Gamescom Opening Night Live: Updates from the showcase including Final Fantasy and Gears of War previews

Thanks everyone!

And I'll leave you with "Guillotina" live on the ONL stage.

Thanks for reading along, expect to hear more from Gamescom here at Engadget later this week! 

Those Xbox-IKEA pillows aren't going to write about themselves.

Before we forget, The Game Awards will be held on December 10 this year.

I'll leave you with the latest Final Fantasy trailer:

It sounds like a substantial free upgrade, and you'll be able to play the first two DLC campaigns of Witcher 3 for free, too.

And that's that for ONL 2026. What a fun show with a fabulous musical break. Viva Ridiculon!

The DLC Songs of the Past will arrive next year.

The new Witcher 3 content looks epic, as usual. Is it enough to pull me in? I don't know, we've seen some great-looking fantasy RPGs today...

Witcher 3 time. Witcher 3 Remastered will be a free upgrade coming on September 29. We're seeing improved traversal abilities, enhanced monster behaviors and even new finishers. And that new expansion? 

Here's the trailer for Like or Die, a new "team-based survival FPS" from NC 

Technically, this soundtrack counts as a '90s bop. FF7 came out in that decade. So there.

Oh! We'll be seeing Ruby, Emerald and Ultimate Weapons at some point. And Barret in a parachute.

Meanwhile, in Jess' head: Because I am Cloud / my hair defies all gravity...

Now we're onto a game called Final Fantasy.

FF7R's Hamaguchi has taken to the stage to reveal a new trailer, focused on the Weapons. The big guardian monsters that protect the planet in FF7. 

Like or Die is a fantastic name for a dystopian battle game.

It's true. Mat's a witch.

Here's the crazy trailer for Pony Island 2: Panda Circus:

Oh Kris. I was the last Engadget editor to see BG&E2, and if it's anything like Silksong, give it another five years. I've got The Game Delay Curse.

I played an early demo of There Are No Ghosts at The Grand. It's a renovation/clean-up puzzler with musical reveries throughout. It ain't bad.

All of these animal games and Ubisoft trailers have got me thinking about Beyond Good and Evil 2. Maybe we'll see that again at ONL 2030. 

There are no Ghosts at the Grand has been on my list for a while now, so I'll be checking that one out when it hits early access in December.

Double light-saber rabbit character! Squirrel! Rhino! And more!

Well, Zoopunk looks like a trip.

Okay, I'm on board with Pony Island 2.

Pony Island 2: Panda Circus looks deranged and I absolutely love it. It's coming April 27, 2027.

A man's brain uploaded to a pack of rats? Cool. I'm not nervously itching my legs, you are.

Frictional Games, the team behind Soma, is back with a new sci-fi horror situation, and it looks supremely eerie and slightly grotesque. Exactly how we like it, in fact. Ontos is the name and it's coming 2027.

And now it's Cinder City, a cinematic third-person shooter in near-future Seoul.

Just like Ariana taught us.

We're barrelling through, next!

Back to the games! This is NOT Cyberpunk 2077 DLC; it's No Law.

The Games Done Quick folks are fabulous, so this is a cool partnership.

Path of Exile 2's 1.0 release is coming on December 11, btw!

Here's Crazy Taxi: World Tour

And here's Gravhounds!

Lego Skylines is coming from Cities Skylines publisher Paradox Interactive and it looks like Town to City, but with even more detail. Or it looks like Cities Skylines, but with way more block pieces (obviously). Paradox describes it as a "cozy city-builder."

Lego Skylines?! That's dope.

It's called Gravhounds, and there will be lampshade collars.

Gravhounds looks silly and fun, but it might make me too sad if my dogs lose.

Dog Astronauts! I'm locked in. 

Same, Kris. It'll be worth it.

I missed a couple of trailers while I was trying to figure out if I have enough space in my apartment for the Stage Tour drums. Might just have to ditch my couch.

We are all very excited about the Crazy Taxi revival until it turned out AI was part of the development process. Sega claims it was only used for 'background assets' and we'll have to wait and see how it all turns out I guess. 

And I'm not even talking about Stage Tour anymore! This is Crazy Taxi World Tour, with a great soundtrack already.

More Crazy Taxi World Tour updates. Crazy Taxi's return features multiplayer, naturally. It's still on track for launch next year.

Bad Religion always gets me pumped.

Stage Tour comes from RedOctane Games, founded by veterans of the rhythm gaming scene. It's coming December 10, 2026! Rock on.

More music time! The rhythm game revival is nigh.

Intrigued to hear more about that. "The player assumes the role of the stuntwoman Choko Chigusa, who resurrects from the dead and navigates post-apocalyptic Showa America." And it was first announced four years ago. 

Showa American Story is the name, retro-pop RPG is the game.

I like the look of this. Yakuza x Dishonored x Saints Row.

A touch of Dishonored to this. 1666 Amsterdam.

More cats? Witches? Magic? This looks fun. 

Mewgenics, you did not have to have your console release in perhaps the most packed month for games in living memory. 

Here's the Mewgenics OST by Ridiculon, btw.

Mewgenics is coming to PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S on September 8. Hot.

The fiddle! The breathwork! The fur! What's not to love?

This is more for a Berlin crowd, TBH.

"Confused in a London bar" is my preferred aesthetic.

I imagine half the attendees are utterly confused.

This is very reminiscent of a London bar I spent most of my 20s in.

That's one hungry kitty! This rules.

Wake up, folks, it's Mewgenics dance break time.

The whole world's an ad, and the exclusive trailers merely players.

Feels like another ad break is upon us. Though it really is hard to tell sometimes.

It all looks very fun:

I've had that strain.

If I got all that correctly, this DLC is called:

Hitman World of Assassination The Herbalist ft. rap legend Snoop Dogg.

He's the latest elusive target for Hitman's World of Assassination contracts.

This year, Snoop Dogg is in Hitman World of Assassination.

More Snoop. 

Metro 2039 looks incredibly polished, as expected from the series.

It's been a tough development process marred by war, as noted by 4A Games on-stage.

Here's the gameplay trailer for METRO 2039, which can't be embedded due to its many guns and much blood, rather than tentacles.

After a stint in VR, the Ukranian team at 4A Games is back with Metro 2039, a mainline entry in the series. We're getting a look at the new trailer now.

1001 Threads of Mizan also has a ten-minute gameplay footage video on YouTube, which is pretty bold for a game that was just announced.

Here's that big Warlock reveal:

1001 Threads of Mizan is the latest game debut at ONL, and it looks lush.

This is definitely Avowed-esque, with some Soulslike flair. Nice.

More gameplay, please, Gamescom. More '90s song bangers wouldn't go amiss either.

It's great to see so much gameplay of any game, let alone one we were so curious about.

OK but Warlock looks sick as hell? Gothic, dramatic, action-packed. I like the mechanics, magic and melee.

I'm dead, Kris. Beautiful.

Interesting to see how Warlock makes DnD moves and skills work in real-time. (Of all the people, I'm bringing us back on track.)

Boo, Kris. Boooooo.

Octopodes or Octopuses, Jess. It's a proud Greek word.

If an octopus loses half its arms, it might just be all right, all right, all right.

That's what I love about these octopodes, man.

We've been hearing about Exodus for years, so it's nice to see that finally getting a release date. Wild that we'll have Matthew McConaughey and octopus mechs in the same game.

Looks like full-on Ursula trickery.

All right, Maggie Robertson alone has sold me on Warlock.

Maggie Robertson is here to talk Warlock: Dungeons and Dragons.

Here's the release date trailer for Exodus, which we can't embed because those octopus mechs are for mature audiences only.

Lady Dimitrescu herself! What an honor.

Exodus is the octopus mech game, as I now know it. Coming April 7, 2027.

Octopus mech! I repeat: Octopus mech!

This dude talking to an octopus in the current trailer is giving me The Boys flashbacks, and I'm not sure that's intended.

DUST: Origins is the new game from Airship Syndicate, which previously worked on Darksiders Genesis, Battle Chasers: Nightwar, and the League of Legends spinoff Ruined King. If you're a fan of top-down shooters and are sad Housemarque has gone all 3D with its latest games, it's one to get excited about:

I'll never fully understand German culture.

Oh, not time for music. Time for another start to the show? With Sjokz? OK.

The lights went out at the venue. Technical hitch? Nope, intentional shenanigans.

Let the music begin.

The war comes 2027.

Sjokz is back and I'm locked in.

We're now taking a longer look at Game Of Thrones: War of Westeros. (A GoT tactical sim should have been made years ago!)

Very happy that gaming has moved beyond its Imagine Dragons era into The Prodigy bangers in random trailers:

Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall... September is looking delicious.

Control Resonant is almost here. Very fun, according to the multiple demos I've played so far. It lands September 24.

Here is a very earnest very European man presenting his game Lofsong, which seems lovely:

Once again, ads! Refresh your drinks.

I'm very much looking forward to the Mewgenics musical interlude.

The musical levels in Rayman Legends are some of my favorites but it's odd seeing one in 4K UHD with a dynamic swoopy camera. Am I just old?

Ohhh. "Heyyyy, macaroni!"

Rayman jumping on the hands of a luchador doing the Macarena just sold me on Legends Retold.

Rayman is making me hungry.

But here it is. With... Italian food?

Macarena-themed Rayman levels were not on my bingo card...

Mega Man: Dual Override is coming in 2027, but in more important news, there's a Mega Man skin hitting Pragmata this year.

Mega-Man Dual Overide is coming in 2027 too.

(As if you could make an actual Mega-Man in this economy! With these RAM prices?)

Devil may cry (at the frame rates in this Tides of Annihilation trailer):

You called it, Mat. I'm going to play the hell out of Lofsöng.

(Called it!)

OK, this Italian guy's game looks great. It's called Lofsöng.

This feels like a Jess-or-Aaron kind of game. 

Yeah, I clocked that too, Jess. Sometimes lots of jump cuts are there to hide a lot of sins.

Here's Ananta, presented roughly five minutes after our conversation about it:

Tides of Annihilation features a fantastical version of London... and low framerates, according to that trailer. Surely that was just a video issue rather than a gameplay feature, though.

Not to be confused with Control Resonant. That's coming soon, too. 

And now I have Depeche Mode stuck in my head. Thanks, Geoff.

That was for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy. We've entered the "these are just ads" portion of ONL.

Depeche Mode!  (The band, not the game)

This is a cover of another older pop song. (Sorry I should focus on the games!) 

Not nearly enough cursing for a Silent Hill game set in Scotland.

Yep, it still looks good and spooky.

Which brings us, of course, to Silent Hill: Townfall. Cuddle up, folks.

Stop the yodeling. It's time to get scared by a remote Scottish isle!

Watch the Gears of War: E-Day trailer that just premiered at Gamescom Opening Night Live:

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the yodeling over here.

Not enough Cranberries songs being used in game trailers.

I'd love to know how much of this trailer will be accessible in the actual game, yeah. Ananta is coming January 15, 2027.

And here's the new XCOM Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6 Tactics trailer:

(I promise we won't do this bit for every trailer.)

Ananta looks suitably silly, but it's hard to fully discern enough about gameplay just yet. (Love the parody touches, though; was that a Gatsby pose?)

It feels like a big enough title to mark Xbox's 25th anniversary, at least.

I have fond memories of playing Gears of War back in the day, but I can't say I've thought about the franchise much in recent years. Can E-Day reignite the series?

(All due respect to R6, of course!)

Here's that Monster Hunter MMO brand new IP from Hoyoverse in action:

Gears of War E-Day is the first big game we're taking a look at. Xbox exclusive, coming this October.

Today, Sjokz is here with an X-COM-style Rainbow 6: Siege game. Rainbow 6: Tactics, coming 2027.

Sjokz! She's a League of Legends legend, such a great host. I always love to see her show up at these things.

I did not have the makers of Genshin Impact doing their best FromSoftware impression on my bingo card.

It looks like a co-op action title with big demonic baddies. I dig it.

And gory. Lots of executions. Yikes. It's called Nodus Fall.

A new Hoyoverse game is coming. And it looks gorgeous. 

I have a fluffy blanket, a fresh Liquid Death, and I'm sat.

Square Enix's Naoki Hamaguchi will be on stage to share more about Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. I'm listening.

RIP to Geoff's dad, a real one. That was a nice tribute.

Hi, Geoff! Let's start ONL.

Tis time for the real show. Almost.

Mariachi Legends has an incredible art style. And a cooking mini game! Hell yeah. It's coming April 2027 from Halberd Studios.

That's the magic of Gamescom.

We've arguably heard plenty about the new Onimusha at this point, but hey, there's a new expanded demo!

Hi, Kris! And hi, Bob, I guess!

Disney is backing the painting adventure game Murals, which definitely is not Epic Mickey.

Was that Bob Mortimer's voice in the trailer for Murals? Sure sounded like it.

(Oh, hi, don't mind me. I'm quietly gatecrashing this party.)

Valor Mortis: Zombies, 19th-century soldiers and creepy mysteries abound. 

Please tell me it's at least AA. At least AA!

You're the main character in an indie horror game. I'm so sorry.

Mat... I have some bad news.

That first-person blinking sim was perceptum, coming spring 2027.

It's impressive that they managed to fully digitize my living room and where I'm liveblogging ONL from...

I don't like horror games when you can see the characters blinking... 

Shh, the horror games are starting.

Yeah, those Palworld lawyers are seething.

Surfing otters, monster battles, a lil' litigious a premise. It's Aniimo.

Trains, rollercoasters... we'll call this ONL pre-show bit the Simulator Sessions.

The expensive reason is accurate. (But we're definitely going to mention it at least five more times.)

Just to be clear: There will be no 🙅 GTA VI 🙅 trailers today. That's coming Thursday at 3PM ET, exclusively on Netflix for a total of six hours for some strange and likely very expensive reason.

Sup, Worms.

Worms: Galactic Tactics, coming next year.

Yep. A blast from the past. Literally. *looks to camera*

Is this... Worms?

We are into the pre-show; Kyle Bosman is Geoff's hypeman.

Agreed, I swear I saw a dinner plate shaped like an Elite D-pad, and I'm kind of obsessed.

I'd also love to see all that Xbox-IKEA furniture sometime, too. But that'll probably be on Microsoft's own stream. Boo. 

Dad Bautista.

That seems like God Of War. I mean, we have the new actor. 

Any bets on who the special guest will be? Our hint is: 

"Pandas, crazy clowns, underworld lords, souls, and the guy from G- ...yeah I am not finishing that."

Green Day? G-Dragon? God of War? GODZILLA??

Pony Island 2 is a different beast altogether. It comes from Inscryption developer Daniel Mullins, and it features his brand of dark, mind-melting humor in a mystical world of mixed mechanics and dueling genres. Whatever it is, Pony Island 2 is not a game about ponies, Mullins warns. 

There's no release date for it yet, so maybe that'll come in tonight's show? Apparently, the new trailer will feature some guy that everyone is going to freak out over, so that's cool.

Yeah, Townfall looks fun/terrifying. It also looks like a time portal back to the early '90s UK. 

It's such an amazing time for horror media, so I know we're gonna get some good spooks at ONL. Silent Hill: Townfall and Pony Island 2: Panda Circus are both on the docket, which is a great sign already. Townfall is due out next month, on September 23, and I can't wait to explore its foggy seaside village. I recall you enjoyed the demo, Mat!

This year's ONL is sold-out. Brace yourselves, for there will be whooping.

That said, I'm pretty into it.

All I know about Warlock is that the teaser trailer uses Tool to great effect 🤘 Also, I like the protagonist's purple eyeball.

I mean, besides the existence of an Eldritch Blast. We don't know a lot....

Any thoughts on the new DnD game, Warlock? 

I blame Avowed for reigniting my love of fantasy RPGs, so maybe now's my time to dive in. BG3 can't be beat, though.

I mean, it's a CDPR thing. So it's a long adventure. I wonder how much I'll like it post-Baldur's Gate 3, though. 

I should play Witcher, huh?

Cloud's new hair textures aside, I'm stoked to see the first live-action gameplay trailer for Fable, a title that is somehow, thankfully, still in production at Xbox. It's been in development hell for around a decade (since the time of Fable: Legends, technically), and it's being handled by Playground Games. Playground is one of a few studios that Xbox didn't shut down in its round of mass layoffs this summer, and Fable is still due out on February 23, 2027, last we checked.

Calling it Songs of the Past, too. Bit meta.

I'm so intrigued by the new Witcher 3 DLC. It's mind-boggling that we're getting more W3 stuff, but I am certainly not mad.

It's how they keep me watchin', Jessica.

Happy Gamescom, all! One reveal is confirmed, at least: a Final Fantasy VII Revelation... something. That one's just for you, Mat.

We know that Microsoft will show off Persona 4 Revival on its Xbox broadcast tomorrow, but I'm still holding out hope we'll see a little more of the remake during ONL.

Let's get this thing started! This year's Gamescom starts in earnest tomorrow and runs through Sunday August 30, but the biggest gaming headlines usually come from Opening Night Live (ONL). What are we expecting?