Opening Night Live annoucements you need to know

Key Takeaways

Gamescom featured big game reveals like King of Meat and Indiana Jones coming to PS5.
Dune Awakening offers deep gameplay mechanics in a new MMO-like experience.
Civilization 7 is set to release on February 11, 2025, bringing the classic Civ gameplay.

If you thought all the big summer game showcases were over, we’ve got one more to officially end this season with a bang. Gamescom is the largest gaming convention in the world hosted all the way across the globe in Cologne Germany. All the big publishers will be there to show new trailers and let people at the event get some hands-on time with their upcoming games .

Sadly, most of us can’t be there in person to see all the festivities, but we can catch all the big reveals. Opening Night Live kicks off Gamescom with a massive showcase of games from big names like Xbox and Amazon, as well as some slightly smaller games we’re just as pumped to see. Being hosted in Germany, Opening Night Live probably wasn’t happening at night for you so odds are you may have missed it. Not to worry, because I hand-picked only the most important announcements you need to know from the showcase.

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1 King of Meat

Amazon’s co-op dungeon crawler

Amazon has two big hits with New World and Lost Ark, but both were more hardcore MMO games. King of Meat from Glowmade is about as different from those games as you can get. It has a delightful art style and what looks like straightforward gameplay that appeals to gamers of all ages, plus a satirical setup that sounds like it is rife for some amazing humor. I’m already enamored with the rubber duckie that doubles as a grenade. You are a player in a new reality show where you’re sent into a dungeon full of monsters trying to get as much loot as you can to spend on new moves and costumes. The game can be played with up to four people, plus allows you to make your own dungeons to share.

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2 Indiana Jones

No longer an Xbox exclusive

Capping off the event, we got just about all the information one could want about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Well, everything except a better title. Narrated by Troy Baker who will be playing Indie, he teases the mysteries of the game while lavishing the character with love and admiration. He promises a thrilling first-person adventure that lives up to the hights of the films, complete with dangerous fights, ancient puzzles, and a wealth of exotic locations to explore. We had to wait until after the trailer ended to get the first big reveal, which is the December 9 release date, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Despite being made by MachineGames under Bethesda, which is owned by Xbox, Indiana Jones will also be coming to PS5 in Spring 2025.

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3 Dune Awakening

A spicy trailer

This Dune game has been showing up here and there for years, but now we finally get to see what life on Arrakiss will be like. This deep dive trailer walks us through the massive amounts of options and gameplay mechanics in the game. As a new MMO-like experience, you will have tons of gear for your own character, skills and abilities for different combat styles, but also fully customizable bases that you can move wherever you like and team up with friends in guilds. If it can manage to pull all these elements together, Dune Awakening could be a contender for the next hit survival MMO.

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4 Borderlands 4

Has to be better than the movie

It was the smallest of teases, but Borderlands 4 is officially confirmed to be coming in 2025. Now, after the catastrophic bomb that was the Borderlands movie, there’s a lot of stink around this franchise right now so confidence in a new game is not as strong as it probably should be. Gameplay will be the most important thing as always, but there will be an extra layer of scrutiny on the writing this time around. Honestly, I’m not sure Gearbox can pull it off but I’m excited to see it try.

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5 Civilization 7

Coming February 11, 2025

Mark your calendars, Civ fans, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say tear them up because Civ 7 is coming in February to take over your life. We only just found out this game existed earlier in the summer so this is a very nice surprise to have it coming out so soon. So far, it looks exactly like a Civ game, for better or for worse. Odds are it will take a few expansions to match the depth of the last one, but that’s kind of the Civ cycle. If you’re looking forward to this one, don’t forget to tune in for the full gameplay stream the team is hosting to learn who the new narrator will be.