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Gamescom held its Opening Night Live earlier this week and, barring a stage jumper, showed off a number of trailers for upcoming games. We didn’t get very many new announcements, but what we did see affirmed one of my beliefs: 2023 is just a really darned fun year for games. It’s almost September, and by rights I feel that I should have only a couple of games to look forward to in the remaining few months of the year — after all, I’m figuratively stuffed from what I’ve already eaten. But no, there’s a lot more on the way. It’s like all the delays have finally paid off and we’re getting all the games at once.
Among the trailers for the games coming out this year at Gamescom’s ONL, we saw (in no particular order): Alan Wake 2 (Oct 27), Assassin’s Creed Mirage (Oct 5), Payday 3 (Sep 21), Modern Warfare 3 (Nov 10), Armored Core VI (Aug 25), Immortals of Aveum (Aug 22), Lords of the Fallen (Oct 13), Sonic Superstars (Oct 17), The Crew Motorfest (Sep 11), Starfield (Sep 1) and Mortal Kombat 1 (Sep 19). And that’s just what was at the show. That’s not taking into account Super Mario Bros Wonder, Spider-Man 2 (both Oct 20), Lies of P (Sep 19), Detective Pikachu Returns (Oct 6), Super Mario RPG (Nov 17), Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (Nov 9), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Dec 7) and multiple other games I don’t have space to list.
In non-Gamescom news, the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard acquisition still offers fresh grist for the mill. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it’s selling cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. This is an attempt to address the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority’s objections to their potential monopoly in the cloud gaming space. If the involvement of another major gaming company in this pile makes it sound even more confusing — that’s because it is. It appears that Ubisoft will offer Activision Blizzard games to other companies, but I can’t begin to picture how it’ll work in practice.
In personal news, I’ve said this on social media, but to make sure everyone knows: I’m currently working on GamesBeat’s review of Starfield. I can’t say anything else about the game other than that, but just know it’s in the works. I’ve also been amusing myself in my downtime by recreating my TTRPG characters in the Baldur’s Gate 3 character creator — it’s certainly come a long way since I recreated Nancy Drew as a rogue in the early access build. RPG lovers are really eating well this year!
What to play this week
What’s new:
New on subscription services:
- In Sound Mind (Prime Gaming)
- Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (GeForce Now)
- Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (GeForce Now)
- Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition (GeForce Now)
- Crusader Kings III (GeForce Now)
- Dead Cells (GeForce Now)
- Deathloop (GeForce Now)
- Doom 2016 (GeForce Now)
- Gears 5 (GeForce Now)
- Grounded (GeForce Now)
- Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (GeForce Now)
- No Man’s Sky (GeForce Now)
- Pentiment (GeForce Now)
- Quake (GeForce Now)
- Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut (GeForce Now)
- Stellaris (GeForce Now)
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (GeForce Now)
- Trackmania (GeForce Now)
- Valheim (GeForce Now)
- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (GeForce Now)
- Wolfenstein: Youngblood (GeForce Now)
- Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (GeForce Now)
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