In short
Game Scoop! Presents: Best of Gamescom 2026, recorded on the Gamescom show floor in Germany. Hosts Damon Hatfield and Nick Limone discuss the scale of Gamescom, booth highlights, and their top picks for games shown.
Guests
Nick Limone (co-host; regular Game Scoop crew member). Damon Hatfield is the host. No other guests appear.
Key claims
- Gamescom is vastly bigger than E3/PAX (hosts cite ~350k+ attendance).
- Konami “turned things around,” highlighted by Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.
- Microsoft Asha Sharma stresses next-gen “affordability and efficiency,” amid a $900 Xbox 25th anniversary console and scalper pricing.
- Nintendo’s booth is light on major upcoming announcements (notably missing Ocarina of Time remake hands-on).
Notable examples
- Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse: Arcana/tarot soul system; Rose Belmont; whip-pull + enemy targeting; Holy Cross and “Kestis” gauntlet upgrade; demo date Oct 15.
- The Witcher 3 Remastered: free upgrade for owners; includes DLC; community HD texture mod support.
- Final Fantasy VII: Revelation: “weapons” monsters trailer; verticality focus; Ruby/Emerald references.
- Mega Man Duel Override: dual override risk/reward; “built for survival/firepower” chips; Twinkle Girl robot master.
- Terranigma port/remaster with CRT/pixel scaling.
- Crimson Desert Enhanced (2.0) story/start reworks.
- Tides of Annihilation (action, Arthurian knights, destroyed London).
- Rainbow Six Tactics (single-player, XCOM-like, 2027).
- Honorable mention: Showa American Story (alternate 80s Japan colonizes US).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOExperiencing Gamescom 2026
0:00 to 1:02
The hosts share their experiences at Gamescom, highlighting its scale and excitement.
“August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins and honestly I can't think of a better place to start than my closet that's why I love shopping at Quince.”
Experiencing Gamescom 2026
1:05 to 1:20
The hosts share their experiences at Gamescom, highlighting its scale and excitement.
“That's quince.com slash gamescoop for free shipping and 365 day returns.”
Experiencing Gamescom 2026
1:44 to 3:11
The hosts share their experiences at Gamescom, highlighting its scale and excitement.
“Coming to you from the show floor here at Gamescom, where Konami has a booth right behind us, and Castlevania Belmont's Curse is very prominently featured.”
Game Announcements and Highlights
3:11 to 4:19
Discussion on major game booths and highlights including Konami and Xbox.
“And I've run into a lot of GameScoop fans that stopped me this week.”
Xbox's Next Generation Strategy
4:19 to 6:46
Analysis of Xbox's approach to affordability and efficiency in consoles.
“But a couple years ago, I can never remember.”
Nintendo's Underwhelming Presence
6:46 to 8:31
Discussion about Nintendo's booth and their game lineup at Gamescom.
“scalpers snatched up this$900 25th anniversary console as soon as it went on pre-orders and they're selling them on eBay for$1 ,500.”
Anticipating Ocarina of Time Remake
8:31 to 11:28
Hosts express their thoughts on the missing Ocarina of Time remake at the event.
“I believe it was the one and it might have been 360.”
Castlevania Belmont's Curse Gameplay
11:28 to 14:00
In-depth discussion on the gameplay experience of Castlevania Belmont's Curse.
“I think it's weird that this game is out in three months and Nintendo, aside from that very short teaser trailer reveal, isn't saying anything about it.”
Gameplay Mechanics of the New Castlevania Game
14:00 to 16:00
Learn about the unique combat mechanics and animations in the new Castlevania game.
“They do say this takes place within a generation of Trevor and Saifa from that Netflix series.”
Witcher 3 Remastered Announcement
16:00 to 18:34
Discussion on the remastered version of Witcher 3 and its new features.
“Okay, we need to take a quick break, but stick around.”
Show all 20 chapters
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Insights
18:34 to 21:05
Insights on the new trailer and gameplay mechanics of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
“i did something wrong yeah i mean well it's such a smart move because songs of the past is dlc for by for i guess by the time it's out a 12 year old game correct so you know get it looking nice get everyone back into it.”
Mega Man Duel Override Reveal
21:05 to 23:21
Overview of gameplay features and mechanics in Mega Man Duel Override.
“Ruby can wipe out your party within 30 seconds, as can Emerald, who can do 9 ,999 damage to all three party members at once.”
Terranigma's Surprise Announcement
23:21 to 28:00
Discussion about the surprising re-announcement and playability of Terranigma at Gamescom.
“This is sort of the first big gameplay reveal, and when that footage first came on screen, a lot of it said, well, it kind of looks like Mega Man 8.”
Excitement for Pragmata and Terranigma
28:00 to 31:10
The hosts discuss their reactions to new game announcements, including Pragmata and Terranigma.
“Although when we were all watching it together, all of IGN who's here was watching the ONL presentation, the biggest reaction that this part of the show got was the Pragmata skins.”
Deep Dive into Terranigma
31:20 to 39:50
Discussion about the significance of Terranigma, its gameplay elements, and the excitement around its upcoming release.
“We're just talking about Terranigma, which is the Super Famicom game released in the 90s in Japan and PAL territories, but not North America.”
Exploring New Game Announcements
39:50 to 42:00
The hosts share their thoughts on several upcoming games, including Rainbow Six Tactics and the quirky Showa American Story.
“And I also like another game that's coming out soon.”
Weird Game Features
42:00 to 42:34
Explore unusual game features like karaoke minigames and arcade elements.
“abilities back into a new game and you finally can use all your combos and stuff like that.”
Listener Interaction: Worms Galactic Tactics
42:34 to 43:36
Discuss a listener's excitement for the upcoming Worms Galactic Tactics game.
“Okay, in our final minutes here, let's check in with the listeners.”
Podcast Features and Updates
43:36 to 44:20
Update on the podcast's new video feature in Apple Podcasts and its distribution.
“when you're in the room with a bunch of your friends and you're all, you know, accidentally maiming yourself while trying to kill each other, it's just so much fun.”
Gamescom Wrap-Up
44:20 to 45:04
Reflect on the experiences and highlights from Gamescom 2026.
“The feature's been out for a while, so I was just wondering when IGN Podcasts would adopt it.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins and honestly I can't think of a better place to start than my closet that's why I love shopping at Quince. Quince is all about fewer, better pieces. Their clothes are made with premium materials, built to last, and designed to become the ones you reach for day after day. Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder, like their ultra-soft organic cotton tees and premium cashmere sweaters. They're versatile, timeless, and transition seamlessly from the workday to dinner out. If you're still hanging on to the same worn-out basics, Quince makes it easy to upgrade.
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1:07Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's quince.com slash gamescoop for free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash gamescoop. What's up everybody? Welcome to I-Cin Game Scoop. I'm your host Damon Hatfield. Joining me today is Nick Limone. I'm back baby. Solo dolo. And that's it. That's it. Four fifths of your regular Game Scoop crew are here in Germany. But Justin went home early and Sam got sick. Too many sausages for Sam. Famous carnivore Sam Claiborne. What a shame. You've got just the two of us, but that's fine. We still have a great show for you this week. Very special episode.
1:45Coming to you from the show floor here at Gamescom, where Konami has a booth right behind us, and Castlevania Belmont's Curse is very prominently featured. Lots of free advertising for Konami appearing in every single video that we've shot from our studio. I mean, at least it's a cool game. At least it is a very cool game. And spoilers. I might have gotten hands-on with it. Wait, did you? I did. You didn't even tell me that. No, I did it earlier today. I had to like, well, I'm not doing anything for an hour. Let's go see if I can get in line. Okay, well, we'll be talking about that. Sam also got to play it.
2:18I actually haven't played very much here at Gamescom. So we're here at Gamescom. It's the biggest gaming show in the world by a large margin. It's gigantic. If you remember, if you've been to E3 or PAX, the largest attendance for E3 was 70 ,000 people. So, Gamescom is more like$350 ,000. So, much, much bigger. Yeah, I think it's even more than that now. It's crazy. Even the convention center is bigger than anything I've seen in the States. It's like eight gigantic halls. If it were empty, it would take a long time to walk from one end to the other. But now that it's full, it takes forever to get through that.
2:50So, the halls are filled with booths. And they're really fun, like, cool booths this year. It reminds me a lot of the old E3, right? It's very extravagant. Yeah, very over the top. Like, it's truly a spectacle in the way it's like, Dang, I think I would actually come to this as a consumer, like a general fan. It is open to the public. Lots of consumers here. And there's some IGN and GameScoop fans hanging around our booth outside right now. There's hordes of them. You just can't see all of them. There's hordes. Millions. There actually are. And I've run into a lot of GameScoop fans that stopped me this week.
3:17So I always love running into fans. If you ever see us out and about, don't hesitate to say hi. Guten Tag. Love saying hi to Scoop Nation. So in our hall, this is hall seven, I think. We obviously have Castlevania, which also is just crazy. It's so sick to say that we are sharing a haul with Castlevania. In the year 2026, a 2D Castlevania game has a gigantic cool booth at the biggest gaming convention in the world. It's so sick in there. Konami has really turned things around. I think so. Good on you. Good on you, Konami. That's there. Xbox is in our haul, too. Gears of War E-Day, Fable, Alien Isolation 2, I think is at their booth.
3:55Yes, that's correct. They're also showing off some of them. They've got Forza and Halo campaign involved. Nintendo is also here. So I wanted to talk about Xbox and Nintendo both here at the show. And also on the fact that PlayStation does not. Which is a little unfortunate. I think that in recent years they have been skipping Gamescom. Even though they have a big game, Wolverine, coming out in just a couple weeks. Yeah. But dope. Would you want to get it hands on a bunch of people at a big game? Nope. Okay. Damn. They'll buy it anyway. I mean, I guess there's not much else. I'm not worried about Wolverine.
4:24But a couple years ago, I can never remember. What's their most famous failed multiplayer shooter? The famous one, that Concord. Concord, yeah, yeah, yeah. They skipped Gamescom, you know, like the week that Concord was out. And then, you know, I'm not saying that if Concord had been here, it would have been a success. But if you've got a new multiplayer shooter coming out, you could have hundreds of thousands of people go hands on it right here. In a controlled environment where you make it the ideal experience for people who want to play. 100 % agree. You would think maybe you'd want to do that, but no.
4:54What do I know? Anyway, Xbox is down here. Oh, and by the way, we've each picked our five favorite games of the show, and we're going to be revealing those here in a little bit, and we don't know. It's a secret to everybody. Please be excited. We don't know what we've picked. So, yes, it is possible that we've doubled up and there are actually ten. It's fine. We'll all live. It's going to be okay. Xbox. Some interesting quotes from Asha Sharma was here. Okay. I actually saw her for the first time. She did an interview with the BBC. And this is an interesting quote. Let me run this by you. Please.
5:29This next generation, talking about Project Helix. Right, right. This next generation, we have to be thinking about efficiency and affordability alongside performance. All of the industry needs to start to innovate on affordability and efficiency. That is something that we have not had to do. But with the crisis that's currently happening in hardware and components, it is absolutely something all of us need to be thinking about and innovating on and giving people more choice in terms of how they play their console and how they purchase their console. So I think this is very interesting talking about how they need to innovate on affordability because hardware has gotten very expensive.
6:03Their new Xbox 25th anniversary console is$900. Nuts. And power-wise, it's the same Xbox Series X that was released for$500. It just comes in a cool 90s see-through green. So it's too expensive. But then previously, back in the Sarah Bond days, they said the next generation console would be very premium. So it seemed like that was before AI was causing price hikes. So maybe back then their whole idea to sort of set it apart from the competition was to create a more premium experience. I mean, a$900 Xbox may have been the premium version back then. Yeah. But now, wisely, she's realized, no, this is not sustainable.
6:46Right. scalpers snatched up this$900 25th anniversary console as soon as it went on pre-orders and they're selling them on eBay for$1 ,500. Oh my goodness, that's too much. But you're not going to buy, you're not going to sell a new console at scale at$900 or$1 ,000. That's nuts. So that's good. But what I wanted to ask you is, she says we need to innovate on affordability and efficiency, and I'm not sure what she means by efficiency. I guess in the way that you are kind of leveraging the ability of the console to kind of really take advantage of the architecture i always kind of liken it at least this is my assumption i think what she's getting at is likening it likening it back to the efficiency that a lot of developers notably had at the end of the playstation 2 era right you know when a new console comes out everyone's still kind of trying to figure out you know what makes this thing tick but then over years and years and you know even in the instance of the xbox 360 a decade's worth of development developers really get to know the architecture they get to know what makes this thing tick and they're able to really take advantage of it and i'm hoping that's what it means because i think that's what that's the era of games that i think leave their mark on a lot of players that the games that people really remember fondly and like you know shadow of the colossus is one game in the late ps2 cycle that I think everyone is just enamored with because it was such an interesting use of the hardware.
8:10And because it came last, it also leaves the most lasting impression. Okami also. And Okami, yeah. Okay, and then it's also interesting that she says provide choice in how they play their console and how they purchase their console. I think they're thinking about, you know... Klarna, get that Klarna ready. Leasing it. Rent to own, you know, something like that. Well, they used to do that like in the Xbox One days. I believe it was the one and it might have been 360. I forget. But during my Best Buy time, right, Microsoft had a whole incentive program to lease an Xbox. And you would do a monthly down payment and all these different things.
8:46Ultimately, you would pay off the Xbox over the course of like a year or something. And I believe if you did the napkin math in it, you ended up paying slightly more for the Xbox because, you know, it's like basically with interest. But that kind of feels like where we're headed, especially if you look at Apple. Apple has just adopted a leasing program for MacBooks, iPads, iPhones, and you name it. So I think Klarna is going to be rolling in the dough very soon. Okay, that's what I wanted to cover with Xbox. Now there's Nintendo. Their booth is in a hall down the hall. I think, yeah, it's across the way.
9:20Their lineup is strange. It's mostly games that are already out and then some ports of other games like Metaphor, Reventatio. and then they're going big on Call of Duty, actually. Black Ops 4, right? Yeah, I believe this is one of the places that you can actually get hands-on with Black Ops 4. Or, I'm sorry, no. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4. That's what it is. Modern Warfare 4. Not to be confused with Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. But they have this new Fire Emblem coming out. It's not here! And it's not here. And I get, maybe a turn-based strategy game doesn't demo well, but at least have some signage, a statue or some cosplayers let people know this game's coming out well also like again I think they've seen we've seen signage of it I believe there's pictures of it in Japan where they're like by the way this console is going to get more expensive in one week and you would think they would have like hey just as a heads up this is going to get more expensive you should buy it now you wanted to buy it right now save 50 euro let's give you a reason here's a game that comes out in two weeks or whatever so that's interesting and then what really blows my mind is that the ocarina of time remake is nowhere to be seen a game that's supposed to be out in three months yeah i mean i i think this is just one of those things where i think i need to stop thinking like a child like you know a child before e3 where i'm so like an insult to me no no no no no not in regards to that no no i'm what i'm saying is like you know when i came to gamescom i'm always like oh what's going to be the big reveal and then you know i let my imagination run away from me and it's like oh i wonder if they're going to do like a title card or some sort of like, oh, maybe this is the first gameplay look and then they'll announce a Nintendo Direct and I always end up like overestimating and then I let myself down.
11:03When it's like, why would they do that? They have a whole digital platform of a Nintendo Direct where they can just kind of own the conversation entirely around an Ocarina of Time announcement, you know? Yeah, but this is where you could, you know, you get your most dedicated fans who are willing to come out to this convention, let them have hands-on for it. They become evangelists for you. And they go out back into the world and tell everyone how great it is. Word of mouth, man. I mean, that's literally what everyone's doing at these booths, right? That's how this works. I don't know. I think it's weird that this game is out in three months and Nintendo, aside from that very short teaser trailer reveal, isn't saying anything about it.
11:38And this is sort of... Nintendo doesn't go to TGS, which is next week, I think. So this is kind of the last big con event to sort of get people excited about it, get them hands-on with it, and they just skipped it. Do they have anything coming in October? Nintendo? Yeah. Nothing big because it's Fire Emblem this September and then yeah October maybe that's where they just like you know a direct day and it's out in a week. Enjoy. Yeah I mean all signs point to mid November but yeah. Okay. Best of show. We each have five picks. I'm going to let you go first. Is this ranked? Mine are not ranked. There are no rules.
12:22So I think we'll just get the ball rolling with the thing that's over our shoulders is Castlevania Belmont's Curse. Okay, so you played it today. I did play it this morning. I played a 20-minute demo that was a public-facing demo here at Gamescom. And I was a little bit like, you know, I don't know. I don't want to be let down, you know. I try not to get my hopes up too high with Belmont's Curse. And after my time with the demo, dude, I was sold immediately. my initial concern was that it wasn't like a metroidvania and that it was just a more traditional castlevania game which rules by the way but i always want like you know i want my metroidvania i want to get reason to retread ground i've been before with new weapons and new abilities and i wasn't sure if that was actually here other than like finding upgrades in a linear path that you know like the way any other player would yeah but they have this whole Arcana system and this whole tarot card system where you can basically, there's like different bosses and mini bosses scattered throughout the map that are all objective based and you can, once you kill them, basically acquire their soul a la Dawn of Sorrow or things like that.
13:30And they give you like a new ability that you can play around with. So in the demo, you start off as Rose Belmont. She's the daughter of Trevor and Saifa from the Netflix anime, if you're familiar with that which rules by the way and she starts off with a fireball but after i beat the first boss i got the um the holy cross thing the the cross yeah yeah and i was like okay this is cool and then later you learn you get a the ability to whip and pull yourself towards objects and not only can you do that with things that are hanging from the ceiling and stuff like that but you can also do it with any enemy in the game cool and also if you swing while you're mid like whip towards them you have a unique animation like basically that's riding the momentum of your whip pull and it changes based on weapons and it rocks and i said weapons plural i was concerned that you would only have like the sword that they've shown off uh in my time in the demo i found a kestis is that is that how you say it it's like the sure the gauntlet thing and it basically turns that whip pull animation into an uppercut that she follows into the air and you could basically air damage a dude and it is so sick so fun there's secrets there's wall chicken yep i'm all in i cannot wait to buy this game day one 100 october 15th did you play a boss fight uh yeah i i beat the boss that got me the uh cross boomerang um but my time ran out before i could get to the second boss yeah by the way some people are prickly about if it's sifa saifa i don't know which one it is but i mean i think they say saifa belnares yeah spanish saifa sifa well they have uh the voice actress from uh um the netflix anime series who plays sifa slash saifa and then the actor that plays dracula so that's cool yeah that rules that's really what's interesting is in the show dracula is much more sympathetic he's not he's much less of the bad guy yeah i mean that's not a spoiler they paint him as a tragic figure for sure in the show and i mean i don't know i He's like the main bad guy of this game?
15:32They do say this takes place within a generation of Trevor and Saifa from that Netflix series. So, assumedly, they do mention basically at the top, the game is set in Paris. And Paris is burning behind you the entire time. And they do make mention that Dracula is currently dead. At least at the beginning of the demo. Well, who wants to place bets? Somehow Dracula returned. Somehow Dracula returned. What is a man? Okay, we need to take a quick break, but stick around. There's more GameSoup coming up here on Gamescom Studio.
16:12Welcome back to GameSoup here on Gamescom Studio 2026. All right, it's time for my first pick for the best games of the show. I'm going to go with The Witcher 3 Remastered. Yeah, that was on my list, too. This is, I mean, also Castlevania was on my list, too. We're making great time. Yeah, that's true. We're being very efficient. Yeah, this was a big surprise. I think at the end of opening night live, we knew that the big reveal of Songs of the Past, the DLC, was coming, but the news that they're remastering Witcher 3, throwing in the previous DLC expansions and making it a free upgrade, and the fact that it's out next month, it was like, oh, well, this is great.
16:46Witcher 3 is a game that I've played a lot, and I've started multiple times, but I've never finished, so it's another great excuse. Are you going to start it back again? Yeah. From the top, or are you just going to load in? I don't know. It's also one of those games that's so hard to return to after months or years. Why do I have all this grease in my inventory? Every single person I talk to about The Witcher 3 is like, yeah, I've restarted this game like 12 times. It's a badge of honor. I'm like, just play the game. But I get it. I don't mind it. It is tough to load into an open-world RPG when you're 15-plus hours in and it's the Gandalf I have no memory of this place.
17:21You have 40 different objectives that are on the screen. and you're suddenly over and encumbered, and you're like, all right, this is too much. No, I'm stoked for this, man. We all knew the Song of the Past DLC was going to be shown at ONL. They were not coy about that. One thing that they were not upfront about was the announcement of this remaster, and it rules, man. I didn't think the game particularly needed visually. I didn't think we'd ever get it, because they did semi-recently, I think like 2023 or so, add the ray tracing to the game and like i was like oh okay that's the next gen version of the game but uh one thing that we've learned since the games announced uh since the the remaster's announcement is that they're actually taking from the community and um officially like bringing in mods that people have made you know i've previously played with the witcher 3 hd reworked textures which is basically a 4k upres of every single texture and asset in the game and it's so comprehensive and beautiful it's basically like the must-have definitive mod so it's nice that uh cd project red has such goodwill with the community that they can kind of incorporate all that build the the mod load order for me so i don't have to accidentally crash my game because i did something wrong yeah i mean well it's such a smart move because songs of the past is dlc for by for i guess by the time it's out a 12 year old game correct so you know get it looking nice get everyone back into it.
18:47It gives you just enough time to play through the base game, Hearts of Stone, the Blood and Wine, and then hopefully by the time you're done with Blood and Wine and Geralt's firmly in retirement, you now have the DLC roughly knocking at your door that gets Geralt back out of retirement. Yeah, and to provide it for free for all the existing owners, that's such a generous move. Plus, since it's been more than a decade, you have a whole other generation who's come up who probably hasn't played it, now's a great time to get the full package before you get the dlc next year so it all it's so sick and one thing that was really cool i thought was very cute is in the trailer they show gerald with a chain like you know a scorpion-esque chain that he can attack monster with which is a callback to like the the original books and uh just a thing and and the original game if i if i'm not mistaken uh and one thing that was very cool make sure you watch uh ign's max goville got to interview um The games create one of the creative, one of the devs on the team, plus Doug Cockle.
19:45And Max got Doug Cockle to say, get over here in the voice of Geralt. It's actually on our social channels as well. It's very cute, very fun. Pretty good. Good interview, too. All right. That is the Witcher 3 Remastered. Time for Nick's next pick. All right. My next pick, you all know this is coming. It's got to be Final Fantasy VII. Oh, yeah. Revelation at ONL. We got a look at a new trailer for the game. It was a trailer centered around the weapons, not the physical weapons that you hold in your hand, but the creatures slash monsters known as weapons from the original game. You know, this is a thing that was kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
20:22Is this going to, are they actually going to include this in the game? We see a different version of the weapons than we've ever seen in Final Fantasy VII. In Rebirth, they're very like whale-like monsters that were very docile and peaceful. mostly because Sephiroth hadn't been awoken yet and threatened the life of the planet. But let's just say things don't go quite according to plan at the end of Rebirth. And so now suddenly these monsters, these guardians of Gaia, a.k.a. the Earth of Final Fantasy VII, have awoken and now they're trying to fight back. It's almost like it's about environmentalism or something like that.
20:56Yeah, something like that. And, you know, in the original game, Ruby and Emerald are, you know, infamous for being some of the hardest super bosses in Final Fantasy VII. Ruby can wipe out your party within 30 seconds, as can Emerald, who can do 9 ,999 damage to all three party members at once. And there's also a timer ticking down because you are underwater, so you need to have very specific gear to breathe underwater. And it's just really cool to see them in such high fidelity. What do you think of this sort of Tears of the Kingdom-style parachuting mechanic? It's pretty impressive. So another reason why this game made my list of my top five Gamescom games is I got the great pleasure of finally interviewing Naoki Hamaguchi, the director of Final Fantasy VII Remake, Rebirth, and now Revelation.
21:44And one thing he talked about was the added verticality that they're trying to build out. You know, Rebirth was very much an expansive horizon that you can go through the original map, and it's very dense. And, like, you know, there's a lot to see and do, and almost infamously so at this point, a lot to do. But he just talked a lot about how he's adding, him and the team are adding a lot of verticality to the game. You know, I don't want to go into the specifics, but I highly recommend you check out the interview that I got to do with him. I thought I did a pretty good job. I'm sure you did. I'm sure you did.
22:18I know you and a lot of fans are excited for this. I don't know if I'll play it. The only reason, I played through part one, and then I played through a lot of Rebirth, but then got distracted by something else, and now it just seems really daunting to get back into it. So now the third one's out. May I give you a pitch? Sure, sure. So you can play Rebirth on basically any console now. Yep. And you'll also be able to play Revelation on any console at launch, but they've also retroactively updated the game to include the infinite health and basically 9 ,999 damage. And you could also throw the game on just like its non-scaling difficulty.
22:57So I would say just mainline it. Yeah, you could do that. And I think you could do it in like 20-ish hours. I should do that because I also enjoy Queen's Blood. See, you get distracted and then it starts inflating your playtime to 50 plus hours. That's okay. And it's coming back in Revelation. More Queen's Blood? Yeah, more Queen's Blood and new mechanics that have been teased. Okay, okay. All right, your pitch worked. I'm on board. Okay, this is my next pick. Switching gears a little bit. Nope, not that gears. To Mega Man Duel Override. Hell yeah. So it's interesting. This is sort of the first big gameplay reveal, and when that footage first came on screen, a lot of it said, well, it kind of looks like Mega Man 8.
23:41Yeah, like at least art style inspired. Yeah, that's the previous game that is most reminiscent of. And there's even a boss from Mega Man 8 in Astro Man from Mega Man 8 shows up. Yeah, yeah. Which is just a little bit odd. It's kind of a deep cut. Mega Man 8 isn't, you know, I like that game. I owned it. But I famously remember using my sister's Toys R Us employee discount to buy it. But I don't think it's a particularly well-beloved entry in the franchise. I couldn't even have told you. If you were to have been like, what if Mega Man is Astro Man from? I wouldn't have been able to fight. Base, why must we fight?
24:12Yeah. Dr. Why are we? Dr. Why are we? Anyway, it just seems a little bit random. And I would argue it is kind of a Mega Man game. A little Mega Man game. Yeah, Mega Man, they don't really, a lot of Mega Man fans don't really like 8. I like 8 quite a bit because you get Flame Man who has the sword when you kill him and it's a little blade and it's sick. I think it was the first one that had voice acting too. Yes. At the time I was into it. And it had an opening anime cutscene. It was so sick. And here's Twinkle Girl. This is the one robot master they're showing off so far. The way they framed it, I was like, is she like a new rival?
24:44The way they presented her is like, this is the new rival to Megma. I was like, oh, it's like a new Proto-Man analog. And I was like, no, just a robot master. Well, I know you're not going to believe this, Nick, but the robot masters, they've gone haywire and are wreaking havoc. But they've just been designed to help humanity. I don't understand. And Twinkle Girl, her whole thing is she wants to be like a performer. And then so all of her theme and attacks are based on fireworks. So that's Twinkle Girl. Yeah, it's very clown man coded. Who is from Mega Man 8? I think we're on to something here.
25:19Maybe the director of this game is just a big fan of Mega Man 8. We did also, I think, is this the first time we got a glimpse of the new Proto Man or the Proto Man in this game? Because they show him in the title card at the very end. I don't think they've overtly been obvious about this, but you can choose to play as Mega Man or Proto Man. What's up with it is like, is that the dual override where he does the Drake like sprite can? Yes, so that's the override mechanic where you can like overpower yourself for a brief time to become more powerful or faster or something like that. But the trick is that after you do that, you're weakened for a certain amount of time.
25:54That's sick. You have to be smart when you use it. Risk versus reward, I love it. Yeah, so it'll be curious to see if like, will there be obvious sections in each stage? Like if you look at any guide or walkthrough from the game, will they all say, use the override at this point in the stage? Or are we really going to have freedom to use the word? I mean, I think that's the thing that's beautiful about Mega Man as a platformer is everyone struggles at different parts of a stage in general. And it's just giving you an extra tool set that has its own kind of parameters around it. It's just going to help even the playing field.
26:24Yeah. And this is the first mainline Mega Man game that isn't just numbered. You know, it's Mega Man 12. They're calling it dual override. So I don't know. It's just a little bit interesting. I think they wanted to reintroduce Mega Man To sort of make it a little bit bigger part of Konami's or not coming Capcom's You know library of yes But now you've like jump the tracks off of the number if you want to continue the series It'd be weird to go back to making 13. Yeah, that's keep coming up with new names for it It has this new system called built for. There's built for survival. So you can set up, you can give Mega Man a custom chip.
27:05Oh, okay. Like a loadout. Kind of like a loadout. Very, very simple loadout. Built for survival is a custom chip that creates a barrier against one instance of enemy fire. So it's a shield. Oh, nice. And you get a bonus E-Tank. Nice. There's that. And then built for firepower is a custom chip packed with auto-charging that helps you attack more efficiently so you don't have to hold down the button to charge. Plus the power to unleash double-charge shots at once. Are these going to be the people who are like, you're not a real Mega Man fan unless you beat it without using this sort of support system?
27:35That's the whole thing. You don't have to use them. So, yeah, I'm sure there will be purists who scoff at it. But Mega Man games are typically pretty challenging. They're very tough. These are little ways to help people mitigate if it's too tough for them. I don't think I've ever beat the yellow boss. Is it Mega Man 1? The one with the blobs that you have to pause? You've never beat it? Not without pausing, doing the trick on it. where you pause the game and unpause it really fast. That exploit is in the game. That's fair. That's a fair game. I'm excited for this one. This one's coming next year.
28:06Although when we were all watching it together, all of IGN who's here was watching the ONL presentation, the biggest reaction that this part of the show got was the Pragmata skins. You all said I was crazy. You all said Pragmata is not a Mega Man game. Well, tell you what, now it is. It has Mega Man skins in it. They're very funny. Yeah, it was very cute. That was really cute. All right, Mega Man Duel Override. Time for Nick's next pick. All right, this one was a surprising one, to say the least. It was actually announced just before Gamescom, but still playable here at the show floor. I'm talking, of course, about Terranigma.
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28:47Okay. And everyone's like, wait, why do I know that game? You know, if you're a North American Scoop fan, which I know you all are, and the other countries, the fans in other countries. There's just one scoop nation. We're all one scoop nation. We should all be so lucky. But this is a classic action RPG that never made its way to North America. I also did an interview with one of the people responsible for this remaster slash port. He said it's not really a remaster, more so that it is just a port with some quality of life features that have been very clearly added to the game if you're familiar with it.
29:28But TLDR, this is the third entry in a sort of spiritual trilogy from Quintet, who did ActRaiser, if I'm not mistaken. That's not part of this trilogy. But that's where Scoop Nation would probably know them from. They started with Soul Blazer, which did come to North America. It is a fine game. Illusion of Gaia, which is also fine, just a little better that also never came to north america if my memory serves correctly uh maybe i'm wrong please correct me i would like to know that because i am just i didn't actually research that part before i got on scoop today i'm pretty sure that's the case though and terra enigma is the one that um you know never came out in north america and it's the one that everyone's like oh this is like what the other games were aspiring to but never quite hit the high bar that that this one did and i'm happy to report that it is beautiful sprite work incredible music with a soundtrack that features a track from yuzo koshiro who apparently he forgot he even produced a track for this game because he did it during like his freelance era and uh yeah so uh make sure you check out my interview with martin lindell for the terran terranigma port uh it was very exciting to see retro gaming alive and well and he was definitely very much uh of the the scoop nation ilk of like, oh, I love retro gaming.
30:51My goal with creating this game was preserving the original experience I had playing through this game. So there's like a delightful little CRT effect and pixel scaling and it's really cool. I highly recommend checking it out. Alright, we're going to talk a little bit more about Terranigma. I have some more to say about that, but we need to take a quick break. Stick around. There's more GameScoop coming up here on Gamescom Studio.
31:19Welcome back to GameScoop here on Gamescom Studio 2026. We're just talking about Terranigma, which is the Super Famicom game released in the 90s in Japan and PAL territories, but not North America. Correct. And now that wrong is being righted all these years later. It's getting a worldwide release. So Terranigma is an Enix game. Yes. And in the year that it was released, 95 or 96, Enix had closed its North American offices, so there was no one to release the game. That's probably it. But if you look at any list of the best Super Famicom games that were not released in North America, Terra Enigma is probably at the top of those.
31:54Here's the 30 JRPGs you never heard of kind of thing. Terra Enigma is at the top of the list, along with another game that until a couple years ago had not been released here, Live Alive. Yes. That's cool. That's cool that Square Enix is doing this to preserve these games and make them accessible today. Very cool. Okay, my next game. I think we each have a couple games left. My next game is Crimson Desert Enhanced. I'm surprised, but I forgot to put it on my list, but I'm intrigued. Well, here's my thinking. The game is not even, I think it's like five months old. And now the Enhanced Edition is here.
32:32It's officially 2.0. It's 2.0 already. And this game has received a lot of updates and fixes over the months. There's been a lot of talk about this game. It's a little bit of a polarizing game. some people think it's a 6 some people love it to death and have put over 300 hours into it, it's their game of the year and they think it's one of the best open world action adventure games ever made so Nick, my question is it time for me to play this game? I haven't played it you know what, I think we owe it to both of ourselves to jump back in and give it a shot just jump in for the first time for me and I'll jump back in and give it a shot because the thing that really is impressive to me is there's even like story reworks where everyone's like oh yeah if you start apparently there's like a very streamlined process of starting a new game where you get to keep a lot of your upgrades and it's like very not an issue at all but they say from moment one it's like oh yeah this is vastly different experience story-wise and it's like a meaningful difference and it's just just kind of nuts yeah i mean on one hand it's cool that they can be so agile and update the game so quickly and regularly.
33:43But on the other hand, it's, well, the developers didn't, they either didn't know these things were problems or they weren't able to get to them before release, you know, I don't know. My vibe is that they're like, just release and then we'll like basically build the bridge as we try to cross it at the same time. We're going to vibe check. Almost like a semi-early access release. This is just pure speculation on my part, That makes it seem less like an auteur work, like a Death Stranding. Whereas I'm pretty sure when Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2 launched, Hideo Kojima was probably pretty happy with everything in there.
34:19I mean, it's the closest I've ever seen to a single-player offline game feeling like a game-as-a-service live game model. It's so unusual to me. It's really cool because I do think it's kind of fascinating that they're breathing new life into the game constantly, even though some of the Crimson Desert community is complaining that it keeps breaking their mods. So you did try it at launch. What was your sort of experience then? At launch, I kind of got about 10 hours in. I was like, I understand the appeal. I just thought that there was so much latency between my inputs and what Cliff did. He felt kind of clunky to control, not as fluid.
35:02but I actually started a new game maybe like a week before I came to Gamescom, and I got a few more hours in, and it was a significant difference between my original experience and now. And honestly, seeing this, because they've streamlined this new game process, I'm probably going to just start another new game and just really give this game a third shot. I have yet to play this game. I think now with the Enhanced Edition, it's time. Yeah. I will check in. Crimson Desert Enhanced. All right, Nick's next pick. I got to go. A little bit of a sleeper for me, but I'm very impressed, especially after your interview with the devs, is Tides of Annihilation.
35:41Yeah, that looks promising. I'm excited for Tides of Annihilation for one weirdly Nick reason in that it looks like the Final Fantasy Versus XIII that we never got. Like the, you know, famously Final Fantasy Versus XIII from Tetsuya Nomura had this very brooding, proto-Noctis-looking protagonist who is the king in this hyper-realistic city called Insomnia. All of the story details and all that stuff eventually became Final Fantasy XV, but in a way that kind of lost a lot of its emo boy kind of edge that a lot of fans, especially Final Fantasy fans, were looking forward to. And this does really look like a lot of what we were kind of originally promised with that Versus XIII.
36:25If you ever go back and re-watch a lot of original gameplay for that, this kind of looks like it's uh doing devil may cry in in that same domain and that's another reason why i like it the combat looks so fun and i really like the system that they're doing with this kind of uh i don't recall quite what they called them uh they're like familiars or something like that the knights yeah but they're all like arthurian knight theme which i'm a sucker for i love like you're telling me i can have galahad at my side and he's like looks sick as hell uh kind of assisting me in a Devil May Cry style combo.
36:59I love the spectacle of this game. The game looks gorgeous. And I would argue they have one of the coolest booths here at Gamescom. They did a good job of presenting this game in a positive light. Now, I think in your interview they also talk a bit about exploration. And that was the only other question I had about the game. It's like, what's it look like in between battles? Yeah. I saw her finding a chest opening up for some loot or something like that. I'm in. I think it's going to be pretty light. I think the focus is definitely on the action. It's a character action game with a really unique premise.
37:33It's a destroyed London, and the heroine Gwendolyn, she has the power of King Arthur, and, yeah, as you said, can summon these knights to her. So it's a unique premise. Looks really cool. As long as it feels good. We talk about game feel a lot on the show. I didn't get a chance. They do have this playable here on the show floor, but the line was way too long, so I could not get in. I mean, there's a lot of action games coming out of Chinese developers these days. It seems like it could be another really good one. We've arrived at my final pick because the others were overlaps. Do you have one more unique pick?
38:06If I do, you'd have to roll it because I currently can't remember if I covered all of my games. It's been a long couple of weeks here at Gamescom Studio. This is my last thing I'm filming here in Germany, and I definitely need a rest. Anyway, my last pick was going to be, it might be surprising to you, Rainbow Six Tactics. Whoa. I get it, though. The first single-player Rainbow Six since Vegas 2 in 2007. And I love the Vegas games. And I also love Tactics games. So this seems like a no-brainer. It's a match made in heaven. And I think right now we're in this kind of almost like something that harkens back to when XCOM Enemy Unknown first came out, where it's like, oh, wait, Tactics games rule.
38:49Why were they gone for so long? And this isn't the same. We have, what's the Star Wars? Zero Company. Zero Company. And now this? Like, this looks so good. And I love that it's leaning into the hero shooter, like, archetypes that they've developed with Rainbow Six Siege. Yeah. And applying those hero shooter-like elements of what makes each character unique and applying that to a gameplay format that I'm way more excited to play. Yeah. This seems like a, why didn't this happen sooner? sort of situation. It's been way too long since we had a single player Rainbow Six game. So that's really cool.
39:24I'm excited for that. That's coming next year, 2027. And you mentioned Star Wars Zero Company. We actually reviewed that this week. Dan Stapleton gave it a 9 out of 10. Wow. Everybody's really happy with this. I've actually been playing Zero Company before I came here and I was enjoying it a lot. So yeah, it turns out taking XCOM and just skinning it with Star Wars works out pretty well. Match made in heaven. That sounds great. Sign me up. We've got a lot of games to come back home to. There's so much. I'm a little scared. I have my Wolverine code just waiting for me. Just waiting for me at home.
39:53Bro, same. Get me home. And I also like another game that's coming out soon. I like it. You'll be hearing more about that soon, too. We have a lot to talk about. Did you have any other games you want to shout out? I have an honorable mention, a weird one. You go first. Here's one that I don't know if I should be excited for, but the game is so weird. Hit me. Showa American Story. Yes. Why are you interested in it? Well, it's just so weird. It's over the top. This is set in an alternate late 80s where Japan bought up most of the United States, effectively colonizing it economically and culturally.
40:31And so we play as this woman Choco Chigusa, a girl brought back from the dead. Of course. And it seems like hack and slash with RPG elements. and she has these wild attacks, very patriotic attacks that invoke the American flag. She wears very short shorts and the whole thing is made by a Chinese developer. So it's the whole thing is just weird. Yeah, I don't think I think it's best to not question it too much. I think it's I think it's not being and its intent is not to be taken seriously. I think it's more just a celebration of American patriotism and the overtopness that it can potentially be every now and then.
41:09And I think this looks silly and interesting, and I'm glad games like this are still getting made. They also might quite possibly have the biggest booth here at Gamescom that has a Japan-esque Golden Gate Bridge. They have Space Harrier, a Claire Harrier clone, and what's the driving game? Outrun? Outrun, yeah. Am I crazy? Scoop fans might know this as well. does this game have any sort of connection to this game that came out i think like 2023 called wanted dead which was a character action game as well where you played as a german woman with a robotic arm she had a katana and she was a part of this elite force of like cops and the game is like six hours long has incredible combat but it's just the most baffling design decisions ever like it is a game that doesn't get good until you beat the game and then carry all of your abilities back into a new game and you finally can use all your combos and stuff like that.
42:05It has a karaoke minigame where there's only one song to karaoke in the entire game and it's 99 red balloons. Oh, okay. Well, at least I picked a good song. But that's the only song. It's more arcade. That was like a Russian attack. And again, Wanted Dead also had a bunch of weird arcade games. So I wonder if there's something, some sort of shared developer DNA there. I don't know. I mean, I'm open-minded to this game. It's just really weird. Yeah. The existence of it is weird. I will check it out. I mean, I like flying heads and sporting blood. That's good. Okay, in our final minutes here, let's check in with the listeners.
42:38Hey, listeners. Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address, gamescoop at IGN.com, just like Matt did. I said, howdy, Damon. I know it's a long shot because there are so many great game announcements at Gamescom, but I'd love it if you give a shout-out to the one I'm most looking forward to, Worms Galactic Tactics. Dude. Another tactics game. I do like my worms, too. So this is a 3D Worms game. 3D isometric XCOM-like tactical roguelike in the Worms franchise. Every part of that sentence makes me so happy to be alive. And they even hinted at the end of the trailer that they might be doing a refresh or remake of the original Worms WMD, which is one of my most played co-op games in college.
43:16Incredible. Yeah, I guess I missed this, but I like Worms. Worms is fantastic. Just making it 3D, the levels are still fully destructible. So that sounds great. Yeah, this is one of the, I mean, Worms in general is one of those games that I do at my annual LAN. Somebody inevitably picks Worms, and it's just one thing that, you know, when you're in the room with a bunch of your friends and you're all, you know, accidentally maiming yourself while trying to kill each other, it's just so much fun. It's such a blast. It's so silly. And it, again, just creates such memorable stories. It's such a good series.
43:50Yeah, there are a lot of Worms games. I don't think they're all great. No, no, not all of them. But the best ones are really good. Especially my real introduction with them was when they came to Xbox Live Arcade. I think there were two releases there. Yes. Whichever ones, those are both really good. So I appreciate that. Yeah. That's another tactics game to put on the pile. And then finally, this is Sam Mangan in London, England. Says, I'm a long-time listener for years. I was hoping you can get an update as to when your podcast will adopt the ability to toggle video on and off within the Apple Podcast app.
44:20The feature's been out for a while, so I was just wondering when IGN Podcasts would adopt it. And we'll do that just as soon as we're able to. I know you can watch videos on Spotify now. And it's our distributor. We use Megaphone to distribute our podcast. And they've acknowledged that they will be supporting Apple Podcasts soon. They say this year. We're just waiting on when that is. I look forward to the, that's what Nick looks like? Oh, I didn't expect that. All right. there's a really funny comment about you on oh i've seen it it's really good i almost like g-chatted it to you and i stopped myself oh i screenshot and g-chatted it to everyone it's it's very funny anyway that's our show and that's i mean that's about a wrap up we did it everything here at gamescom we did it it was a good show it was honestly one of the most impressive gamescoms i've uh ever had the privilege of being a part of at IGN.
45:15Yep. It's a long week, but that's because there's a lot of great games here to get through, so lots to look forward to playing. Anyway, all good things must come to an end, and sadly that includes Gamescom. This year was our biggest Gamescom studio yet, but it wouldn't have been possible without a lot of hard work from a huge team working across multiple continents, so a huge thanks to everyone involved and a huge thanks to Colin Messa for putting on another great Gamescom and entrusting us to produce this show. If you missed any of Gamescom's studio, you can find it on IGN. Plus lots more gaming coverage year-round.
45:44So from all of us here, thanks for watching. We'll see you soon.
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