Poll: How Would You Rate Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026?

I kept my expectations for Gamescom ONL low, yet I was still disappointed.

pretty awful honestly.

Witcher 3 Remastered looks incredible. FF7 Revelation as well

All they did was show stuff we already knew of with minimal gameplay.

Historically Gamescom has always been the least interesting of the Keighly showcases. I didn’t watch it, but I’d imagine your overall thoughts would depend on how many games it showcased are of interest to you.

For me….Im sure I’ll check out Mega Man…..

Too much gacha games

But some updates on Mega Man Dual Override (with playable Protoman) and FFVII Revelations were nice. I haven't played much of Witcher 3 but wow, free upgrade. Can't say no to that.

Can't wait for more Witcher, the remaster was unexpected but welcome.

It was so 'fine' it was actually kind of painful. Every new announcement just looked like same four games the industry keeps pumping out over and over, and updates to games we already know that have been shoved down our throats all year.

Elta is the coolest looking game that was announced, and it was during the pre show.

Showa lowkey stole the show.... until Witcher showed up

A few moments that were okay/good, padded out by a lot of filler and clone games. Chinese and South Korean churn-and-burn studios were definitely the financial backbone behind this one, but they don't make for interesting viewing.

On the whole, really quite dull.

I think this was the worst show I have had the misfortune to have watched as far as new reveals go. Really, really bad!

The musical number was painful. Skillful, but still painful. Exodus is a big maybe, and I may actually dust off Witcher 3 and play it finally. Beyond that, meh. I'm a little interested to see what XBox has in store for their show.

I would rate it using some kind of numerical scale representing satisfaction with the highest number being most satisfied.

Showa was by far the best game shown during the showcase. FF7 and The Witcher 3 Remastered looked cool too, but not that exciting since we had already seen plenty of them before and/or know what the games are.

Way too many gacha games and free-to-play stuff for my liking

I watched the last 20 min. I quickchecked all the announcements and didn’t miss a lot, obviously.

Free upgrade for Witcher 3 is nice!

Gave it an OK. Was pretty average.

A few interesting things but nothing stand out outside of those already seen

A few good annoucements/updates in amoungst the fluff as usual.

No newly announced games to add to the list, though; in that regard, the show was pretty poor, but we have GTA 6 to thank for that.

Apart from gears e day, I don’t think there was another game I would pay and play.
Yes I did watch the whole 2 hours live.

I genuinely regret watching it.

Crap tastic. Although can't wait for the Witcher 3 expansion and FF7 next year.
Gears looks likes Gears and the og remake bored me to Tears

C- at best. Nothing really that great. Pre show might have been better, lol.

It was pretty awful! All it did was confirm there are tooooo many games, and most of them just look the same, feel the same and do the same thing, I could quite happily never see another dubious baby voiced adult anime game for the rest of my life. I kinda feel pretty checked out from most modern games and this confirmed, a few highlights in FF7, Control, and The Witcher 3 stuff was a nice surprise and Exodus looked pretty cool, but everything else? bin it.

I will admit that I was low expectation because there seems to just not be much for me personally but I was left pretty nonplused. Just felt like aside from the big ones like FF, Control, Silent Hill, W3 DLC and Gears of War E-Day all of which are not for me but also what we knew about, there’s a whole lot of “fantasy/anime slop”. And wow, did “slop” get thrown around a lot in the chat. But I will say nothing stood out to me. I hope something breaks the surface and reaches those like me who just don’t see anything worth navigating.

Eh, I enjoyed it. I get more hyped for things coming out soon, but it's cool to see what "may" be out in the future. I'm also an old man and still about 5 years behind on new games.

Also, Rock Band returns. Already paid $500 for the pre-order.

The Witcher 3 Remaster and Expansion were the biggest highlights, ending a so-so show with an epic bang.

Did not have Hoyoverse riffing on Elden Ring/ Monster Hunter on my bingo card... Curious to see what Nodus Fall ends up actually being.

It was pretty good, though the musical interlude was very trashy, and not the fun kinda trashy like shows American story which looked great.

Don't know what people were expecting really. I like Geoff, but the co-host was very cringy.

I'm excited for FF7 Revelation and the Witcher 3 DLC but other than a couple of other pretty cool looking games, it's just more confirmation that the gaming industry is dominated by Chinese/Korean stuff that looks bland and is designed to empty wallets of the people mad enough to play them.

I thought it was very good. Unfortunately there are too many anime games releasing or souls like games (i like the latter) but the standard of the games seem to be high so you got to appreciate that. Some good looks at games.
I think the issue people have now, is that there is an over abundance of games releasing, that are all enticing but now there is too much choice so you get overwhelmed and then you see that too much similarity

I think sometimes Geoff has to realise more games doesn't always mean better show. Be more selective and trim it down a bit.
Awesome finish though.

So many big games shown, scoring it lower than Good is delusional..

F2PSlopcom. Seriously tired of seeing Hoyoverse BS at these shows.

Very meh, the most pleasant thing for me was showing that Showa American Story is still alive.

@johncalmc sorry can not agree with this take at all. just because a game is free does not mean its automatically trash and nothing anyone says will convince me otherwise.

Good. Fine/10. Only the two at the end were release window purchases but there were a bunch of games shown I may pick up when the price is right.

Great until I heard someone say that Dolly Parton passed away, my feed crashed soon after but what I did see I liked. Thank you again for hosting the chat. I don't know about the presentation, he was on subtitles, I have no idea how he sounds. Though I have to say dressing like a Mars bar was a brave choice.

Didn't watch and from the round up looks like i don't miss any big news.

Dreadful overall. He really should just stick to 2 shows a year.

Very poor/trash. So much multiplayer trash, singleplayer that was so flashy but lacking substance.

Action games were trash, more out there with strategy, city builders were more compelling this time so that's not surprising.

They were all repetitive in marketing, animation, locations, 'gameplay'.

Exodus is good but it's also very Mass Effect with a grapple and 'ok ideas in a few other areas' but otherwise I know about it, I have the channel subbed for months. It's not showing anything more then 'we exist' trailers at this point. They probably cost more then the game did to make at this point.

Sure a new Gears E Day trailer is great, and Witcher/FF7 are good, I won't play but I respect the IPs enough and know their quality.

Other then Warlock everything else was utter filth. But actually doing something interesting with an RPG (yes it's Wizard of the Coast so who knows how far they can do things and how monetised or otherwise but still, even if it's basic world interactivity or combat I want that but we never get it, we have the power it's just dev's minds are too small. Animators or programmers never make anything like this and I want to see more do that) for once mechanically, about time industry, give me interactivity, not boring worlds, not characters and worlds so un-interactivity and 'look at what we can offer' I don't want to play in a world or play a movie

I have a combat/hive mind idea and it will never happen but I'm not selling it to any company as they will never use it and it will never be achieved. Devs are so weak at times of ideas or skills these days, pubs too, Indies don't have the skills or ideas to pull off not easy money genres games or nostalgia trash besides the few creative adventure Indies, other genres suck by dev mentality being so narrow visioned..

i want to play a game with mechanics that are fun, not generic worlds like it's my first day playing a game or only reality/safe creativity rules apply.

Devs are a joke, pubs suck and investors suck, Indies are a joke and make utter trash too in certain cases.

Metro 2035 being linear, regardless of them being in a War I can understand but at but I had no interest in Exodus prior.

Rainbow Six Tactics looked good for what it was. I need to play the 3DS Tom Clancy tactics games but haven't got it yet. I'm not big on western tactics games but want to try more of them. I've enjoyed many eastern ones and wanted to play more western ones.

Tides of Annihilation looked good still.

Lego Cities Skylines looks good, regardless of the situation the studio is in for Skylines 2, I think Lego and Cities Skylines could work (like many Lego builder games in the past).

Sure new Train Sims and Truck Driving games and those are fine.

Humankind 2 is great to see.

A few others, but 99% of it was utter trash, boring ideas, nothing interesting at all, generic marketing/animation/presentation of trailers.

Ideas recycled 1000s of times. Weak use of animal characters, generic humans, generic 'creativity' for 'worlds', tons of gacha slop. I want to be happy for Chinese/Korean devs but many of them are very repetitive mythology or gacha garbage so it's hard to get excited for them.

Part 2:
Also a lot of 'appeal to teens' in the most bland ways possible. It's utter trash personality.

Too edgy with no substance, ok Indies but also very safe games.

Action games or settings and horror that weren't very good at all. Weak framing, too fast, too 'busy' and flashy. All just forgettable. No substance in them at all.

But most were just bland.

But for the action focused games most of them are so forgettable and boring.

2/10, industry is pathetic and not worth my money ever.

Even besides those I'd have said a 0/10 but being fair as there was decent stuff. Worth my money, no, but still some with more creative ideas then I expected among the 99% that wasn't regardless of audiences they were for.

Free Witcher 3 improvements via COMBAT was a dream of mine since I've never been able to finish the game as a day one buyer. Super happy they finally took the criticism over the years seriously.

Tides of Annihilation is basically the only newer IP shown immediately positive.

Ontos had some moments (needed to be a bit more gritty).

Cinder City...sigh..but again MMO that would have been better off starting as a focused co-op campaign that was later/sequel/offshoot an online or MMO experience. Just wasted potential.

Lots of GaaS that will likely fail but what can you do.

Generally it was bad, so many half ideas that could be better if it was just another genre being a new IP introduced at a show.

megaman look cool. Other than that it feels i never get those 2 hours back

I was already looking forward to the likes of Tides and Metro 2039 (and I guess a bit of Silver Palace) which means the opening night was pretty "uninspiring" to say the least.

I was a bit sad the RE9 DLC didn't get revealed. 😕

@Basketball_Theseus Keighley gets a lot of crap but he's the sole reason these three big showcases (Summer Games Fest, Gamescom Opening Night Live and The Game Awards) exist in the first place. If you want to blame anyone, blame ESA for their mismanagement of E3 or the individual publishers who were moving away from costly conferences with some preferring to host online livestreams instead. It's easy to say there should be pushback, but who else is willing to commit to the significant cost it takes to put up an event like this?

Mewgenics coming to PS5 was my highlight. Also nice to have an excuse to replay Witcher 3.

Pretty much everything else looked very dull. Were al lot of the games using Unreal Engine? Because they certainly looked very similar.

I know we have seen a lot of the following already, but the games shown I'm looking forward to are plentiful;

Definitely picking up when available;

• Witcher 3 Remastered and DLC
• Warlock; D&D
• Blood of Dawnwalker
• No Law
• Metro 2039

Peaked my interest but still unsure;

• Onimusha
• Tides of Annihilation
• Zoopunk
• The Defiant
• Elta; Defy All Gods

I guess that if you would shrink the show to 30 min by cutting the 75% worst showings, the general sentiment would be much better, and people would appreciate the good games more.

@Snackfood Definitely going to be pre-ordering the full kit too. My rock band drums are showing their age and these look good!

@Barry_vV I was honestly thinking scoring it above okay was delusional. Guess it depends on your definition of “big” games, I saw like 2 or 3 of them, with one being a remaster of an 11 year old game with new DLC

@Logonogo Well the following games were in my opinion all big games:

• FF7 Revelation
• The Witcher 3
• Rainbow Six game (big franchise)
• Onimusha gameplay + extended demo
• World Premiere Gears of War trailer
• Silent Hill
• Resonance
• Tides of Annihilation new VA
• Blood of the Dawnwalker
• Control Resonant beelden
• Exodus
• Monster Hunter Mobile game (not my thing but big franchise)
• Metro 2039 beelden
• Aliens Fire team elite 2

I think people scoring it below Good had other (not realistic) expectations. New game announcements or something?

Don't watch a football match expecting tennis, then you will get disappointed.

Actually there was more there I'm interested in than I expected - Mega Man, R6 Tactics, Crazy Taxi, FF7 Rev, Tides, Onimusha, Lego Skylines and Mewgenics. Lovely!

Theres only 2 x games that really tickled my fancy and I already knew about them.
Im glad i didnt watch the whole thing but was mostly disappointed. No biggie. they cant all be bangers

@SuntannedDuck2 are you a developer yourself? You seem to have some very strong opinions on them, was just wondering if it's based on expertise or not.

overall pretty uninspiring . kind of wished Id watched Birmingham City get a right drubbing in the carabao cup

This is the most normal distribution ass poll results.

I wanted to watch it, but my god, the ads. I’ve never had them be that bad before. It had an ad every 60 seconds, which made it unwatchable. I like watching these shows, but ads every 60 seconds is obscene. I made it through the pre show and about 20 minutes of the keynote and that was as much as I could take.

It’s sad when the big highlight is a remaster of a decade old game and we are all excited, that’s the state of gaming in 2026