Microsoft Gamescom 2015 conference live report
Quantum Break! Scalebound! Crackdown! Halo Wars 2! All the news as it happened.
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You can all leave work now! It's done, it's a wrap, Microsoft's Gamescom presentation for 2015 is over. We got what we expected - Scalebound, Crackdown and Quantum Break - plus a little bit more, with Halo Wars 2 getting an announcement. Catch it all as it happened here.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
Hullo! We're in not so sunny Cologne where it's currently tipping it down ahead of today's big conference. Just over three hours to go 'til the main event.
Ugh, I'm useless with puns. Where's Bertie when you need him? Well, currently he's stepping on a plane making his way to Germany, where he'll be in pursuit of all the dragons throughout Gamescom.
muro: We are all now sat around trying to be the first one to come up with a pun with the word Quantum in it.
First one to come up with a decent pun gets a bratwurst from me.
LSi01: Doubt anyone will be able to remedy the lack of quantum puns
Oooh, you're close... Just a small frankfurter for you.
FogHeart: I think we are all agreed that mostly we quantum to give us a release date.
WE HAVE A WINNER. A sausage is in the post to you right now.
Fifteen minutes later, I realise that should have been WE HAVE A WIENER. Ah, life is full of such regrets.
rotmm: When is the Sony conference? I'm interested to see what they held back from E3 to show here.
Not until Paris Games Week at the end of October!
How's about getting Paul Merson to relay some of his stories?
Badoink: How long will the thing be?
The showcase starts at 5.30pm CEST - so I reckon 90 minutes.
Less than thirty minutes to go! The rain's clearing up in Gamescom. The clouds are parting. Phil Spencer will soon burst in from the heavens to satiate our desire for hot video game news.
Actually it's just started raining again. Tricky conditions out there for Phil and his team today.
They're all pacing around in their tracksuits to the side of the stage warming up, the Remedy team deep into a set of squat thrusts while Crystal Dynamics engage in some flamboyant star jumps.
We don't have the team sheets in just yet, but some reckon Phil will be playing Quantum Break up front, with Scalebound and Tomb Raider on the flanks. Halo will be between the sticks - safe pair of hands.
Expecting a strong showing from the big man with the number 5 today.
Alternatively - and I'm secretly hoping for this - it could all go England v San Marino and Phil Spencer could have his Graham Taylor moment. 'Do I not like that', as the Xbox One controller disconnects during the Scalebound demo.
Ah, if it's bang up to date football references from over 20 years ago you're after, you know EG's where it's at.
Lunastra78: Get ready for the surprise announcement that the Nintendo NX is short for Nintendo Xbox, a joint gaming venture that will feature launch games such as Gears of Zelda and Master Chiefs Wooly World.
DO I NOT LIKE THAT!
Will we be getting much in the way of surprises during this show? I'm not even sure Microsoft need to right now - with Scalebound, Crackdown and Quantum Break there's enough to get stuck into.
We should also (hopefully) be seeing PressPlay's new game, and it's been a mighty long time since we've heard from PlayDead. Now's the time to break that silence, surely.
And anyway, it's *all* about Scalebound. King Kamiya returns, and he brings for us an action RPG that already looks all kinds of hot.
Proscenium watch! It's a bit spindly, with lighting rigs spoiling two lovely spidery chandeliers. Microsoft's Gamescom event is always a little more low key than its all-singing, all-dancing E3 show.
Have you tried playing the music backwards? Could reveal something. Alternatively - and more realistically - it'll still sound like a lazy, percussive guff.
60 second excito-trump!
Lunastra78: Is the stream re-watchable here after it finishes? Seems I have to leave on an urgent mission in 20 mins :(
It will be!
Malek86: If it doesn't start soon, this music will make me commit a crime.
It's already made me jaywalk.
And this show has started!
Portentous montage-me-do kicks us off (god they love this Man of Steel Hans Zimmer soundtrack).
Mate, ease off all this epic stuff. Most of us will be playing these games in our pants, and will be looking far from heroic.
I thought I had some deja vu... That was the same video from E3.
Gregor Bieler! This guy! Well, it's nice to have a little local flavour to kick us off.
But yeah, step aside Gregor. Let's have Phil on-stage.
And the regular squinting at Phil Spencer's t-shirt begins. What's he wearing under there?
Maybe today's the day we move beyond the Phil Spencer t-shirt meme - he'll just tear off his top and reveal his bare, oiled torso, screaming 'No games, only Phil'.
Probably Battletoads or something though, innit.
Speaking of Rare! Rare Replay launched today. We quite liked it - Dan Whitehead gave it a special gold star.
Lunastra78: Phil Spencer Pez Dispenser
I approve of this lovely nonsense.
Quantum Break's kicking us off with the games - and it's confirmed for 2016.
Aidan Gillen and Dominic Monaghan and oh my god this must have cost so much money... Well, they're all in it.
Having big-name actors in video games feels so 1998.
This shooty stuff looks great. I don't think you can really doubt Remedy's shooty stuff.
I'm still not entirely sold on the talky talky famous face stuff.
Ooooh it's all wibbly wobbly timey wimey.
Well, it's looking better every time we see it. Sam Lake is now on stage to tell us more.
Shawn Ashmore is on stage. I have no idea who this is.
Who can beat me to IMDB?
Oh, he was Iceman. I have seen all those X-Men films, and I couldn't remember him at all.
Crackdown next! And Dave Jones, who sports a very expensive looking pair of glasses, is on stage.
Also, he can't remember his lines.
It has a name now - Crackdown 3.
More importantly, it's also got gameplay.
Same cartoony styling, more buildings. There you go - that's my hot take.
Oh, so when you say gameplay... You mean we'll be watching over the shoulder of devs as they play in two second bursts. Okay!
Cor bli. 100 per cent destructible environments. Alright, I'm sold.
Summer 2016 release.
THIS GUY! THIS INCREDIBLE GUY! Hideki Kamiya on-stage.
The world of Drakonis - that'll be the world then.
The lead chap's still a jerk though.
It looks open world, with a mini-map in the corner as you work with your dragon to take down enemies.
More importantly, it looks bloody delicious.
There's loot and there's XP and there's hit-points. This is very much an RPG.
I just hope there's an option to shut that guy up.
And it's got four player co-op.
I would like to play that video game.
It's down for 'Holiday 2016'
I'm going on holiday next January, so maybe it's around then?
It's the television section. Quick, to the kettles!
Still, having Neil Patrick Harris during a conference makes me happy. Is he going to be in Quantum Break too?
vert1go: Who wants a drink? Anyone?
Whiskey sour please!
You don't have to clap a keyboard, everyone.
Anyway, a keyboard attachment for the Xbox One is coming later this year. As is a DVR.
All Games with Gold Xbox 360 games in the future will be backwards compatible.
God, I never realised compatible could be so hard to spell. Anyway, onwards to Killer Instinct for Windows 10.
Loveable, lovely Chris Charla now to take us through the ID@Xbox line-up.
And everything we're going to see is going to be for Windows 10 and Xbox One.
Igarashi's up on stage first, wearing a hat and a whip, of course.
A small plug here - you should check out Simon Parkin's profile of Igarashi from last year. It's rather good!
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-04-03-unfinished-symphony-castlevanias-keeper-speaks
We're getting a Worms game during a Microsoft conference. Is this a new low?
LukehMuse: I can't believe he just casually skipped over Cities Skyline like that!
I completely missed that it's even coming - that's awesome news!
Thimbleweed Park, Ron Gilbert's nostalgic adventure game, is up next. It... It looks like an old adventure game, which is cool if that's your kind of thing.
More Xbox Preview games - Xbox One's early access programme - are coming. First Sheltered, and then Ark, which has been proving a hit on Steam.
Rivals of Aether, Starbound and We Happy Few are all also coming.
I've been playing a bit of We Happy Few recently - there's a feature on the site soon. It's cool, but it needs a lot of work before I'd recommend you dive in.
It's the Windows 10 section. Quick, to the minibar!
Here's a DirectX12 demo, produced by Square - I think it's what we saw earlier this year reheated for a post Windows 10 launch showing.
Back from the mini-bar with an armful of mini-bottles of spirits. Who wanted what again? Oh, and what did I miss?
Mojang is on-stage, and revealing that Cobalt is coming to Xbox One as a console exclusive.
Back to the core stuff! It's Dark Souls 3!
I'm playing it this week, and I'm all kinds of excited. At least 50 different kinds.
Cripes. I say. Crumbs! It all looks rather good - Bloodborne's jazz with Dark Soul's aesthetic.
This, I believe, is Homefront: The Revolution.
We went to go and see it a little while back, and there'll be a feature and some new gameplay on the site just after this conference.
Deep Silver knows how to do trailers.
CJ Kershner, who worked on the original Homefront - I think he's one of the few links between the two games.
That's it for your shoot-me-dos, so let's refresh the palate with a little soccer.
We saw this one last week too - there'll be a small piece up on it tomorrow.
I won't pretend to understand Ultimate Team, though. I just like that they refer to it as FUT. FUT FUT FUT FUT.
FUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUTFUT. Fut. (fut).
FUT!
Stop trying to make fut happen.
It's back to the old standards now to see us out - Halo, Tomb Raider, Forza and Fable Legends, all of which are coming out this year.
Oh no, it's the shoutcasters who are presenting Halo 5.
Did one of them say he was a former pro coach? Dare I ask what happened?
'Fan favourites' Optic Gaming are competing. I know a fair few of you will be going weak at the knees right now.
I think I'm going back to the minibar.
I remember when it was all about just getting stoned with friends and playing CTF. I would have freaked if these muppets turned up back then to shoutcast our matches.
Well done Epsilon. Good game.
Now, please, walk away.
Josh 'Homie' Holmes up to talk about eSports and Halo 5.
With Halo World Championships, which has a prize pot of $1m, kicking off later this year.
Let's have some hardcore open world destruction now please! Why? Just 'cause.
This is the part where I should get excited. It's Forza 6 time.
I'd love to know who presses Dan Greenawalt's shirts. You could cut your finger on some of those creases.
450 cars, 26 tracks. A Lotus 49!
The racing league sounds a little like iRacing, which is good news - it's amazing how few games have taken their cues from the best online racer of the last few years.
It's still kind of a shame that there's no dynamic weather.
Forza 5 will be out in September, then (you probably knew that already).
It's Tum Radar time, and (I believe) our first game with a female protagonist.
She's probably going to stab that man.
After a quite diverse showing at E3 for both Sony and Microsoft, this does seem to be reverting to type.
In other words, cars and guns.
His cables are showing.
Well, that was a Tomb Raider.
The sound of a woman screaming from the stream, and Chris Bratt observes: 'Yeah, that sounds like Tomb Raider'.
Phil's back on-stage to take us home.
Take the jacket off, Phil.
Then the t-shirt. Then the trousers.
This could be Magic Mike XXXbox One edition.
Quick, someone play Ginuwine's Pony on their phone in the conference room. You can't not strip when that's on.
ONE LAST THING!
Is this Halo on PC?
Or another ODST. Am so confused right now!
Oh, of course - Halo Wars.
Creative Assembly are on it - Halo Wars 2, next autumn, on Windows 10 and Xbox One.
Total Halo Wars!
(I can't claim that one - Bertie has landed).
That was a video game conference, for sure.
Not much in the way of fireworks, but a solid showing of dependable games.
Microsoft didn't really need to do much more than that with Sony absent, and with this year's line-up already looking strong.
naffgeek: Still waiting for a good reason to buy an xb1, come on MS tempt me back dammit!
There were plenty of reasons already - it's hard to deny that it's got stronger exclusives than the PS4, this year at least.
Of course, if it was all down to which platform had the best exclusives everyone would have a Wii U...
That, you lovely lot, is a wrap. We've got EA and Blizzard coming up tomorrow, so hopefully catch you then.