Gamescom 2025 is over and in total I played 30 different games, spanning a wide-range of genres and developers and in these five previews I want to highlight my thoughts on each one and if I think they are worth your time. As always, there will be links to the game pages for you to wishlist if something catches your eye, and this time I am also including demo links if you want to try the game yourself.

In this second set of previews we’ll be fighting for our survival through grotesque fusing monsters, armoured killer robots, alien investations, crazy blood cults and some Lovecraftian abominations for good measure. There are some real highlights in this set, as well as my least favourite game of the show (unfortunately), so give them a read and let me know if any catch your fancy!

Cronos: The New Dawn

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
• Release Date: September 5th 2025
• Demo: No.
• Wishlist: Steam Page

A whole new breed of survival horror emerges with Cronos: The New Dawn. Survive the brutal wastelands of the future, fight nightmarish merging creatures and jump back in time to harvest souls as you seek to uncover the origins of the apocalypse that wiped out humanity.

A rather surprising reveal in last month’s partner showcase was that Bloober Team’s upcoming original horror game Cronos: The New Dawn would be coming to Nintendo Switch 2, the same day as it launches on every other platform. The game looked very good from the trailers and so I was rather intrigued to see just how well it actually played on the handheld, and I am very pleased to say that it performs really well.

While a lot of what I played took place in claustrophobic hallways, the game never dropped in performance and nothing just stuttered or spawned out of nowhere. The game ran extremely well and in handheld mode it reminded me of playing Resident Evil Revelations back on my Nintendo 3DS, a previous technical showcase. 

As for Cronos itself as a game, I really like how it forces the player to think tactically about whether to fight or flight. It’s a common trope in survival horror games, limiting the player’s ammo and forcing them to consider if a fight is worth it. In Cronos, there’s a new layer to this as any defeated enemy can be absorbed by another enemy nearby, making it stronger. The only way to prevent this is to burn the body after it has been shot, which requires another valuable resource. I found myself getting pushed into a corner several times, forced to dodge and bunt enemies out of the way in order to survive.

There’s also a lot of good enemy placement and audio signals that encourage the player to stop and be cautious as they turn around every corner. One enemy latches onto the player when in their line of sight, and I found that I had to stop and observe my surroundings to find holes in the wall where I could deliver a quick shot to the head without them seeing me. It’s good design and instances like this left me feeling like there must always be a way forward, even if I’m at the limits of my supplies.

If you like games like Dead Space and Resident Evil Revelations then Cronos: The New Dawn is definitely a game for you, no matter what system you own.

PRAGMATA

• Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows
• Release Date: 2026
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Capcom’s newest IP—PRAGMATA. An all-new Science Fiction action adventure with its own unique hacking twist! It is the near future, and protagonists Hugh and his android companion Diana, must work together as they make their way through the cold lunar research station.

One of the best descriptions I’ve heard for PRAGMATA is that it is The World Ends With You but for third-person shooters. The gimmick of TWEWY is that players control two characters at once, one with the DS touch-screen and the other with the DS face buttons and PRAGMATA has a very similar control-scheme (sans the touch-screen of course). 

The player takes control of both Hugh and Diana, with the latter riding on the formers back in a similar way to Donkey Kong and Pauline in the recent Donkey Kong Bananza (in fact, the way Diana banters with Hugh and points out spots of interest in the level reminded me a lot of Pauline).

Hugh’s gameplay is managed entirely by the control stick and trigger buttons, allowing him to run, dodge, jump, aim and shoot at his enemies. A very typical third-person shooter gameplay style that we’ve seen from the more action-focused Resident Evil titles and Lost Planet. While doing this, in-combat the player will also be using Diana to hack into the game’s robotic enemies in order to make them vulnerable to Hugh’s attack. This is all done with the face buttons and involves playing a sliding block mini-game. So the player has to both shoot and dodge with one hand while solving puzzles using the other and all at the same time. Despite how chaotic this sounds, it works remarkably well.

The two different gameplay styles of PRAGMATA are synergistic with one another and very quickly I found myself accustomed to what the game was asking me. Dodge and puzzle solve until the enemy defence opens up and I can go full offense. This all came to a head at the demo’s climax against a giant robotic security system and it was in this encounter that I could put all I learnt to the test – including the various new weapons and hacking powers I had found while exploring.

It all resulted in a very satisfying final encounter, with some great cinematic super moves I could pull off when the enemy was stunned enough. By the end of it I was celebrating alongside Hugh and Diana, who I had managed to somehow form a connection with despite my limited playtime.

It’s always risky pushing a new IP out into the world but thankfully for Capcom, PRAGMATA is one of the best games I played at Gamescom. I think it’s going to make a big impact when it eventually releases next year and I look forward to playing more of it then.

Ground Zero

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: TBA
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Fight through post-apocalyptic South Korea in this retro survival horror. Uncover the truth behind the devastating meteor impact that left the country in ruins and turned every living organism into a terrifying monstrosity. Fight. Solve puzzles. Upgrade gear. Make every bullet count.

Speaking of Resident Evil, I played not one but two classic Resi inspired survival horror games at Gamescom this year and the first up is Ground Zero by Malformation Games. While many games have attempted the style of classic survival horror over the years, from what I played Ground Zero has come the closest to not only capturing the feel of the genre but managing to do so without feeling iterative.

The game comes with both tank and analogue controls, appealing to fans of both, and later on you can obtain a scope item which allows the combat to be played in first-person (although it will dramatically slow-down the player so it’s best used when fighting less than a handful of enemies). The graphics are also really impressive, using a low-poly style that can be smoothed out if the player prefers something a little more modern, and pre-rendered background art that really adds to the atmosphere.

What makes Ground Zero truly stand-out though is its emphasis on clean kills. If you choose to fight an enemy, upon its defeat the player can scan the fallen enemy’s body and will get points based on how cleanly the enemy died. If you manage to pull off a one-shot headshot with a pistol or rifle then you have a well-preserved body and can rack up a lot of points. Taking a shotgun to a crowd of enemies may lead to an easy kill, but the destruction of the body will result in a poor sample and less points.

These points aren’t just for scoring, it acts as the currency of the game. At terminals throughout the world the player can spend points to buy more ammo, health and upgrades like the aforementioned scope. This greatly adds another layer to the fight or flight response this genre calls for (one that is different to Cronos). Fight to get money to power-up but if you do, make sure your aim is good and your kills clean, or you may have been better off running instead. To support this, Ground Zero also introduces dynamic kills on enemies when they are grounded. Take out a knife and stab them in the head for the cleanest kill possible.

There are a lot of other little touches that Ground Zero has also implemented to improve upon the classic Resident Evil formula. Items are still needed for saves but only one is required per terminal, instead of a finite collectable. Health items come in different colours and can be fused together, but healing must be loaded into a syringe and can be mixed up for different effects. Even the safe box for items has a little twist to it, requiring either a puzzle or brute force to access, with the latter potentially having consequences for the items inside. 

I’m not a massive horror fan but I was extremely impressed with Ground Zero and it’s up there as another one of my games of the show. Definitely one to wishlist and keep and eye out for in the future.

Cult of Blood

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: TBA
• Demo?: Yes
• Wishlist: Steam Page

“Cult of Blood” is a survival horror adventure game that plunges players into a chilling, immersive experience. Set in a remote village deep within an ominous forest, the game draws inspiration from a true story, weaving a rich and terrifying narrative.

I feel a little bad writing about Cult of Blood, the other classic survival-horror game I played at the show, right after praising the last game so much. So, I want to start this preview by saying that Cult of Blood is also a good game and even does one thing better than Ground Zero. It’s just earlier in development and is paced slightly awkwardly at parts.

Rather than fighting aliens or zombies, Cult of Blood has you fighting vampires and the cult around them. There are also some strange forest-dwelling folk who seem friendly, but you never can be too sure. The game does a good job of setting up this atmosphere and getting the protagonist, a runt-of-the-litter police officer for the local small-town sheriff department, into his precarious situation. The stage is set and the foggy forest at midnight makes for a great starting location. I just wish there weren’t so many screens of just running in a straight line. It made getting around this area feel more tedious than it needed to.

The presentation in general leans more towards a PS2 era title than a PS1 game. If Ground Zero is Resident Evil 2 then Cult of Blood is Code: Veronica. But I could tell from the lighting and character models that the game is still early and needs some polishing up visually. 

But what about the element of Cult of Blood that impressed me the most? It was actually combat. Most classic survival horror games can feel a little janky, which some would argue adds to the horror aspect of the game, but I really enjoyed how much nicer the aiming and general combat felt in Cult of Blood. The game gives players both physical and ranged weapons to work with and for the latter the player has more freedom when it comes to aiming and lining up shots. It feels fluid and not stuck to an axis, and with the ability to target specific enemies in a crowd I didn’t find myself shooting wildly and hoping I hit. 

This smoother combat does admittedly bring some of the horror down and raises up the action, but I think that is fine. It just shows that Cult of Blood is another iteration on the genre, a different one to Ground Zero and I think it’s also worth keeping an eye on. There is a demo for this one available on Steam though, so check it out for yourself if you are curious. 

Call of the Elder Gods

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows
• Release Date: TBA
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Journey to the far corners of the Earth and unearth ancient horrors in this Lovecraftian narrative puzzle adventure and sequel to 2020’s critically acclaimed Call of the Sea.

I never played the original Call of the Sea but I have played many first-person mystery games in my time and I liked what I experienced here. It’s a real logic puzzle game, asking the player to investigate every detail in a room and figure out the solution using everything at your disposal, including both sight and sound. There’s a notebook to provide hints and keep track of clues discovered, which the original game apparently did not have and it can be turned off here for purists. 

All of its puzzle mechanics are wrapped in a Lovecraftian atmosphere with a depressed professor and curious university student taking centre stage as they both investigate a mysterious statue that’s been calling out to them. The entire game is fully voice acted and promises locations that are as beautiful as they are mystifying. 

It’s really hard to preview games of this genre as the evolution of the story and puzzles, how they get more interesting and more thought provoking as the game goes on, is what makes or breaks them, and a demo of the first part of the game isn’t going to be able to capture that. However, I did enjoy what I played and it made me want to go check out the original, so it’s definitely gained my recommendation.

Bonus points for it coming to Nintendo Switch 2. It looks great on the handheld and runs really well. I always find mystery puzzle games like this are best enjoyed handheld, like reading a book, so I know this is going to be my platform of choice when the game eventually releases. 

ELDEN RING: Tarnished Edition

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2
• Release Date: 2025
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Nintendo eShop 

With over 28 million copies sold worldwide, ELDEN RING is an award-winning, action RPG set in an authentic dark fantasy world. Explore treacherous dungeons and face epic boss battles. ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 includes the base game, SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE, and new weapons, armour Torrent skins, and more.

I am sad to say that my most disappointing experience at Gamescom 2025 was ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition, the upcoming port of the widely acclaimed 2022 adventure game for Nintendo Switch 2. I did not have time to play the game back then but was very confident that it would eventually come to Nintendo Switch 2 as a year one title and so decided to hold out. Now, I’m not so sure I made the right choice.

Now, the game is certainly playable. It runs on Nintendo Switch 2 and it doesn’t appear to be missing anything content and gameplay wise, which is great. But the performance leaves something to be desired. The original release of Elden Ring also had performance issues on some platforms but in a funny twist the PS4 and Xbox One versions were apparently some of the more stable and best to play on – presumably because the game was originally in development with those platforms in mind. So I don’t really see why the Nintendo Switch 2, which should be higher in power and performance than those two systems, is running worse.

Now, I should state that I only played the game in handheld mode. I was told by others who played the game that on a screen the game was far more acceptable. But still, acceptable is not the equivalent of good. Hopefully, the fact that ELDEN RING Tarnished Edition has yet to receive a release date, despite being scheduled for 2025, is a sign that the game is still in development and the performance will see some improvement. I’ve already waited three years, I have no issue waiting until late 2026 if it means the game will run at a performance worthy of this Game of the Year winner.

Preview 1 (multiplayer, cozy) | Preview 2 (horror, adventure) | Preview 3 (RPG) | Preview 4 (platformers, metroidvanias) | Preview 5 (rhythm, roguelite and FPS)