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Top 5 Shockers From Gamescom 2015

Top 5 Shockers From Gamescom 2015

Gamescom is over, leaving us waiting once more for the next big gaming conference, Tokyo Game Show. While not as huge as E3, with major companies like Sony not even having a press conference, the show was still home to some major announcements made to get our mouths watering. Here are the top five announcements that we were excited about from this year’s Gamescom.

Xbox One is Now a DVR

Xbox One is Now a DVR

Microsoft is at it again, prioritizing media functions over games, and while this is enough to make a lot of gamers shout “BOOOOO!” these new features are actually pretty revolutionary. For instance, Windows 10 is coming to the Xbox One, which will change the Xbox One dashboard in significant ways. The new dashboard will be faster, easier to navigate, and has Cortana, the Windows equivalent of Siri.

But integrating Windows 10 has another huge implication, and that’s in the way that the Xbox One stores and handles media. You will be able to record any show you like, and schedule recordings for the future. You can save these recordings and stream them to any Windows 10 device. Essentially, you can now rip any TV program that passes through your Xbox One, free of charge. Well, any free-to-air program. That’s the only type of TV that Microsoft will allow you to tune directly to the Xbox. Everything else needs to be done through the Xbox One’s HDMI passthrough, but that, obviously, won’t be able to schedule recording.

There are going to be a whole lot of recordings showing up on torrent sites, courtesy of the Xbox One.

Star Wars: Battlefront Fighter Squadron

Star Wars: Battlefront Fighter Squadron

When Star Wars: Battlefront was revealed, EA said that, unfortunately, we would not be able to have dogfights in space. All the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter fans at E3 collectively groaned when they heard that. But when Gamescom came around, EA said “we didn’t say you couldn’t fight in ships! Just that you couldn’t fight in space!” They then revealed Fighter Squadron mode, and gave us a demo in which the Millennium Falcon had a dogfight against Slave-1… all within the atmosphere of a planet. Obviously that’s the most important detail here. It’s pretty much everything you wanted from a dogfight mode, as each player gets to pilot their own vehicle, and getting enough kills allows you to bring out an iconic vehicle. It’s a lot like how Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader can be earned as perks when fighting as an infantry.

But it’s not in space. Let’s just be completely clear there. It’s totally not in space. It’s not like the team could just change the atmosphere background to a space one. Nope. No stars here.

World of Warcraft: Legion

World of Warcraft: Legion

World of Warcraft is simply the game that will never die. Legion is now the sixth expansion for the world’s most popular MMORPG, proving that it can make progress even when it is hemorrhaging members. Numbers for WOW are at a nine year low, but it’s still the most played MMO out there, so why not try to invigorate the game with some new content?

The expansion will increase the level cap from 100 to 110, introduce a new class called the Demon Hunter, and will add a whole new continent of content to explore called The Broken Isles. They will also introduce a brand new Player vs. Player honor system, a new forging system that will allow players to customize legendary weapons, and a new prestige style system that will allow you to reset to level one to get bonuses.

Halo World Championship

Halo World Championship

E-sports! Halo is offering the big bucks to people who want to play it as their major e-sports game of choice. It has long been an influential game in the e-sports arena, but now Microsoft Is funding a one million dollar Halo e-sports championship. It’s not quite the eighteen million dollar DOTA 2 championships, but it’s much bigger than the last prize pool of $150,000. There is a hope, that this will allow Halo to take back the multiplayer shooter crown from Call of Duty , but we have yet to see how Activision will respond.

Quantum Break Is Real

Quantum Break Is Real

Quantum Break was one of the first projects announced for the Xbox One. This combination game and TV show was meant to blur the lines between the two kinds of media. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard much about it – until Gamescom, that is. Now, not only do we have a suitably epic trailer for Quantum Break, but we also have a release date! The game will release on April 5, 2016. The announcement also revealed some of the star studded voice cast, including names like Shawn Ashmore (X-Men), Aiden Gillen (Game of Thrones), Dominic Monaghan (John Wick) and Lance Reddick (Lord of the Rings).

And the Worst Announcement: Final Fantasy XV’s New Trailer

And the Worst Announcement: Final Fantasy XV’s New Trailer

Square-Enix promised that we would see a ton of new info about Final Fantasy XV . Unfortunately we didn’t, unless by “tons of new info” you mean “trailer where we see the main character as a kid cradled by his dad for fully half the time.” It was incredibly disappointing and Square said we had to wait until TGS to see even more. Frankly, I’m sure that will be disappointing too.

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