It never feels like it from our perspective here in North America, but gamescom is the world’s biggest gaming convention. Attendance averages in the few hundred thousands yearly, dwarfing E3 by multiple times. It’s Euro-centricity tends to motivate publishers and developers from the surrounding area to make bigger splashes there. Between August 20th and 24th of this year, we will have out eyes and ears open for the oncoming deluge of game info pouring out of Cologne, Germany.
What should we expect to see coming out of gamescom 2019? We have some theories. Be sure to click the links to our wikis for the following games, should you want to know more about them.
Press Conferences
Yes, this year’s gamescom has taken a cue from E3, and will feature a handful televised presentations to be streamed by gamers on Monday, August 19th.
Microsoft will host a live episode of Inside Xbox, their Nintendo Direct-like info show. They did one of these last year as well, and we can expect lots of talk about their upcoming flagship shooter, Gears 5, in this year’s show.
Google will host their second Google Stadia Connect at the show right after. We’ve been promised that it will be game announcement heavy, but there’s no telling what those games could be at this point. We could speculate, of course, but were so close that it might just be worth waiting and seeing.
The jewel of the night belongs to The Game Awards’ Geoff Keighley, and his Opening Night Live conference. He has a line up of several publishers on deck to chat about what we can only assume will be new game details. Everything is still tightly under wraps, so we can’t be too sure about what publishers like Sony Interactive, Capcom, EA, Epic, and more, will have to say. One thing we do know is that Hideo Kojima will be there to reveal and “exclusive preview” of his upcoming sci-fi game, Death Stranding.
Games we will probably hear about
What’s expected to be shown has been pretty under wraps this year, but there’s some pretty good educated guesses to be made.
EA’s FIFA is among the most popular series of games in Europe, sports or otherwise. There’s often a prominent showing at gamescom, and this year should be no different. With FIFA 20 coming next month, I’d image we will be seeing a bit more of their new street soccer mode, Volta Football.
Polish powerhouse, CD Projeckt RED, made a name for themselves with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Years before that launched, they announced Cyberpunk 2077 was in the works as well. With that game due out April of next year, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that it will have some sort of presence at gamescom this year. Could we possibly get some hands-on demos, finally?
Activision and Infinity Ward are hoping to spice up the modern military shooter formula that they created by rebooting it. Modern Warfare will bring the series back around, and make a go at recapturing what made the first set of games special. With this game due out this fall, it’s safe to expect a big showing from this title here at gamescom.
Ubisoft is poised to make a splash with Watch Dogs Legion. Due out next March, this and PAX West are the last opportunities to get this game out there in a public setting, and I doubt the French developer/publisher will let it pass them by.
id Software will have one more chance to blow the horn on the DOOM Eternal hype train before it’s launch in November. There might not be much more to see as far as the gameplay is concerned, but that’s no reason not to make an early victory lap.
Nintendo has a strong showing every year, and with Luigi’s Mansion 3 on the horizon, they have plenty to show off and talk about. With the company’s particular slant towards Direct’s as their primary means of disseminating new information, it’s reasonable to assume that this might just occupy some hands-on floor space even if there’s no new announcements to make.
The Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order demonstration at E3 and the gameplay that was written about days later told a tale of two different games. gamescom 2019 is a perfect opportunity to highlight the very interesting stuff that didn’t make it in the video presentation in June.
Games we hope to hear about
There’s a lot more that we don’t know going into this years event than we do. There’s a lot of reasons to hope that some new info will drop about some of our biggest unknown factors lingering these days.
The teaser video for a Breath of the Wild sequel is still being dissected and debated months later. I doubt we will hear anything more about it before the Tokyo Games Show, but one can dream.
From Software’s follow up to the excellent Sekiro is a team up affair with popular novelist J.R.R. Martin. It’s unclear if Miyazaki and co are ready to talk more about Elden Ring right now, but if they are, were definitely listening.
We’ve heard absolutely nothing about a follow up to Assassins Creed Odyssey and it feels like its about time to get some news. Any screenshots of the so-called Assassin’s Creed Ragnarok have been deemed fake as of now, but a viking-themed game in the new RPG-heavy direction these have been going would make some sense.
Housemarque made a big deal about stepping away from arcade game development and into the AAA space. We saw a micro amount of their battle royale game, Stormdivers, last year, but it would be nice if the European dev could shed a little more light on the project for those who didn’t participate in the closed beta earlier this year.
So what are you looking forward to the rest of the years’ gaming convention circuit? Let us know in the comments below!