last night, once today to write it up) and still can’t remember most of the games shown. There was something about shooting, and maybe cars? Okay, we’re being harsh but there’s only a couple of standouts today: Sifu and Cult of the Lamb in particular are immediate attention grabbers thanks to slick fighting and being Cult of the Lamb respectively. For our pick of the show it has to be DokeV, from the developers of Black Desert Online, because of looking incredible and having a not unique but very appealing concept. We’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on all three going forwards.