Last week, Gamescom closed its doors for one year, celebrating fifteen years since its inception. The city of Cologne welcomed a lot of gaming tourists in addition to ordinary tourists who come to the eponymous cathedral. Tens of thousands of video game fans who come to Germany from all over the world find themselves at the central train station and pass by the Cologne Cathedral. Next to the cathedral is a bridge, an alley of memories with many locks, closed by people who wanted to leave a memory in such a recognizable place and share their feelings with others. This bridge is where Gamescom begins.
Once again, Cologne Messe welcomes everyone to experience the largest exhibition of digital entertainment. Huge pavilions serve as platforms for industry giants, various indie developers, and cosplayers in impressive costumes. Well, I will tell you the most interesting moments from Gamescom, whether it is worth experiencing this event yourself at least once, and what happened at the Ukrainian stand.
The main corridor is a kind of connection between all the pavilions, but each of them has its peculiarities. Let’s start the review with the largest ones, the face of the exhibition and the cluster of AAA projects.
XBOX
Perhaps this hall is the only one where visitors were allowed to play games and were entertained with all kinds of activities. The center of the pavilion is decorated, or shows who’s boss — large screens with the inscription «XBOX» and advertisements for their projects. The most interesting booth for us was, of course, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, but more on that later.
The KRAFTON corner was not the largest, but it had the biggest pussy at the exhibition. There were many people who wanted to play the realistic Sims. Everyone is used to the usual cartoon Sims, but many people are interested in how this idea will work on Unreal Engine 5 and with maximum realism.
Next to it is the PUBG combat point, where you can get prizes for a good shot at the target and then take a picture in a themed area with recognizable elements of the game.
There were many such photo zones: the entrance to the Fallout vault, a cave themed after the new Indiana Jones game, where you could wear the famous leatherette hat. And if you watched a twenty-minute demo presentation at the next booth, you could get a souvenir of the hat.
Nearby, a three-meter tall Dumgai signed DOOM: The Dark Ages, and that was the only thing that was related to the sequel.
Fans of strategies and ancient Greek myths could appreciate the gameplay of the remake of Age of Mythology with the title Retold, and escape from the Greek retelling of myths in the alternative history of Ara: History Untold, a turn-based strategy game with the development of your nation from the Stone Age to the present.
The most interesting for us, and surprisingly for gamers from other countries, was the GSC Game World stand. Its size is not impressive, but the demand for photos near the authentic exterior and the desire to play the presentation build makes us even more proud of Ukrainian developers. There is no other opportunity to see S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 except after its release, so after spending some time in the queue, we got inside.
The demo version lasted 20 minutes, and we have already seen the opening cutscene in one of the trailers, in which a truck takes a body to the zone and which resembles a similar scene in Shadows of Chernobyl. After it, the mission begins, where we need to get into the scientists’ laboratory, find a laptop with important information, and then find an artifact in the anomaly, get into a fight with a bloodsucker and clashes with bandits.
The developers have shown numerous trailers and gameplay videos in recent months, but watching is one thing, but playing is quite another. All skepticism about the game’s secondary nature disappears immediately. The atmosphere, shooting, graphics, and a lot of other things that we managed to see are very different from their predecessors. During the session, we had the same feelings that we got 15 years ago playing the original «Stalkers».
UBISOFT, CAPCOM, BANDAI NAMCO, 2K, EA
If you were not impressed by the previous hall, you will get a triple shock now. Each stand is an art. The Korean long-delayed Crimson Desert was met with many visitors, no less than the booth of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. A controversial part of the series that has not yet reached the release, but it is already predicted to have the worst fate. Its booth was made in Japanese style, you could look at collectible figures (apparently from future collector’s editions) nearby, and for attending the session you were given a small fan with the game’s logo.
Star Wars Outlaws was also not far behind, although this is the second game from Ubisoft that angered gamers even before its release, but the visitors of the exhibition did not think so and willingly came to the session.
Fighting game DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO lured us in with the big figure of Son Goku, and the session was not held behind closed doors, as in most other games, so we could watch the gameplay from the outside.
The martial arts master was passed by a large and creepy doll from Little Nightmares 3. You could say that its outstretched arm mentally drew people in to try a new installment of such a cute and scary platformer.
Those who wanted to create an empire instead of being scared went to watch the presentation of Civilization VII. They didn’t let us play, but they showed us the detailed gameplay and new mechanics. Fans of the series were satisfied, primarily with more realistic graphics than in the previous installment. However, Electronics Arts did not change its traditions and let us play the annual FIFA — FC25. Nothing has changed here, football is football. Along with football fields, there were also fields for sowing, a huge tractor adorned the stand promoting farming in the game Farming Simulator 25.
And who doesn’t like to dig in the garden, there was a Dune Awakening stand with a big worm next to it. A new MMORPG in the Dune universe from Funcom, the developers of Conan Exiles, will send you to the scorching sands of the planet Arrakis, familiar from cult books and movies.
Fans of Path of Exiles saw something else very familiar and habitual. The thematic stand invited both veterans of the game and newcomers.
The most creative was the Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Here you can see a brief retelling of the streets of 15th-century Bohemia, with a blacksmith, a seamstress, a city watchman, and then return to the story of Jindřich.
The developers of Arena Breakout: Infinite developers also took up a lot of space on the platform. An immersive tactical shooter with an emphasis on realism, it was possible to try it out and draw conclusions about how it differs from similar session-based shooters.
That’s about it with the big pavilions. Then there are the smaller ones, but no less important because you could find something that is usually covered by the shadow of AAA projects. Many games that did not find a major publisher also deserve attention, such as games based on the movies Mars Attracts and Starship Troopers: Extermination, or a game in the Lovecraft universe called Worshippers of Cthulhu, where you play as a cult leader and have to deal with the affairs of an urban planning simulator, but with dark intentions.
But Gamescom is not all about games. It is a place where everyone who is not indifferent to digital entertainment gathers, and everyone will find something to occupy their time. Here you can find creative people who make custom gamepads, mice, computers and collectible figurines of various sizes. In one of the areas you can even go back in time, see some of the first consoles and play them, and slot machines with computers. For people with the ability to shop or collect things, there were also special areas where many things related to games and movies were sold.
In one of these zones, you can see the flag of Ukraine and talk to the seller in Ukrainian.
And this was not the only place where our flag reminded people that our country is everywhere. There was also a stand with our flag at the exhibition.
It was not huge, and unfortunately, not many people saw it. The stand was located in the business zone, which is not accessible to ordinary visitors. But this is rather a plus because such zones are a crucial part for developers. Here you can exchange experience, meet developers, and get acquainted with developers. That is why it is a good result that our developers are at this exhibition for the second time and spread their creativity all over the world.
In general, this Gamescom also turned out to be very busy. This popular exhibition proves once again that there is a demand for such events, and a considerable one, as this year it was attended by about 335 thousand people, which is almost 20 thousand more than in 2023. And the pandemic that managed to knock down the E3 colossus and end its offline career could not do the same to its German counterpart. That is why we will see records and hundreds of games on their way to Gamescom more than once.
By Bohdan Zinoviy
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