Gamescom 2020: The biggest gaming news to come from this year’s event

One of the rarest privileges I have had in my gaming career was to join 400,000 other gaming addicts in Cologne to experience Gamescom.

The entire Kolnmesse area heaved with energy and excitement and it felt like I was in gaming heaven. So naturally, it felt particularly weird to see the Gamescom event taking place entirely online this year — but I guess that’s the reality of coronavirus 2020.

Nevertheless, as always, the expo delivered some amazing news for some of the biggest games set to release in the next few months. Here were some of my favourites.

Gamescom 2020

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

World of Warcraft fans were treated to a short animated film entitled Afterlives which helped set the scene for the upcoming Shadowlands expansion. This film will be followed by three more as we lead up to the launch of the new expansion which is set for 27 October this year.

Star Wars: Squadrons

I’ve been wanting to get my hands on the new Star Wars Squadrons, ever since it was announced earlier this year at EA games expo. The game centres around team-based aerial dog-fights between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire and looks like tons of fun.

At Gamescom 2020 we were shown one of the single-player missions and it was announced that the game will be fully playable in VR.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Lego fans can expect a brand new Lego Star Wars game which is said to feature content from all nine main films. In the gameplay teaser, we saw glimpses of Anakin racing his pod racer, as well as his final transformation into Darth Vader (sorry, spoiler alert) as well as Luke Skywalker going to town with his lightsaber.

As always with the Lego games, we can expect plenty of light-hearted, family-friendly fun and a bit of humour too.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

The new Ratchet and Clank game did some serious flexing at Gamescom when we were treated to some uninterrupted gameplay showcasing some the new features in the game. We saw the return of some of our old favourite weapons but were thoroughly impressed by the new Rift Tether feature which allowed Ratchet to reach inaccessible areas by jumping through rift dimensions all in mind-blowing graphical fidelity and with zero load times.

The game promises to have zero load times when it launches on the Playstation 5.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

As the name suggests, the new Call of Duty will be set during the 1980s and the peak of the Cold War. It was announced that it will be a direct sequel of the original Black Ops game and fans of the series can expect to welcome back prior series heroes Frank Woods and Jason Hudson.

Fall Guys Season 2

If you haven’t heard of Fall Guys then I don’t know under what rock you’ve been hiding. The game launched at the start of August and has already sold two million copies and became the most downloaded PSN+ game of all time.

It seems like the studio cannot take a wrong step at the moment and it looks like that love affair with the gamers of the world is set to continue in Season 2 – expected to launch in October.

We were treated to a sneak preview of some of the new levels as well as an absolute bounty of new costumes for your jelly beans to run around in.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time

90s platformer fans rejoice! Not only are Crash Bandicoot fans going to be getting to play a brand new Crash game for the first time in decades, but it was announced that the new game, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, will feature “Flashback Tape” levels which will provide players with a trip down memory lane to the golden days of the series.