Everyone’s heading to Germany for the “2nd” E3 of the summer but it feels like every year developers are releasing more surprises at Gamescom instead of showing it all at E3. Is Gamescom our new Vahalla?
Gamescom kicked off its opening night show with a plethora of world premieres. And it did so in a faster paced and more thrilling way than at E3. Sure E3 has more representation and over the years it became the number one spot to reveal the next big elephant in gaming. But lately Germany has made a sleeker, bigger and better con with more content that is also closer to release date.
The pre-summer… a great period to sit back, relax and sip some cocktails while checking out the many trailers of E3. Mid June has become a tradition to release the latest in gaming but a problem arises… Sometimes we see games that never hit the shelves. Few of them are actually playable and games are shown far before playable builds. While it’s nice to dream and get some saliva bubbling in our greedy gamer mouths we’re left with not much to actually tangle straight away. Gamescom however spans a good amount of time and with its giant halls it seats neatly into mid august. As gamers we know that by the end of summer it’s a good time to start saving up money because autumn (aka “big release period”) is nearing our crying wallets.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Concrete Genie
WWE 2K20
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
MediEvil
The Outer Worlds
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Just Dance 2020
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Death Stranding
Need For Speed Heat
Pokémon Sword and Shield
Shenmue III
Doom Eternal
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
…
Gamescom is just a 2 to 3 months away from the above major releases and it can offer more finished builds to play and a lot more finished products can be shown. Developers are not bound to these release periods but think of it, all major releases span from september to Christmas don’t they? The reason has to do with shareholders that need to be happy at the end of the fiscal year meetings but that’s technical stuff I won’t bore you with.
While E3 dropped bombs with a Witcher 3 announcement on Switch… Gamescom showed 40 minutes of actual gameplay.
Need for Speed Heat wasn’t ready at all to be shown at E3. So EA didn’t do that, they waited for a reveal last weekend to top it off with actual gameplay here at Gamescom! And who doesn’t remember the Predator games? Sure they weren’t always fan favorites and had some difficulties filling in the hype that was created… But Gamescom showed us a new one and it looked amazing.
Gamescom is shaping up to become a better place to announce new software. Look at Google, they know what they’re doing surely? Sure they showed some stuff around E3 but Gamescom was the moment they used to talk about actual games. If Google does it, it seems like the right thing to do, right? Now let’s hope Stadia can fill in the hype it creates though.
And if that’s not enough, Hideo Kojima himself thought Gamescom would be ideal to reveal some valuable info on Death Stranding. He keeps it a bit mysterious, as is the game… but he showed us more here at Gamescom.
E3 is in our hearts and will always remain a good show. But it feels like Gamescom is mounting an offensive… And this was only opening night… E3, you better watch out, this “German Shepherd” doesn’t only bark!
