All Gamescom ONL 2023 announcements and trailers in one place

In what’s become an end-of-summer bookend on the game release calendar, Gamescom’s Opening Night Live showcase is once again here to highlight games coming your way in the near future. Hosted by Geoff Keighley, who introduced himself as “the creator of The Game Awards,” the stream primarily focused on new or first looks at previously announced games like Mortal Kombat 1, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and the next season of Diablo 4, along with a few surprises.

Here’s a breakdown of the trailers and announcements that were shown:

Little Nightmares 3

Co-op is the big new addition in the third installment of the creepy-cute platformer, which lets players journey through the game in local or online co-op. There’s also a podcast: The Sounds of Nightmares, going behind the scenes of the games’ production. Expect this one in 2024.

Black Myth Wukong

The much-hyped action-RPG from Chinese developer Game Science, Black Myth Wukong takes the Soulsbourne formula and brings it to a world of Chinese myth inspired by Journey to the West. The new trailer blends wonderfully macabre imagery with ornate fantasy, and looks like a great way to get your post-Elden Ring fix.

Killing Floor 3

Remember the Killing Floor games? This is the third one. They really didn’t say much else about it, but there was this gnarly looking trailer.

Age of Empires 4: Anniversary Edition

A remaster of the classic real-time strategy game, now available on Xbox, joining Age of Empires 2 and politely ignoring Age of Empires 3. The first shadow drop of the night, now on Xbox consoles and Game Pass.

Rebel Moon

Zack Snyder showed up to show off the first trailer for his forthcoming Netflix epic Rebel Moon, and some further plans to expand the world of his two-part film. Including a video game, where you will “pick your rebel” and join in on the fun. No footage of the game though.

Crimson Desert

Pearl Abyss’ long-AWOL open-world action game got a good long gameplay trailer, showing off a game that looks like it wants to out-Assassins Creed Assassins’ Creed, complete with weird high-tech puzzles, a frankly incredible-looking fishing game, and hot air balloons. There is honestly a frightening amount of stuff in this game, and all of it looks wildly detailed. Bananas stuff.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Speaking of Assassin’s Creed, the new one takes a further step towards cultural immersion, with a story trailer introducing Assassins’ Creed Mirage entirely in Arabic. The soft reboot of the Assassins’ Creed franchise arrives Oct. 5.

Tekken 8

The year of kickass fighting games continues with the newest look at Tekken 8, showing off the story mode that focuses on your player-created character, similar seeming to World Tour mode in Street Fighter 6 — and the assurance that the traditional story mode focused on the Mishima bloodline will continue.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Here’s the first look at gameplay from the campaign to the second Modern Warfare 3 game. The showcase also dropped some details on what will be rounding out the package, namely an open-world Zombies mode and a full multiplayer suite with the usual fare when it releases on Nov. 10.

Nightingale

The retro-fantasy survival game gets an early access release date and a very thorough gameplay trailer showing off exploration, gunplay, building, magic, and….cards? Nightingale releases in Early Access on Feb. 22, 2024

Zenless Zone Zero

Hoyoverse’s next showstopper, full of sci-fi furries and a fully-stocked arcade jam packed with minigames. Get ready for another free-to-play timesink. Zenless Zone Zero kicked off a mini-block of Hoyoverse updates, with a new trailer for the PS5 release of Honkai Star Rail and a look at a very French-looking update for Genshin Impact.

Lords of the Fallen

A new story trailer for the follow-up to one of the first Soulslike imitators to come from a Western studio, Lords of the Fallen shows off its grim bona fides and monstrous foes in advance of its release on Oct. 13.

Sonic Superstars (and Sonic Frontiers)

Did you forget that Sega is releasing a co-op Sonic game? In case you did, we got a new trailer for it. Make sure you make friends before the game comes out. In the meantime, there’s an expansion for Sonic Frontiers coming out for you to play solo.

Under the Waves

Shown off apropos of nothing, Under the Waves looks like a lonesome submarine narrative/survival game that gives echoes of Firewatch. Very different from much of the big-budget stuff on display today, the game comes from French development shop Parallel Studio and Spotlight, the publishing arm of Quantic Dream. The game arrives next week, on Aug. 29.

Expedition: A Mudrunner Game

Focus and Saber Interactive have followed up Snowrunner and Mudrunner with a game about open-world off-road driving to accomplish tasks that you can only do with some heavy duty four-wheel drive and some series tow cables

The Crew: Motorfest

Ubisoft’s racing franchise The Crew gets the Forza: Horizon treatment, with a festival-style approach to racing a full garage of customizable wheels.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Cyberpunk 2077 reaches its final form in this new expansion, which adds a a new campaign but also redesigns the game’s systems top-to-bottom, redesigning the perk tree, cyberware, and adding new skills to revamp both the base game for new players and lure lapsed ones back. Those updates, by the way, come to the base game for all players in a free 2.0 update.

Stormgate

Real-Time Strategy game throwback Stormgate showed off one of its factions, the Infernals, a cartoonish demon horde that looks to give the StarCraft 2/WarCraft 3 homage a character all of its own.

Last Epoch

The “community-built” action-RPG showed off its new class, the Runemaster, the latest bid in the developer’s effort to build the ultimate action RPG. We’ll find out if they pull it off when the game launches Sept. 7.

Mortal Kombat 1

The “wildest” trailer for Mortal Kombat 1 yet shows off some brutal gameplay alongside NetherRealm’s expansive storytelling. The back-to-basics reboot featured a very young Raiden, a Shao Khan that is only just starting to be a problem, and of course, some bone-breaking fatalities.

Ara: History Untold

A turn-based grand strategy game set in an alternate history, Ara looks like the next contender for the Civilization crown.

Diablo IV: Season of Blood

Would you believe that the land of Sanctuary is still having a bad time? Everyone, little kids included, is turning into messed-up little monsters, and you’ve gotta do something about it with new vampiric powers. The new season is called Season of Blood, and it’s coming this fall — with a new character, the vampire hunter Eris, played by Eternals actor Gemma Chan.

Dustborn

Refreshingly weird, it’s not quite clear what kind of game Dustborn is — full of story about oddballs on a roadtrip, but also full of third-person action in a cartoonish sci-fi world. Keep an eye out for more.

Thank Goodness You’re Here

Look at this little guy! He’s so little! What a great weirdo! It looks like he’s the star of a platformer? I’m very into this Cartoon Network-y game. Thank goodness it’s here!

Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake’s journey to escape the nightmare realm of The Dark Place blends live-action and in-game footage in Remedy’s sequel, which looks to continue the first game’s equal parts Twin Peaks homage and Stephen King riff.