Gamescom 2015: The biggest Xbox, PlayStation, and Blizzard news from Germany – The Verge

Nvidia makes game streaming easier than ever with new GeForce Experience

2015-08-20T09:00:02-04:00

There are two varieties of game streaming: one is the streaming of a video feed showing what you're doing inside the game, and the other is the ability to play remotely by streaming the full interactive experience over to another device. Nvidia knows both are growing in importance, and today it's introducing new software that upgrades the ease with which players can do both. I tried Nvidia's updated GeForce Experience - which is being rolled out in beta form today - at Gamescom earlier this month, and I came away impressed by the simplicity and quickness of the graphics company's new software.

Effortless and foolproof

Today's update introduc …

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Overwatch and Battleborn: meet the new breed of cooperative first-person shooter games

2015-08-07T07:00:01-04:00

This year's Gamescom has been a special treat for fans of multiplayer games. Ubisoft has brought Rainbow Six Siege and the all-new For Honor for gamers to try out in Cologne, while DICE used the show to debut a massive 20-player dogfight mode in Star Wars: Battlefront. Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm has been everywhere too, but it's another title from the same company that I want to talk about today: Overwatch. It, along with Gearbox Software's Battleborn, is establishing a new category of team-based shooter games, one where violence and gore are de-emphasized in favor of accessibility and cooperative fun.

A MOBA for FPS fans, an FPS for MOB …

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Battleborn is the best game of Gamescom 2015

2015-08-06T13:55:41-04:00

I can't contain my excitement. I'm sitting at a train station right now, foregoing nourishment and hydration just to write these words of joy. Think back to your happiest first date and you'll have a good idea of how I feel after my first time playing Battleborn. This game is just thrilling.

Mayhem good enough to make Tyler Durden proud

Battleborn is a team-based first-person shooter developed by the deranged minds behind the Borderlands series. It plays very much like Borderlands, which makes it an immediate pick-up-and-frag experience, but it has a great deal of extra depth and variety. The cast of 25 heroes starts with a conventional rifl …

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Dogfights in Star Wars: Battlefront are a disorienting mess

2015-08-06T07:37:03-04:00

It's the stuff of every Star Wars fan's fantasies: a grand battle between X-Wings and TIE fighters, peppered with laser cannon fire and big explosions. That's what Star Wars: Battlefront promises with its newly announced Fighter Squadron multiplayer mode, and for the most part, it duly delivers. The question that lingers for me, though, is whether such 10 versus 10 dogfights actually make for a truly enjoyable gaming experience. I tried the thing here at Gamescom in Cologne and the answer still eludes me.

It's very realistic, but is it fun?

To keep gameplay perfectly balanced, the game's makers have made the X-Wings and TIE fighters function …

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Cuphead is a frenetic, psychotic exercise in fun and frustration

2015-08-06T05:26:37-04:00

You died. You died. You died again. You died. Why do you keep dying?

For a game with such visual charm and flair, Cuphead is an absolute tyrant in its gameplay. It has a minimal tutorial section to teach you the basics of what each button does and then throws you to the wolves. And the mad carrots, and the peeved potatoes, and the birds carrying houses on their backs. Cuphead is basically a collection of really intense, exasperatingly difficult boss fights. There's usually some oversized caricature in the right or center of the screen, and there's you trying frantically to not die. You will fail many times over.

Bosses spout and spew color …

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The Mad Max game has little to do with the movie, but could be just as good

2015-08-05T09:53:37-04:00

Here's an easy recipe for disappointment: take one of the awesomest, most refreshingly nuanced and thoughtful action movies of recent times, Mad Max: Fury Road, and turn it into a generic find-and-destroy open world game. That's exactly what I envisioned when I first heard of the Mad Max game, which is set in the same universe and stars the same titular character, but is otherwise divorced from Fury Road. I'm glad to say I was wrong.

WB Games has brought Mad Max to Gamescom here in Cologne, and I was among the first to try it at the show. My fretful apprehension going into the demo was quickly replaced by fascination: you wouldn't think the …

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This might be the first good Attack on Titan game

2015-08-05T09:52:27-04:00

The premise of Attack on Titan sounds like ideal fodder for a video game: sword-wielding humans zip around cities trying to take down towering creatures that love to eat people. The most recent title left much to be desired, but there may finally be a good Attack on Titan game on the way. At Gamescom 2015, Koei Tecmo announced that it will be publishing an Attack on Titan game set to launch on the PS3, PS4, and Vita, and it sounds very promising.

We don't have much to go on other than a brief teaser trailer, but there's reason to be excited: the game is being developed by Omega Force, the same studio behind the Dynasty Warriors series. The …

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Final Fantasy XV’s latest trailer shows what you’ll be fighting for

2015-08-05T08:57:37-04:00

Up until now, the few, relatively brief glimpses of Final Fantasy XV we've seen have focused on the weird, wild open world and the cast of four bros on a road trip. But at Gamescom 2015, Square Enix revealed a very different, much more serious trailer that introduces us to the game's backstory.

Set 15 years before the events of FFXV, the new trailer showcases a relationship between a father and son, and also provides a nice look at the game's unique fantasy-meets-modern setting. This is a place where automatic guns and luxury cars live alongside swords and gleaming suits of armor. Much of the story still remains a mystery, of course, but it …

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EA’s Unravel is a gorgeous puzzle-platform game about string

2015-08-05T04:56:26-04:00

EA announced Unravel, a puzzle-platformer developed by Sweden's Coldwood Interactive, at E3; the game stars Yarny, a character made entirely out of string. And at Gamescom just now, EA gave the best look yet at how Unravel will actually play.

It's a beautiful platform game with heavy physics-based puzzles based on the fact that you are made up of yarn. You'll have to manipulate your environment by doing things like stringing bridges together in order to progress, all the while making sure that you don't run out of length and… unravel.

It's better explained in motion than words, so take a look at the trailer above. Unravel is coming to PS4, X …

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Star Wars: Battlefront lets you pilot the Millennium Falcon in 20-player dogfights

2015-08-05T04:53:47-04:00

The latest footage of Star Wars: Battlefront from this year's Gamescom shows a new gameplay mode named Fighter Squadron that allows gamers to take part in hectic 20-player aerial dogfights, piloting X-Wings, TIE fighters, and even the Millennium Falcon itself. "Fighter Squadron will put you inside the cockpit of some of the most memorable vehicles ever seen in the Star Wars galaxy," said Battlefront senior producer Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir at the Gamescom event.

"We want to give fans the thrill of living out their Star Wars battle fantasies."

The footage is the latest from developer EA Dice, which has previously shown on-the-ground battle foo …

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