Gamescom 2021 Opening Night Live

Gamescom 2021 Opening Night Live: Everything Announced

Even though Xbox started early yesterday, Gamescom officially started today. Geoff Keighley kicked things off with a slew of announcements. Here is everything that was announced at Gamescom 2021 Opening Night Live:

Saints Row

Saints Row is back! It features new characters and a new city, with three distinct main gangs the player’s crew must fight. The story revolves around making a self-made criminal empire. The game launches on February 25th, 2022.

Marvel’s Midnight Sun

Marvel’s Midnight Sun is yet another interactive Marvel game. The player will live alongside the heroes in addition to fighting by their side. The game launches in March 2022. While the showcase featured no gameplay, a world gameplay debut is set for September 2021.

Call of Duty: Vanguard

Call of Duty: Vanguard is the first CoD game with a story centred around a female main character, Lt. Polina Petrova. She is a video game iteration of the soviet sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko. While it is yet another WW2 CoD game, the developers are hoping to bring some new elements to keep it fresh. As such, the gameplay footage featured a lot of stealth elements, more sniping than usual and a lot of climbing. If anything, it felt a bit like the Dishonored franchise.

The multiplayer mode contains 20 playable maps upon release and the important characters in the campaign will be playable in this mode as well. The game launches on November 5th, 2021.

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite showcased its multiplayer trailer albeit with no gameplay footage. The game features a new commander for the first season of multiplayer who is tasked with training the next generation of Spartans. According to Geoff Keighley, the testers, including himself, were happy with the gameplay. December 8th, 2021, marks the date for the campaign and multiplayer combined launch.

XBOX and Halo also celebrated their 20th anniversary by introducing a new Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and a Halo Infinite Limited Edition Console were announced. The new gear is available starting November 15th, 2021.

Cult of the Lamb

Devolver Digital and Massive Monster announced the roguelike game, Cult of the Lamb. Overall, the game looks quite interesting and I definitely want to check it out. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a release date.

Midnight Fight Express

Midnight Fight Express published by Humble Games is a 3D beat-them-up with over the top action. Impressively, a single Polish developer, Jacob Dzwinel, made this game. The game launches in Summer 2022.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Shredder’s Revenge

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Shredder’s Revenge adds the character, April O’Neil, to the beat-them-up game’s roster. Additionally, players can now use pizzas to revive a dead character.

Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles

Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles is a 3D fighting game based on the popular anime, Kimetsu no Yaiba. The showcase presented a teaser trailer featuring Rui. It launches on October 15th, 2021.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania celebrates the 20th anniversary of the franchise. This edition features 12 party games, multiplayer gameplay, and the new character, Morgana, from Persona 5. The game launches on October 5th, 2021.

Splitgate

Splitgate, the game taking the world by storm, has announced Season 0. This features a new map and infection mode. The game is available now and free to download.

Rider’s Republic

Rider’s Republic by Ubisoft is an MMO outdoors sports game. It is basically the sequel to the other popular sports game, Steep. The game’s beta is open now until August 28th.

Century: Age of Ashes

Century: Age of Ashes is a dragon riding game that we have previously covered at The Game Crater. For a limited time, players can claim a founder’s pack on Steam before the game’s launch on November 18th, 2021.

UFL

UFL, by Strikerz Inc., is a revolutionary new global online football league. Best of all, it’s entirely free. It is currently labelled as coming soon, but you can check out the latest updates here.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The long-awaited, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, showcased its third-person combat and exploration gameplay. For the first time, players can experience all 9 movies in a single game. The game launches in Spring, 2022.

Synced Off-Planet

Synced Off-Planet is a shooter game with a twist. Players can synchronise with hostile nanobots and use them for their own purposes. The Gamescom showcase for this game is on the 26th.

The Outlast Trials

The Outlast Trials is the latest entry in the horror survival franchise set for release in 2022.

DokeV

DokeV, by Pearl Abyss, is an upcoming open-world creature collection game. There is no due date yet for the game’s release, but fans can go here to follow the game’s development.

Jurassic World Evolution 2

Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a dinosaur park-management sequel to the franchise, inspired by the Jurassic Park movies. The game launches on November 9th, 2021, but is available for pre-order now.

Far Cry 6

Far Cry 6, by Ubisoft, is the latest entry to the Far Cry franchise. In this most recent iteration, the player must lead the revolution against a ruthless dictator. The game launches on October 7th, 2021.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt, by Sharkmob, is an upcoming free-to-play Battle Royale with vampires. The presentation announced a new Toreador clan for the game. September 7th marks the beginning of Early Access on Steam.

Park Beyond

Park Beyond is a brand new theme park manager game. The main theme of the game centres around engineering creativity. The player must create innovative attractions for the park through “impossification” to bring seemingly impossible inventions to life. The game launches in 2022.

Jett: The Far Shore

Jett: The Far Shore is an upcoming interstellar space adventure game. It launches on October 5th 2021.

Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon: Forbidden West, by Guerrilla Games, is the sequel to the popular Horizon: Zero Dawn. The developers provided an update on the game’s development during the Gamescom showcase. The sequel features new elements like swimming, climbing and more combat options. Moreover, the awaited patch for 60 fps support is now available for Horizon: Zero Dawn. The sequel launches on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on February 18, 2022.

New World

New World, by Amazon Games, is not being delayed, which is always good news. Instead, the presenters announced the MMO’s Open Beta will run between September 9th to 12th. The game launches on September 28th 2021.

Marvel’s Future Revolution

Marvel’s Future Revolution, by Netmarble, is an open-world action RPG on mobile, available for download now.

Tales of Arise

A Tales of Arise demo is available now. However, there were less than 30 seconds of gameplay footage. Instead, violinist, Lindsey Stirling, performed an obviously pre-recorded violin choreography of the Tales of Arise theme.

Tales of Luminaria

The latest entry in Tales of series, Tales of Luminaria, by Bandai Namco, was announced on mobile for IOS and Android.

Jumanji: The Curse Returns

Jumanji: The Curse Returns is a virtual board game set to launch on September 1st on PC. The Nintendo Switch release date is still to be determined.

Lost Judgement

Lost Judgement, the sequel to Judgement, is an upcoming action-adventure game set to launch on September 24th 2021.

Fall Guys

Fall Guys: Season 5 is a collaboration between Disney and Fall Guys. This season will notably feature a jungle theme based on Disney’s The Jungle Book.

Age of Empires IV

Age Of Empires IV showcases new campaigns and new civilisations. The presentation featured the Rise of Moscow and the Holy Roman Empire campaign. The game launches on October 28th 2021.

Valheim

The first Valheim update: Hearth & Home includes base building and an enhanced survival experience. The update launches on September 16th 2021.

Genshin Impact

Genshin Impact, by miHoYo, presented a new character trailer for Aloy as part of a collaboration with Horizon Zero Dawn. She is coming on September 1st for PSN players and an update later for other platforms. Genshin Impact also announced they will be having an online concert and you can check out our coverage of that here.

Sifu

Sifu, by Slow Clap, is a Kung-fu combat game reminiscent of Arkham Knight-style hand to hand combat. It launches on 22nd February 2022.

Death Stranding: Director’s Cut

Death Stranding Director’s Cut, by Kojima Productions, arrives on September 24th, 2021, for Playstation 5. It includes:

  • New delivery support item: thrusters, cargo catapult, assistant robot (buddy bot)
  • New facilities: firing range to practice using weapons
  • Eight new tracks on the music player
  • New online ranking system
  • New missions
  • Time attack race tracks where you can compete with other players

Core

Deadmau5 is building Oberhasl1 with the developers of Core. This virtual world is for fan gatherings, virtual concerts and more.

World of Tanks

Joakim Brodén, the lead vocalist of Sabaton, presented the Swedish rock group’s newest song ”Steel Commanders” in collaboration with World of Tanks. Fun fact, Sabaton has a history of performing live at Gamescom back when it was possible.

This year’s Gamescom Opening Night felt like it would never end. Nevertheless, it was great to receive release dates on many anticipated releases. On the other hand, the lack of gameplay footage was a little disappointing.