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Guildford devs steal the spotlight at Gamescom

29/08/2024

Words by Hugh Wybourne and Toni Atanasova, Header photo courtesy of Liz Plant

We’re back and (just about) recovered from 3 days at one of the biggest games industry events of the year – Gamescom! Set in Cologne, the convention attracts thousands of guests and developers from across the world and this year the event reached 335,000 attendees! 

This year saw a fantastic lineup of Guildford studios announce and show off their games in the infamous halls of the Koelnemesse – including big news from Supermassive Games, Glowmade, Two Point Studios, nDreams and Peter Molyneux’s 22cans. 

Here are all the Guildford.Games highlights from the Gamescom weekend!

Supermassive Games tease Directive 8020

It’s that time again for horror fiction fans to figure out if they have what it takes to defeat the darkness and turn that ‘final girl’ into a ‘final gang’ - unless of course you’re just in it to see all the delicately crafted death and mutilation scenes.

Supermassive Games is back with a new instalment of the Dark Pictures Anthology – Directive 8020, and no doubt this time they’ve put in some truly out-of-this-world efforts, as our unfortunate heroes find themselves off-world and exploring what appears to be uncharted sections of space.  

Perhaps we’ll finally see what all the bits of these characters’ insides will look like floating through the cold harsh emptiness of the infinite void? Perhaps not, as so far we’ve been shown only teases of what’s to come and our protagonist spent the announcement trailer wholly within the confines of some kind of ship. Consider our interest PIQUED!

Once again the team at Supermassive have planted themselves effortlessly into the iconography of legendary horror titles of the past - and if the skin-tingling teaser is anything to go by, we’re looking at Alien meets Event Horizon with some clones thrown in for good measure, exhilarating!

As if this Gamescom reveal wasn’t exciting enough for Team Guildford, it also featured a trailer made by our very own Liquid Crimson for the upcoming The Casting of Frank Stone – who we’re suspecting may know more than their letting on about what's happening behind the scenes at Supermassive Games... if we eek any information out of them, we’ll let you know ;) 

Glowmade reveal King of Meat

Guildford’s (so far) best kept secret – aka the glowbugs at Glowmade - revealed their new game King of Meat at Opening Night Live with a showstopping animated intro, featuring none other than Geoff Keighley!

The Amazon-backed glorious spectacle invites players to hack & slash their way to fame through user-generated dungeons and rise to become The King of Meat. And the best part? The game had a playable demo as part of the Xbox booth and a ready-to-fight KoM contender wandering the halles of the Koelnmesse – it was glorious! You’ll just have to take our word for it. 

King of Meat doesn’t have a release date just yet, but you can sign up for the beta for your chance to play the game before everyone else and input on its development! 

Two Point Studios show off a new exhibit for Two Point Museum

Nestled between all the lights and noise of the bombastic Xbox announcements was the welcoming comfort of the ever cosy Two Point Studios, as devs Jo Koehler and Ben Huskins sat down for an interview with Xbox’s Maxi - launching without delay into a pun-fuelled deep dive on the aquatic gameplay in the upcoming Two Point Museum.

The hype has already been strong for Two Point Museum, as the archaeology mechanics from their previous title were popular and are expanded tenfold in this new experience, with adventuring and customisable exhibits being large chunks of the core game.

This time, the new announcement covered all the wet and wonderful layers of aquarium management: keeping marine life, discovering undersea civilisations, and of course updating your excellent collection of dinosaur remains with silly names. This specialisation really opens up so many avenues for other creative kinds of museum to play with, and watch this space as hopefully soon we’ll be having a proper sit down with some of the team to learn even more! 

nDreams take on the XR megabooth by storm with playable demos

This year nDreams joined forces with other XR developers to create a mixed reality MEGA booth and showcase some iconic virtual and mixed reality titles, including their newly-announced Vendetta Forever as well as other titles Frenzies and Fracked! 

The team at nDreams - or ‘the (n)Dream(s)Team’, as we like to call them – revealed their new published title Vendetta Forever a few weeks back at the VR Games Showcase. The game pays homage to cult action movies with fantastic gunplay where each kill takes you through stylish arenas and closer to the finish line.

The new title developed by MeatSpace Interactive and published by the Guildford team is not too far away either and it’s coming to a VR headset near you in October 2024.

A surprise announcement from 22cans

Last but certainly not least, we were treated to a surprising appearance from Guildford’s legendary Peter Molyneux and an exciting announcement of 22cans’ Masters of Albion!  

Molyneux debuted his brand new title on the stage of Opening Night Live alongside Geoff Keighley and mentioned the iconic Dungeon Keeper, Black and White, and, naturally, Fable as the inspiration behind the upcoming game.

Masters of Albion is an open-world god game where you’re in charge of creating your own world and managing everything in between – and even possessing your villagers to fight and explore the lands of Albion.

The trailer also hints at a mysterious narrative and god-gifted powers and we’re itching to find more!

And that’s all, folks! Gamescom was nothing short of emotional and we’re beaming with pride at the exciting announcements from Guildford studios and the heart-warming reception of world audiences!  

Make sure you’ve got your eyes peeled on what the teams are cooking – and we’ll be sure to be first to tell you all about what’s coming!