Gamescom Opening Night Live 2022: The biggest news and announcements

Beep beep! You hear that? That’s the sound of distracted drivers everywhere because Pokémon announced a new collaboration with Mini (otherwise known as Mini Cooper) to bring a new Pokémon-model of the electric Mini Concept Aceman car. The special model was revealed at Opening Night Live at Gamescom on Tuesday.

The hatchback has a neon, futuristic look to it all that’s very reminiscent of an LED gaming setup. A trailer showing off the fully electric hatchback shows the beloved Pokémon front and center on the digital dashboard. As you start of the car, an electric animation plays as electrical bolts light up across the dashboard. The model also sports animated pixelated front lights on its bumper, as well as custom puddle lights that shine “Mini x Pokémon” when you open the doors.

It’s time to head back to the deserts of Arrakis. Developer Funcom has revealed their latest game, Dune: Awakening, a survival MMO set in the Dune universe. The first full look at the game came in the form of a trailer during Gamescom 2022’s Opening Night Live presentation.

The trailer for the game doesn’t include too much info about what players will actually be doing once the game arrives. Instead, we got a neat cinematic of someone in a stillsuit (maybe this game’s version of Paul Atreides?), who speaks the series’ “fear is the mindkiller,” monologue before confronting a sandworm face to face.

Sonic the Hedgehog’s next 3D game — pitched by Sega and Sonic Team as an “open-zone” platforming adventure — is coming this November. At Gamescom Opening Night Live on Tuesday, a new trailer for Sonic Frontiers revealed that release date: Nov. 8, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

Sonic Frontiers sends our speedy hedgehog hero to the Starfall Islands, where he’ll engage in open-world-style exploration, and to Cyber Space, which requires more traditional, high-speed action-platforming. Sonic will explore the Starfall Islands in search of longtime pals Amy and Tails, while also contending with strange enemies, ancient ruins, perplexing puzzles, and giant bosses.

Gearbox Software has a new Borderlands episodic narrative adventure coming this October, a follow-up to Telltale Games’ excellent 2015 game series, Tales from the Borderlands. But rather than focusing on heroes Rhys and Fiona from the original Tales series, the new game, fittingly titled New Tales from the Borderlands, will give players control of three new characters that Gearbox calls “lovable losers” on a world-saving adventure.

That trio of non-heroes includes Anu, an “altruistic scientist,” her wannabe-streetwise (but amusingly hapless) brother Octavio, and Fran, the owner of a froyo shop in the metropolis of Promethea. These three are clearly not Vault Hunter material; they’re “downtrodden, intrepid civilians” trying to survive an invasion of their home world by weapons manufacturer Tediore.

Hogwarts Legacy, fresh from Warner Bros.’ announcement of a three-month delay, got a new trailer to kick off Gamescom 2022 at Opening Night Live on Tuesday. The latest reveal spotlighted the complications of using dark magic in the open-world Harry Potter adventure.

Developer Avalanche Software will let players befriend Slytherin student Sebastian Sallow, and face the choice to embrace or reject the Dark Arts “as you uncover his family’s mystery through his companion quest line,” the Hogwarts Legacy’s new trailer description says. The trailer focuses on an optional companion quest line featuring Sallow, and a glimpse at the difficult choices players will have to make to engage or shun dark magic.

Everywhere, the working title of a game that Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto alumnus Leslie Benzies conceived more than five years ago, is launching in 2023, from Edinburgh-based studio Build A Rocket Boy.

Everywhere, according to a news release, will “seamlessly blend gameplay, adventure, creativity, and discovery in an all-new multi-world gaming experience that redefines how players connect with one another and the digital world around them.” The statement did not specify on which platforms players can find Everywhere, nor any launch date or window.

Publisher CI Games is going back to the Dark Souls-style dark fantasy of its 2014 action role-playing game Lords of the Fallen with a new sequel called, originally, The Lords of the Fallen.

The game was announced with a cinematic trailer — narrated by Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn and featuring Danzig’s “Mother” — during the Gamescom Opening Night Live stream. It’s in development for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. No release date was announced.