Ahhh, Opening Night Live.

That’s the intro.

Gamescom 2024 is underway, and of course, was kicked off by the Opening Night Live, a two-hour showcase of new and semi-new announcements. I was at the gym for most of this watching on my phone, so I missed some of the immediate reveals.

That said, I’m caught up, and while ONL felt pretty tame, here are the small nuggets that caught my eye.

Borderlands 4 – Coming 2025

I can’t be the only one who finds the timing of this reveal funny, with the catastrophic debut of the Borderlands movie on everyone’s minds. On a positive note, I will praise Gearbox for not making fans wait another seven years before the next mainline entry.

I’m not sure what to expect from this since Borderlands 3 was both hit and miss for me, although it’s not an easy task to follow up Borderlands 2. We’ll see if Gearbox learned from the sins of Borderlands 3 when Borderlands 4 arrives in 2025.

Dying Light: The Beast – Release Date TBA

This is a strange one, but Dying Light: The Beast is a standalone title following Kyle Crane, the protagonist from the first game who now has enhanced zombie powers. I didn’t beat The Following DLC, but I will assume that the DLC and this upcoming story are related.

There’s no release date, but with four-player coop and a smaller scope (outlets are reporting it’ll be around 20 hours), I’m hoping this can recapture the magic of the first title that Dying Light 2 didn’t have.

Secret Level

Secret Level is an anthology series set to hit Prime Video later this year, featuring 15 episodes of gaming-related stories that pull from some of gaming’s most notable titles such as PAC-MAN, Warhammer 40,000, and Sifu.

Wait, Sifu?

There’s plenty of big names in here, with the trailer sharing shots of Kratos, Mega Man, and even Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima.

This looks so cool, and it’s crazy to think something like hasn’t been done before (I could be wrong on that statement). We’ll see how it plays out this December.

Other Notables

• Sniper Elite: Resistance – No idea how they keep making these games, but there’s yet another Sniper Elite title en route in 2025. It’ll be a Day One GamePass title, and most likely feature more World War 2 shenanigans (this is confirmed, not me spitballing).
• Dune: Awakening – When this is was revealed, I was on the fence, but the Gamescom gameplay (that’s a mouthful to read) trailer made it look better than I thought it would be.
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II got a small gameplay trailer, and it looks pretty good, which is a far cry from what I thought about the first game.
• The Mafia series returns with The Old Country, a narrative set in the early 1900s. I enjoy these games, so this will definitely be on my radar.