Sonic, Skull & Bones And A Whole Bunch Of Indies: The Gamescom 2022 Round-Up
By Marc Eybert-GuillonI just spent 3 days at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, and although I was there for business to network and make deals in the mercifully not-so-busy business section of the convention, I did get the opportunity to test and see a lot of interesting things, so let’s get to it!
The Big Stuff
Let’s start with the headliners, the AAAs, the big booths…
During Gamescom Opening Night, Unknown Worlds, developers of Subnautica, revealed their new game and IP, Moonbreaker. This turn-based strategy game has the particularity of using minis instead of fully animated characters, replicating the feeling of a tabletop skirmish game digitally. I tried it and the gameplay felt standard but robust, with a variety of heroes each boasting their own special abilities. Although this didn’t seem revolutionary in the slightest, it could serve up some nice strategic games. The painting tool — complete with color palettes, washes, dry brushes and more — that allows you to customize your minis is a niche addition, but probably the most interesting part of the game. I already don’t find as much time as I’d like painting my real-life minis, so I don’t know if I’ll be looking to replicate that frustration digitally, but I can see some people finding real enjoyment out of this and creating beautiful pieces.
In the same booth as Moonbreaker, one could line up for an ‘interactive’ trailer for Striking Distance’s Callisto Protocol. This was a thoroughly underwhelming experience amounting to nothing more than a quick ad for the game. A game that admittedly looks awesome and is set to be the Dead Space follow-up we’ve all been waiting for. I just wish it had something to actually show at Gamescom.
If you’re looking for a horror experience, I had a much better time with the prologue for Pieces Interactive’s Alone in the Dark remake. Although fairly short and not bursting with gameplay, I thought it set up an intriguing atmosphere and mystery in an appealing setting, as you played a little girl exploring a strange manor in the 1920s. Nothing mind-blowing, but I’ll keep an eye on the full game.
In the booth opposite Alone in the Dark, we swung in a completely opposite tonal direction with SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake, a spiritual successor to Battle For Bikini Bottom developed by Purple Lamp Studios. I am not a huge SquarePants fan, nor have I ever played the original, so I lack the nostalgia and fan-enjoyment that might inject a different perspective into this, but I found it to be a serviceable 3D platformer: double-jump and ground-pound your way from objective to objective while picking up collectibles and dispatching baddies. It’s got some charm and kids in particular will surely enjoy it, but if anything, it seemed visually and mechanical somewhat outdated. Maybe the full game will have more to offer.
In a different hall, Bandai Namco rolled out a large booth for Limbic Entertainment’s Park Beyond, a game that looks way too similar to Planet Coaster for its own good. I tried the demo, but after several minutes of a long-winded, boring introductory cutscene, I had little patience for a basic tutorial on coaster building. The options available seem nice enough, but it remains to be seen whether this will be able to compete with what’s already out there, and come on, who wants to watch a cheap cutscene for what feels like forever in a context where you’re already waiting in line for hours to try some of these demos. Get to the gameplay!
Next to Park Beyond stood a large Skull & Bones booth in which Ubisoft set up a theatre to show exclusive live-commented gameplay presentations of their pirate game. I caught the multiplayer showing, which I thought looked fun enough, but did not fully convince me. The game loop seems similar to Sea of Thieves, as outposts will allow you to meet various factions that may send you on quests you will be able to tackle with your friend armada. Once at sea, players each control an individual ship, which removes the onboard, hands-on management of individual duties that can be fun for a cooperative experience in Sea of Thieves, Skull & Bones’ most direct competitor. Instead, each player brings a ship with specific characteristics, bringing this much more in line with a typical team-based multiplayer game (the presentation even directly described ships as ‘DPS’, ‘support’ and ‘tank’), except you’re controlling ships on water instead of characters on land. However, the ship customization options — which are not simply cosmetic but also impact gameplay as you equip specific armor types, weapons and more — could offer some cool depth, and the game looks visually appealing and seems like it could be a fun time with friends. I will keep an eye on it and might pitch it to my friend group at some point.
Finally, on Sega’s side, I got to try Team Sonic’s bold new direction for their mascot: Sonic Frontiers. I will say I did not find it as rough as one might expect from the rocky first showings the game had. The highlights were definitely the two cyberspace levels I got to try, which channeled standard boost-based 3D Sonic gameplay in bite-sized portions that encourage replayability. The open-world shows some promise, with a good base for engaging combat and fun traversal, although I found it a bit slow, which is not what you’d hope to hear about a Sonic game. However, the game does feature a progression system that I hope will speed up the gameplay and spice up the combat as you progress through the game. Visually, although it didn’t look bad, the section of the open-world that was shown (the same grassy lands they’ve mostly showcased so far) feels fairly uninspired, and I still spotted some of the nasty popup that was very noticeable in those first trailers. Let’s hope this gets ironed out.
I will also quickly mention Lies of P, Neowiz’s Pinocchio Bloodborne (with a cool dash of Dishonored esthetics). I didn’t get to try it, as the wait was in the hours when I got to the booth, but it looks sick and I will be keeping an eye on it.
The Indies
Finally, the interesting stuff!
A lot of indie devs came to (make you) play this year. A big serving of colorful narrative experiences and Slay the Spire descendants!
Of the former, one that immediately stood out to me was Fall of Porcupine, by Buntspecht Games: a cute narrative adventure that sees you going to a new town to pursue a medical diploma and leads you to discover the dark side of the healthcare industry. A dark interior wrapped in an inviting anthropomorphic exterior. You’ll feel right at home if you’ve enjoyed Night in the Woods. Similarly colorful, but in a different art style, Triple Topping’s Dead Pets Unleashed tells the tale of a failing punk band that tries to hit it big before their thirties get in the way. A narrative experience sprinkled with light management mechanics and a variety of mini games, including, of course, rhythm games for band practice! Finally, Daedalic Entertainment showed Elf Games’ Children of Silentown, a narrative adventure with a sort of children book esthetic set in a village where everyone speaks low by fear of attracting the monsters that lurk in the surrounding forest…
In addition to Children of Silentown and among other things, Daedalic also showed off Snowhound Games’ Potion Tycoon, a potion-making management game, and the much-anticipated Inkulinati (winner of Gamescom’s ‘Best indie game’ and ‘Most original game’), by Yaza Games: a very unique and gorgeous turn-based adventure that will see you battling with your army of animal knights and bishops in the margins of medieval manuscripts. We are happy to say that all three of these games will feature localization work by the team at From the Void, so you can look forward to that!
On the Slay the Spire side of things, Big Blue Bubble’s Power Chord applies the formula to a rock’n’roll esthetic and spins it slightly by having you bring a squad to battle instead of a single character. Each character brings their own cards with them, which means that you’ll lose access to the cards of the characters who die, but will still be able to push forward without them. This feels like if Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon started a punk band together. Meanwhile, in Tower: To The Bottom, by Shueisha Games, you take a team of children down a tower filled with mysteries in an attempt to uncover an escape and find resources to keep your commune of kids alive. The food and commune mechanics add meta campaign management to your journey, while ventures down the tower will feature events and Slay the Spire-like card combat, but played in real time! An intriguing package, but wrapped in a slightly lackluster esthetic and English text that would merit some polish. Finally, Broken Spear showed Beneath Oresa, another straight descendant of Megacrit’s seminal indie title, but featuring cryptic lore delivered with Dark Souls-like obtuseness and fully 3D environments and characters, with cinematic animations that lend some weight and impact to your actions. Combat also shows consideration for positioning, as characters move around the environment to perform their moves, which adds another layer of strategy to battle.
Let’s do a quick-fire round of yet another bunch of cool indie games from Gamescom you might be interested in:
In The Wandering Village (Stray Fawn Studio), you build a community and try to survive on the back of a huge beast. A very unique setting and charming art style. Will you live in communion with the animal, or will you be a parasite?
The Fabulous Fear Machine (Fictiorama Studios) is a strategy game with narrative elements that tasks you with conquering territories Risk-style, but without sending an army, instead using fear to subdue the population. You play a politician, basically.
In Sandwalkers (Goblinz Studio), you guide a caravan of adventurers through hostile environments and battle monsters in turn-based combats as you uncover intriguing lore and attempt to establish a new home for your people.
Deadlink (Gruby Entertainment) is a fast-paced cyberpunk FPS that looks to channel the Doom reboot’s energy in a roguelite format.
In Saga of Sins (Bonus Level Entertainment), you will jump into the minds of cursed villagers to save them from the seven deadly sins. The animations and side-scrolling action gameplay looked fairly basic, but the premise and art style are quite cool!
Dome Keeper (Bippinbits) combines mining and resource-gathering with tower defense in a minimalist pixel art style. Go into the mines to find resources and get back up just in time to protect your dome from the waves of incoming aliens!
Play How to Say Goodbye (ARTE France) if you’d like to shed a tear while you solve puzzles in unique moody environments.
I loved the look of Lakeside (Massive Galaxy Studios), a side-scrolling, pixel art city builder that tasks you with expanding a small picturesque village near a lake into a gorgeous city.
The Conclusion
Please let me play Callisto Protocol.
See you next year in Cologne