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Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024: biggest announcements and trailers

2025-01-22T07:59:53-05:00

Much like backpacks and lunchboxes showing up in the seasonal aisle of your local Target, nothing heralds the end of summer like Opening Night Live. Hosted by Geoff Keighley, ONL is a video game showcase much like Summer Game Fest. It’s the event that kicks off Gamescom 2024 — a video game expo held primarily in Germany — and is traditionally the final video game event of the summer.

And this year featured plenty of expected games, like Starfield’s Shattered Space expansion, Sid Meier’s Civilization 7, Marvel Rivals, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, along with a few surprises, including the announce of Borderlands 4, a new Mafia game, Genshin Impact launching on Xbox, and word that Monument Valley 3 is coming later this year to Netflix.

If you weren’t able to tune in live, here are all the biggest trailers and announcements.

How to watch Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024

2024-08-20T08:00:00-04:00

Geoff Keighley's big Opening Night Live (ONL) show for Gamescom is back for another year. and we're set to see some new looks at many upcoming games and hopefully a few surprises.

The X account for The Game Awards - another big showcase hosted by Keighley - has already shared that we can expect to see Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, Marvel Rivals, Dune: Awakening, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Civilization VII. Keighley has used his own X account to tease that games like Squid Game: Unleashed, Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, and Little Nightmares III will be at the show. Keighley also shared a mysterious post from Hi …

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Final Fantasy XVI launches on PC in September

2024-08-19T12:30:42-04:00

Square Enix has finally shared a release date for the PC version of Final Fantasy XVI: September 17th, 2024. The single-player RPG first launched on PS5 in June 2023, with two DLC chapters following in December (Echoes of the Fallen) and April (The Rising Tide).

You can now preorder Final Fantasy XVI on Steam and the Epic Games Store, and there are complete editions that include both DLCs available for preorder, too. You can also check out a demo for the game from both stores, and your progress from the part of the demo that covers the opening section of the game will transfer to the full version.

Since Final Fantasy XVI first launched, Sq …

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Nvidia’s new DLSS 3.5 works on all RTX GPUs to improve the quality of ray tracing

2023-08-22T09:00:00-04:00

Nvidia is introducing DLSS 3.5 this fall with a new AI-powered Ray Reconstruction technique that's designed to improve the quality of ray tracing. Unlike DLSS 3's Frame Generation, which was limited to just RTX 40-series GPUs, DLSS 3.5 will boost ray tracing across all RTX-series GPUs going back to the RTX 20 series.

Nvidia is primarily targeting DLSS 3.5 at games that offer path tracing, often known as full ray tracing, as opposed to titles that use ray tracing just for select elements like shadows or reflections. Cyberpunk 2077 will get support for DLSS 3.5 with its Phantom Liberty DLC releasing on September 26th, which also adds the path …

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Midnight Suns is a new Marvel tactics RPG from XCOM studio Firaxis

2021-08-25T14:36:36-04:00

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a newly revealed tactical RPG from Firaxis Games that was just announced at Gamescom's opening night event.

The game is said to take place in the "darker side of the Marvel Universe," and it will have players take on the role of a new hero, The Hunter (which Firaxis created with Marvel). In Midnight Suns, you'll team up with classic heroes like Iron Man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Blade, Captain America, and Captain Marvel as part of the Midnight Suns superhero team to battle a supernatural foe: Lilith.

There's not much information on the actual gameplay yet - although, given Firaxis' work on the rebooted XCOM series …

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Microsoft Flight Simulator’s next updates add electric air taxis and competitive multiplayer

2021-08-24T13:52:52-04:00

Microsoft has revealed the next major additions coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator later this year, including the Volocopter VoloCity air taxi; updated maps for the Germany, Austria, and Switzerland regions; and a competitive online multiplayer racing mode.

First up is a new series of "Local Legends" planes that are being added to Flight Simulator, which will offer planes that are famous in a specific region that might not be as well known. The goal is to have these planes roll out alongside Flight Simulator's world updates, so the first Local Legend plane will coincide with the upcoming World Update VI (featuring Germany, Austria, and Sw …

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Fall Guys season 2 will add medieval-themed games in October

2020-08-27T15:29:54-04:00

The new season of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Mediatonic's colorful battle royale platformer, will add new games inspired by the Middle Ages. The developer announced the news today during Gamescom celebrations; players will be able to compete through games inspired by medieval designs.

In Fall Guys, players compete in 60-player elimination-based mini-games. The games are simple - races to the finish line, obstacles courses, or memory matching - but fast and fun to cycle through. The new additions, coming in October, include "feudal fortresses, knockout knights and pugilistic paladins," as well as new costumes, emotes, and more.

Following …

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Ronald Reagan sends you to do war crimes in the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War trailer

2020-08-27T14:44:05-04:00

Activision and its development studios, Treyarch and Raven Software, debuted a new trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and it happens to feature a somewhat eerie and unexpected new character in the series: actual President Ronald Reagan. The trailer aired during the digital-only Gamescom 2020 event, following the game's official reveal yesterday.

Incorporating a real-life historical and political figure - one whose tenure still has controversial effects on modern-day politics, including the imminent 2020 election - is definitely a move. It's an even weirder one when you consider what the trailer has Reagan doing: orde …

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The next Dragon Age is in ‘early production,’ but still alive

2020-08-27T14:39:36-04:00

Info on the next Dragon Age game is still scarce - BioWare has yet to announce an official title or even show off the game's cast - but the team behind the hotly anticipated game has some insight to share. The developer released a behind-the-scenes video today with a few more clues: a story about "what happens when you don't have power? What happens when the people in charge aren't willing to address the issues?" said lead writer Patrick Weekes.

The video features brief interviews with various members of the staff, who talk about their philosophies on character design, a look at concept art, and how BioWare is tackling its next big project.

…

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Blizzard is making a World of Warcraft animated series called Afterlives

2020-08-24T13:36:58-04:00

Blizzard is releasing an original animated series based on World of Warcraft, the developer announced today. Afterlives will premiere this Thursday during Gamescom 2020's online celebrations.

Blizzard has long hyped its games, from World of Warcraft to Hearthstone and Overwatch, with beautifully animated shorts. They're a way to hype characters or stories, albeit with short-lived promotional material. Afterlives will build out WoW's world with similarly original storytelling.

For now, little is known about the series. "Just as our choices determine who we are in life - they pave the paths we take in the afterlife," the teaser video's descr …

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