Gamescom stirred the gaming community up and there’s a lot to look forward to. Gaming is good, gaming is great, let’s get down to the gaming plate.
News Roundup
- The First Descendant has the potential to be the next big MMO looter shooter.
- High On Life is looking phenomenal.
- Developers are starting to team up and create games.
- Atomic Heart looks really promising upon the release of the new gameplay trailer.
- Gamescom was pretty solid so I’ll give my rating plus some games I thought were notable.
The First Descendant Trailer looks Stellar
Eyes have not seen and ears have not heard what the latter portion of this generation will produce in terms of graphic fidelity with the Unreal 5 engine if the first descendant is any representation of what we can expect! The fluid movement, pristine graphics, and attention to meticulous detail in every character is phenomenal ! I have watched this trailer multiple times and am constantly blown away with new details after each viewing! Every iteration of the Unreal engine has always been leaps and bounds ahead of most competing engines. The trailer opens with a snow capped mountainous region and a single figure looking out over a lone landscape. The narrator asks a series of philosophical and existential questions and then the graphical eye candy ensues! We are treated to multiple montages of four various characters running through several landscapes and combat scenarios. I cannot get enough of seeing this portion of the trailer! The movement is fluid on screen. Enemies appear to be taking cover intelligently and returning fire to these four characters. The combat looks amazing! There is also some sort of rappelling traversal mechanism in this game which allows the player to cast a rope and scale various parts of the on-screen environment. The gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of Outriders but at a much faster pace with more leaping and bounding on screen. Characters appear to have multiple gameplay techniques with each having its own unique set of skills and tactics. There could be something here for everyone if you’re into the third person shooter genre. Enemies are ginormous, you have the ability to scale and dismantle foes similar to Shadow of the Colossus. Not much has been revealed in this first gameplay trailer regarding the narrative, the enemy, and the end game. However, with this being a free-to-play title, we could see something similar to Destiny or Warframe where content is seasonal and the game continues to evolve over the years. If you haven’t seen this trailer, it is a must that you carve 3 minutes out of your day to watch. We’ll post the link below to the 4K version of this video on YouTube. Enjoy! (JusBenard)
High On Life Is A Looking To Be Very Special
High On Life is shaping up to be a special and unique title. Earlier this week at Gamescom we were shown the first boss fight in the game. Then, a 25 minute video of gameplay that I did not watch because I want the game to be a full unknown experience. The boss fight alone showed me everything I needed to see to commit to the purchase (because I dont have Gamepass). I don’t think this game is going to do anything too unique on the gameplay side of things because there’s rarely anything new that can be added to the FPS genre. We can just hope that the gameplay is tight, which it looks like that’s the case. But on the personality front, the game is incredible. We heard some lines from the knife (my personal favorite) and the gun that seemed unique to that specific encounter and it made me wonder how many lines were in the game to address unique instances. The setting was cool and it doesn’t seem like the game takes itself extremely seriously which is always a good thing. It’s very self aware. It’s a very colorful game and that was pleasing to the eyes personally. It also brings me comfort that the game was delayed for them to continue to improve on it. If the finished product will be even better than what was seen then I’ll make sure to have it preloaded for December 13th. (XmanFiles)
Developers Are Forming Super Teams
I’m beginning to observe a very positive trend in gaming and that trend is developers partnering to co-produce a game. Now let me be very clear, what I’m describing is not when a development studio subcontracts out portions of development to other studios which are smaller in size and focus on a specific portion of the game. What I am referring to is when two companies decide to work together to build a game and the talent working on everything from assets to audio to gameplay is solely from the two companies. We saw this when Bethesda and Avalanche partnered on the development of Rage 2. Bethesda brought all of its development history and assets from the original Rage and evolved them for Rage 2, while Avalanche games brought its open world talents from game such as Mad Max and applied them to the Rage universe. When we stop and think, all of us can probably list one or two things that specific development studios are really good at or known for. Most recently, Koei Tecmo is partnering with EA to develop a brand new intellectual property. Overall this could be a very positive trend for gaming because there are so many talented studios alone. But when you put two talented studios together to work on a single IP, synergies begin to emerge that may not have previously been known. Synergies result in some very interesting gaming delights for us all. This has proven to be a positive trend when you look at the history of PlayStation’s first party Worldwide Studios. While they do not particularly combine two or more studios, there is a high degree of collaboration and sharing of technologies and techniques for development across all of their first party development teams. Studios are often sharing in-game assets, code on AI, and entire game engines. This lent itself well with studios having inherent talent and trains of thought that differ from their collaborators. If I had to pick two studios that I would like to collaborate on a single game, it would have to be Guerilla, and now that they’re owned by Sony, Bunge! The possibilities are endless when you sit and imagine all of the great talented development studios that could work on a single game together. I’m interested to hear from you. What developers would you like to see partner up and work exclusively on a single IP? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. (JusBernard)
Atomic Heart Has Shown New Gameplay, And Its Good…
Wow! This has to be one of the most incredibly strange videos I’ve seen in recent memory, it’s hard to peel your eyes away once you’ve started watching. This game has absolutely frenetic and fast-paced combat that is sure to maintain a high level challenge for anyone into FPS’s. The character design is truly unusual with some characters being a mix between mechanical and organic. I’ve watched this trailer twice now and this game takes heavy influence from BioShock, Half-Life, and Techland’s Dying Light. While the latest trailer purely shows gameplay, there is much to be revealed regarding the story. The trailer ends with a statement saying that Utopian dream is not what it seems, which we know was also a heavy influence for all titles in the BioShock trilogy. I’m really excited for this game and eager to learn more about how the story begins and continues to evolve. We’ll post a link to the trailer on YouTube. When you get a chance, take a look and let us know your thoughts. I’m really excited for this game! (JusBernard)
My Rating and Takeaway On Gamescoms ONL 2022
Gamescom ONL overall gets a B+ from me. This showcase gave us looks at games that we wanted to see and games we didn’t know were a thing. The industry is seeing a lot of moves and I’d like to think that this show was a reflection of a sliver of everything that’s going on. I saw a few new IPs that had me excited about the future of this generation of gaming.
- A few notable games
- Scars above looks like a cinematic Sci-Fi game that looks to have us on the edge of our seats and I’ll be looking closely at how this one develops.
- Atlas Fallen is a semi open world RPG that looked interesting to me. For whatever reason it struck a chord that reminded me of Kingdoms of Amalur.
- THE (emphasis on the) Lords Of The Fallen. The first game was pretty fun for me and I’m glad to see a sequel for it. I’ll more than likely be checking this out whenever it comes out.
- Phantom Hellcat is a hack-and-slash game. Enough said for me. A couple years ago I played the entire Devil May Cry series for the first time and since then I’ve been looking for new hack-and-slash games that are of medium to high quality and this one seems to fit the description. It’s colorful and fast paced so I added this one to the watch list.
- Where Winds meet looks pretty cool the quality looks a little low but I think that can be fixed. Ghost Of Tsushima took the world by storm and I’m not saying they’re a one-to-one comparison, but the vibes were there. I hope to see more of this game in a more polished light but for now, as soon as it’s mentioned again, I’ll be looking for it.
- Wyrdsong had some industry veteran devs behind it and they said that they took inspiration from this year’s premiere game, Elden Ring, and I’m all for it. We were only shown a teaser, yet it looked spooky and intriguing. I can’t wait to see more of this title.
- Everywhere was explained to be a very ambitious game. I want to know more about it. I’m not the biggest fan of all genre inclusive kinds of games but If this is supposed to be an industry standout game then it has my attention.
- Lies of P. I can’t say enough about this game. Bloodborne is my favorite Souls game. The setting and lore is what carries it to the top for me. Lies of P looked like it scratches every itch that Bloodborne left behind. I won’t be pre-ordering this one but I’m definitely going to get it. The trailer is on YouTube and every time it gets shown it garners more attention. I absolutely cannot wait to play this game. It looks Incredible (XmanFiles)
My Addiction Returns… “What I’m Playing” Wont Return For A While
I haven been playing D2 all week. I have a long ongoing history with the Destiny franchise and It doesn’t look to be stopping any time soon. D2 is in an amazing space. I have no idea as to what all was entailed for the Sony acquisition but I think it worked wonders for the game. All the content in this game has risen in quality. The newest season, Season Of Plunder, is very creative in its own right. Who would’ve thought pirates in destiny could be so successful, not me. The game is still one of the best feeling shooters on the market and that’s one of the many things that keeps me coming back. The experience you get from playing with other people is a great experience in its own right. When I picked the game back up earlier this week, I got some friends to pick it up too and I’m showing them the ropes. A few of my old clan mates have returned to the game as well. The last time I was heavy into this game I was playing 12-16 hours a day. It’s looking like that will return with the oncoming seasons and content. The next major expansion is in February and I’ll be more than ready to face The Witness and Calus in Lightfall. (XmanFiles)
Join the conversation and let us know what you guys are playing in the comments. See you in a week !!
36th Gen 