Gamescom 2018: THQ Nordic Preview

Gamescom is just around the corner and with it, a new wave of upcoming games highlighting 2018 and beyond. Usually, those of us who live in the US look at E3 as the biggest gaming event in the world. And there is also the Tokyo Game Show in September that highlights the special gaming coming in Japan. But Gamescom lands in that special middle ground for Europe and is held in Koelnmesse, Cologne, Germany. Another reason Gamescom can be so special is how there can be a handful of announcements that happens during this time too. Even companies bypass E3 and use Gamescom as their special coming-out party to lay out the groundwork of what’s to come.

With THQ Nordic, the reason they did not attend E3 was the World Cup. With as exciting as Futbol can be, it is nice that they wanted to enjoy the festivities while getting ready for the next big gaming convention this week. For those of you who might not know, THQ Nordic is out of Austria, formally known as Nordic Gaming until 2016 when they gained THQ and changed their name to give their company better name recognition. And with THQ came several of their popular games that many gamers have their eyes on. The question that many are asking is just which games might we get the chance to see in Germany? It is tricky to say, but let’s take a dive into THQ Nordic and see what they might have cooking.

Fury probably will have the most melee range of the Four Horsemen when it comes to combat.

Tasked with hunting down and destroying the Seven Deadly Sins, developers describe Fury as being the most unpredictable and enigmatic of the Four Horsemen. Her main form of attacks is her whip, but she can also use swords, flails, daggers and magic in fights. Fury can even take on different elemental forms to enhance her combat abilities and ways to navigate stages.

While the status of Darksiders III was uncertain after THQ declared bankruptcy, Nordic Games ensured the series would continue. With the game’s release coming soon, we will likely get to see it on the show floor and perhaps get a few more details on Fury’s capabilities. Will we get one final big trailer to explain Fury’s involvement in the world of Darksiders? Will we get to revisit older locations? Or will we see brand new locations of an Earth torn asunder?

Fury unleashes her wrath later this year November 27, 2018.

Biomutant: Adaption Through Mutation

Biomutant is one of those intriguing games we have little information to go off of while sparking a lot of interest with its premise. You take control of a raccoon-like creature as you explore a planet filled with mutated creatures. The game will have tons of customization options, including your gender, the color, and style of your fur. Even the act of choosing your body size can heavily change the status of your character. This includes how much damage you do, how fast the character is, and how much health you have to work with.

This can be particularly interesting to see how players will choose to customize their character since perhaps making the character one inch too short could be the difference between life and death.

The game is third person and your character and uses guns and a sword to attack enemies. While you can equip a wide variety of armor and augment the weapons such as stunning targets, the biggest draw will be how you can mutate your character. Doing so can enable new abilities to help you survive while also being able to traverse the world you’re in. While the game is supposedly coming 2018, we do not have a release date yet. At Gamescom, we might get more details of how this “Kung-Fu Fable RPG” will play out and perhaps more details on when we’ll get it.

It could get a release date later this year. They could push it into 2019. Either way, Biomutant has the interest of many gamers and we can’t wait to see what it offers.

Fade to Silence: Surviving the Post-Apocalyptic Winter

And bear in mind that they want you to know that the weather is apparently the bigger threat.

Announced back in December during The Game Awards, this survival-RPG puts you in a world that has frozen over. You must work with other survivors and followers to build a refuge and survive not just the Eldritch monsters, but the unrelenting winter itself. The game has been in early access for some time now and the aim was to have the final release by August 2018. The team behind Fade To Silence will be at GamesCom and will likely provide more details on their game’s status alongside with how much longer the game might be in Early Access. For all we know, they might announce the final version for later this month or provide a window of release of when it will be good to go.

Generation Zero: Left 4 Machines?

Red Dawn mixed with the Terminator? Could have been a fun 80s-90s movie.

Generation Zero was announced in June, but we have little clues about this shooter title. Set in the 1980s Sweden, this open-world action game has you surviving in a world taken over by the machines. According to those who got a look at the game, they describe the game as a mix between Red Dawn and Stranger Things. The game will feature a full day/night cycle as wells as a focus on the damage done to enemies. While smaller enemies will probably go down fast, you can wound or cripple the bigger robots to give you and your team the change to take them down. With a 2019 release window, Gamescom can be a good time for us to get better acquainted with the game and what it will offer.

Wreckfest: A FlatOut Destruction Derby!

If you are familiar with the FlatOut Series, you probably know the focus isn’t as much on the racing as it is for the destruction derby. Wreckfest serves as its spiritual successor and it takes the concept of carnage even further. The game uses a special game engine that has soft-body damage modeling. This means that as your vehicle gets damaged, it will affect its overall performance in a realistic fashion.

Do you think you can still drive if your car looks like that?

While Wreckfest is out right now on Windows, the console versions will drop on November 20, 2018. The game was in Early Access for some time and has had “Favorable Reviews” according to Metacritic. According to their trailer, the game will be at Gamescom, so we might see what special goodies they may bring. Who knows if they will announce new modes or features for Wreckfest or if this will be to showcase the game on PS4 and Xbox One. Either way, it will be fun to see what havoc we will unleash.

Townsmen VR: the giant hand in the sky meets Virtual Reality!

While town building games aren’t nothing new, something special comes into play when you bring Virtual Reality into the mix. While Townsmen VR will have what is standard in these kinds of games, it can go even further with how you get to interact with the world. As a pair of giant hands in the sky, you have a much more hands-on approach to the game. You can literally pick up villagers and drop them off anywhere to assign jobs. You can even pluck a fish from the lake, take it to an open fire and cook it for a villager.

Does your God prepare a nice meal like this for you?

The game is in Early Access on Steam, so if you want to check out the game and have your VR headset, be sure to check it out. Hopefully, at Gamescom we will get to see what they have planned for the game.

TimeSplitters: Will we be so lucky?

It maybe unlikely, but many are holding out for a miracle.

To wrap up this look at THQ Nordic, we have a series that has gone under the radar for some time now until fairly recently. The TimeSplitters series has been in an unknown status since 2007 as the 4th installment was canned after Future Perfect‘s lackluster sales performance. A lot of time has passed since then (no pun intended), and it wasn’t until last week when THQ Nordic gained the right to TimeSplitters.

Now, it would be safe to say they will not have a full-blown trailer for TimeSplitters 4 or whatever the game title will be at Gamescom. Many fans are holding out for a soft confirmation of something related to TimeSplitters. Who knows if this will be an actual sequel or if they will take the “Remastered route” and bring one of the earlier games in the series to current gen. Either way, fans will probably be on the lookout for this at Gamescom, but likely won’t be looking too hard for it.

So what do you think?

Which THQ Nordic game are you looking forward to? Are there any surprises are you expecting to see from them? Be sure to follow us here at Culture of Gaming as we will cover Gamescom this week and reporting on the big announcements that will come out of Germany this week.