Gamescom 2022 Opening Night Live was filled with big gaming news and announcements. Over the course of two hours, host Geoff Keighley introduced more than 30 games, including much-awaited sequels to long-dormant projects as well as completely new IP. With so much to keep track of, it can be overwhelming, so we put together a list of the very biggest games to catch you up to speed.
If you love a good action-RPG, this was the show for you. Alongside the reemergence of The Lords of the Fallen, we saw Deck13's new game Atlas Fallen as well as a new look at Lies of P. We also got fresh looks at Sonic Frontiers, Hogwarts Legacy, High on Life, and Goat Simulator 3. Dead Island 2 also reemerged with a look at gameplay, as did The Outlast Trials. Sony also finally announced its own Xbox Elite Controller-esque competitor with the DualSense Edge for PS5.
There were plenty of brand-new game announcements, one of most exciting being the tragic Under the Waves from Quantic Dream and Parallel Studio.
These were the biggest games and announcements of Gamescom 2022 Opening Night Live.
Atlas Fallen
Atlas Fallen is the latest game from Deck13, creators of The Surge and the original Lords of the Fallen. The fantasy-filled action-RPG features expansive sandy landscapes and an awesome sand-sliding mechanic alongside intense melee combat--either alone or with a friend.
The Callisto Protocol
Glen Schofield showcased all-new The Callisto Protocol gameplay during the show. Captured on new-gen hardware, the gameplay showed a pretty terrifying room, with mutated humans roaming next to a big meat grinder wheel. But that can be used to our advantage, as a gravity-manipulating weapon lets the player send enemies flying into it to their doom. The Callisto Protocol hits Xbox, PlayStation, and PC on December 2.
Goat Simulator 3
After only seeing a CG trailer before, we got our first look at Goat Simulator 3 gameplay during Opening Night Live. As anticipated, the footage showed a goat--several, actually--causing mayhem in a variety of environments. Alongside destroying buildings and running over people, you'll also be able to drive vehicles as a goat, somehow, and it looks like the game is wild enough to justify skipping Goat Simulator 2.
High on Life
Justin Roiland's Squanch Games is back with High on Life, and it got a new gameplay trailer during the presentation that showed off a boss fight. Your weapons talk constantly during battle, taunting enemies and providing feedback as you blast away. If you like Rick and Morty, it should be your type of game for the humor, and traversal challenges--including swinging through the air on grappling points--add an extra layer of challenge to battles.
Hogwarts Legacy
It was delayed recently, but Hogwarts Legacy still made an appearance at Opening Night Live with a new trailer. It focuses on Salazar Slytherin and the potential use of dark magic within Hogwarts, including "unforgivable spells." For those familiar, that includes torturing spells as well as the infamous death curse. We'll be battling skeleton monsters, evidently, as some wizarding students have been quite dastardly.
Sonic Frontiers
Sonic Frontiers is coming later this year, and we got a final release date for the game alongside a new trailer. Sonic Frontiers will be available on November 8, and based on the new trailer, we've gotta go fast through a variety of environments that look nothing like the wide-open fields we've seen thus far. They even include an area very similar to Green Hill Zone.
New Tales From The Borderlands
New Tales From The Borderlands (yes, that is the official name) is a successor to the original Telltale series, and it's going to be here very soon. The game releases on October 21 for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC, and it features the Promethea world made famous in Borderlands 3.
Phantom Hellcat
Can't wait for a third Nier game? Enter Ironbird Creations' Phantom Hellcat. Created by an internal development studio at All In Games, Phantom Hellcast is a perspective-switching hack-and-slasher that sees a cursed theater unleash evil energy on the world. There's no release date yet, but it'll be out on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
The Lords of the Fallen
Remember how Lords of the Fallen 2 got announced eight years ago and then we never got to play it? The wait will eventually be over, as the game has reemerged as The Lords of the Fallen. Taking place about 1,000 years after the original game, the successor features faster combat, cooperative play, and a very Souls-style interconnected world to explore.
Return to Monkey Island
Ron Gilbert is returning to the legendary Monkey Island series with Return to Monkey Island, and the game's release date was announced during Opening Night Live. Return to Monkey Island is out for Switch and PC on September 19, which is apparently International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and you'll get free horse armor if you preorder. What a reference.
Under the Waves
Detroit: Become Human studio Quantic Dream revealed Under the Waves during Opening Night Live. Developed at Parallel Studio, the game is set underwater and focuses on a grieving diver as he ventures further into the sea. It's coming in 2023 to PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.
Lies of P
The Souls-like Lies of P stars a familiar character, the wooden boy Pinocchio, and it's coming to Xbox Game Pass on launch day. In a new trailer at Opening Night Live, we see an absolutely decimated city that's littered with debris and even more corpses. This isn't your childhood take on the classic fairy tale, but if you like upgrading abilities and getting overwhelmed by enemies, it should be right up your alley.
Dune: Awakening
Is it an Alaskan Bullworm? No, that's Dune: Awakening from Funcom. Revealed in a world premiere trailer, we see a huge sandworm swallow a piece of machinery whole, with an explorer pulling out two pick devices and diving to face the beast head-on. The open-world survival MMO will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and going off what we know about sandworms, we can't imagine many of those battles will be successful.
Not everything shown at Opening Night Live was a game! Sony revealed a brand-new controller for PS5 called the DualSense Edge. Taking heavy inspiration from the Xbox Elite controller, the "ultra-customizable" controller lets you pick your own control profiles and swap out many different elements to fit your needs. It was created by Sony itself, offering a first-party choice alongside the third-party manufacturers who have made their own customizable controllers for PS5 already.
Gotham Knights
The highly anticipated Gotham Knights--a cooperative action-adventure set in a world where Bruce Wayne has died--has a release date, and it's earlier than we expected. Alongside the October 21 date, we saw a few familiar villains in the trailer, like Mister Freeze and Harley Quinn, as well as some shots of our heroes taking down bad guys in classic combo-filled fashion. Gotham Knights will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Where Winds Meet
One of the most impressive games of the entire presentation was Everstone Games' Where Winds Meet. The action game's trailer features some stunning environments, including a snowy mountain as well as a sea with an explosive-barrel-filled ship unfortunately floating close enough for our protagonist to blow it to smithereens. The combat looks far faster than anything we've seen in similar games like Ghost of Tsushima or even Sekiro, though Where Winds Meet is set in China rather than Japan and it remains to be seen if its difficulty will match the frenetic pace. At the end of the trailer, a literal field of corpses is shown, with a mysterious white-haired figure and a panther standing over them all. We don't think the panther is there to let you pet it.
Dead Island 2
Its re-reveal may have been tainted by the release date leaking several days ahead of time, but Dead Island 2 capped off Opening Night Live in style. The trailer, which opens with a survivor named Jacob (one of six you can play as) in a fancy LA house filled with dead zombies, sees him venture out of the house and casually lay waste to a whole bunch more before heading down to a pier and storefront to deliver even more destruction. It's not all murder, however, as he takes a brief trip to a grocery store to pick up some medication and chips to keep him field for more zombie-killing action. Dead Island 2 will release on February 3, 2023 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Stadia, and PC.
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