Disney at Gamescom 2021

Hey, all I have one big game reveal in particular to talk about today from Gamescom 2021 but there are several games I’m going to be discussing in this entry that had a presence at the show and/or came out recently. One of them isn’t even actually a Disney game but is super Disney-adjacent.

Firstly I mentioned it briefly on Twitter but while I will collect it at some point probably on sale, for the time being, I am passing on covering Aliens Fireteam Elite. It’s mostly that I by and large play games single-player mostly due to a really irregular schedule both in work and personal and I have an upcoming trip to Disneyland so while I’m not cutting out video game purchases entirely I am being way more selective with what I spend my entertainment budget on til that trip is pretty much in the bag. Basically, it seems like a good candidate to check in on a few months down the road and see if there’s still life in it so I’ll come back around to it at some point.

Moving on, Gamescom 2021, it’s happening right now, pretty much all the major reveals have happened and several Disney games were shown! Not as exciting as E3 but in terms of game reveals Gamescom rarely is that.

After what feels like years of radio silence we finally got another look and a solid release period for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. This is a game that has been a very long time coming, and while I have some quibbles about it as a concept (I still prefer when the Lego games just mimed everything out with no voice acting, instead of just the sequels and spin-off movies this covers all nine main films but we already covered the first six quite well so will this feel too familiar), looking at the trailer it’s really obvious Traveller’s Tales is at least trying to inject some fresh ideas into their incredibly well-worn Lego games formula.

Everything from the combat to how you run around looks distinctively Lego, but different from pretty much every previous game. The Lego games have been playing it pretty safe for years so I’m really hopeful Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will be the fresh change this genre of game that Traveller’s Tales pretty much has created themselves badly needs and then we can hopefully be excited about future entries.

Marvel Future Revolution. It’s out now on iOS and Android. I have played a few hours but I’ll give a more detailed write-up when I have had a lot more time with the game in a couple of weeks. A few hours in, well it seems to be a very World of Warcraft-inspired Marvel MMO but way faster. I have enjoyed the few hours I’ve spent thus far but like I said I’ll do a full write-up at a later time when I’ve put it more through its paces.

Not a Disney-licensed game, but if you are a theme park fan who plays video games, you can’t not be at least a little interested in Park Beyond. Theme park simulators are few and far between, even rarer on consoles so anyone with a passing interest who would like to build their own Disney-inspired park (or thinks they can do a better job) should keep an eye on this one, I definitely will be.

For me though, easily the most exciting announcement was the long-awaited reveal of Midnight Suns the turn-based strategy RPG from X-Com developers Firaxis. While it will definitely focus on the supernatural element of the Marvel Universe as reported, it clearly features a large cast of familiar Marvel characters which is pretty much the opposite of what was reported.

Additionally, while we didn’t see any gameplay, there have been stories and interviews that state Midnight Suns will not be like X-Com and probably a little closer to games like Fire Emblem. You have a custom hero you play, but your team is other established Marvel heroes, not nameless grunts. It’s more story-focused and you build relationships with the other heroes in downtime and hang out with them. We’ll see more soon as a gameplay reveal is happening on September 1st but this already sounds incredibly cool and I can’t wait to play it early next year (also makes me want to get back into Fire Emblem).

That’s pretty much all for today, hopefully, next week I’ll have a couple of things to write about including the Midnight Suns gameplay reveal so see ya real soon!