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 my final preview of Gamescom 2025 I’ll be going over a mixture of genres from rhythm games to roguelites to first-person shooters and combinations of all the above. I enjoy playing new indie games and I’m always looking to expand out my wishlist and I hope you’ve all found something new from these previews as well. Let me know in the comments!

UNBEATABLE

• Platforms: Playstation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Windows
• Release Date: 6 November 2025
• Demo?: Yes
• Wishlist: Steam Page

UNBEATABLE is a rhythm adventure where music is illegal and you do crimes. Follow the story of Beat and her band on the run, in a narrative experience full of big emotions powered by arcade-flawless rhythm gameplay.

UNBEATABLE is one of those games I had seen through social media and discussed amongst friends that I had not been following too closely. I like rhythm games and I really liked the character design and general art direction, but with so much happening in the gaming industry on a weekly basis I just didn’t have the time to track it too closely. I kind of regret that a little now because UNBEATABLE is really living up to the hype I had been seeing.

It helps that I’m already a fan of Japanese Arcade Rhythm games. From the way the tracklist is presented, the way difficulty is handled and the sound of the music itself, UNBEATABLE really calls towards that genre. Perhaps less crazy than some of those arcade games can get though. UNBEATABLE has four music tracks to keep track of: a top and bottom track on the right and the same on the left. Beats can come in pairs or across all four tracks, and some require additional follow through like holding the right button down. Standard rhythm game affair. There are even some trick beats where the goal is to avoid them instead by not pressing a button. 

This is all portrayed as a battle between the games main characters and these note demons coming to attack them, with the top row contextualised as the player jumping to reach them, and long notes are blocks. Occasionally police officers will appear and need to be dealt with using a lot of consecutive note strikes. See, in the world of UNBEATABLE music is illegal so your band are essentially a band of punk rebels, using music to bring down the system.

The illegal music plot is all revealed in the game’s story mode, which functions more like a modern day adventure game or RPG. Here, Beat can interact with her band mates and NPCs living in this modern-day city. There are quests to go on and dynamic cutscenes to enjoy, really highlighting the greatness of the animation and visual flair. 

Having finally played UNBEATABLE, I get the hype now, and thinking about it maybe it was a good thing I didn’t get too invested until now. The game is only a few months away so the pain of waiting for it to come out has been minimalised! Thankfully, if I do feel like getting another hit before launch then there is a demo available on Steam, and I recommend everyone else check it out if they are interested.

BPM BITCRUSHED

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: To be Announced
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

BPM Bitcrushed: A retro roguelite where every shot, dodge, and jump must sync to the beat. Battle through dungeons where enemies attack in time with the music. Find epic loot and even import your own songs to create a custom, rhythm-fuelled soundtrack for your destruction!

BPM Bullets Per Minute was a fun rhythm-based first person shooter that I first experienced at a previous Gamescom event. Now this year, I got the chance to try out its surprising new spin-off title BPM BITCRUSHED, a pixel art-based gaiden game which I can best describe as Crypt of the Necrodancer meets Enter the Gungeon. The game is a rhythm-based roguelite, just like the original, but converts its first-person gameplay into a top-down shooter style.

From the hub world, players pick which Norse character they want to control and then dive into the ruins, blasting their way through enemies, completing possible side-quests (like finding the lost key for a shop owner) and searching for the boss at the ruins exit. All this done to the beat of the song. It has all the elements of a classic roguelite title, like new weapons, passive skills and upgrades that can be temporarily acquired or purchased while on a run, and then permanent changes that can be unlocked in the HUB world for future runs. It’s not shaking up the genre much, but it doesn’t need to when it’s this fun.

There is one element of BPM BITCRUSHED that I did find to be really cool and adds a lot to its replay value and that is the custom music mode. The player does not have to go through the game with the original music made for it. Instead they can sideload their own mp3s into the game and it will generate a beat track based on that. Struggling with a level? Then why not explore the ruins to Clair de Lune for a slow and easy time. Hate yourself? Get a bit of Through the Fire and Flames by Dragon Force running and turn this dungeon into a bullet hell (for you and the enemy). There’s even an accessibility option to just turn off the music altogether.

I must admit, I never played the final release of BPM Bullets Per Minute. I do enjoy first-person shooters but my preference in games as I’ve gotten older is towards more retro-y feeling pixel-art driven titles. Which means BPM BITCRUSHED is far more my vibe and I’m looking forward to playing it more when the game releases.

Holy Shoot

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: Out now! (in Early Access)
• Demo?: No (the game is out)
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Holy Shoot is a fast-paced roguelite action FPS set in a satirical version of Hell, packed with chaos, blessed heroes, and demonic bosses. Pick your hero, dive into hell, upgrade your build, and shoot your way through sin.

Speaking of roguelites and first-person shooters, Holy Shoot is the only game I played at this year’s Gamescom that is actually available to purchase now, albeit in Early Access. The game is a fast-paced shooter through the demon world as you take on hoards of imps, flying skulls and all other manner of demons, all on your path to the big boss of each hell layer. The game comes with unlockable heroes to play as and a plethora of weapon types from shotguns to snipers to pistols to railguns, so there’s enough variety to find your own style of play.

The game is very fun and you can easily get stuck into it, evident by the fact my meeting for this game started late because the previous person playing refused to stop playing. And, I get it. Once you get into the grove it is fun blasting through the horde and trying to accomplish each room’s generated challenge. 

As you prepare in the lobby between segments, you’ll be given a challenge to complete in the next room. This could be killing all enemies in a time limit, getting at least five headshots, not using any spells and so on. Completing them gets you a fairy companion to assist for a limited time and this ended up being a more important goal for me than actually completing each room safely.

Not that I struggled much mind you. I died in my first run when I was still learning the controls but managed to blitz through my second run and make it straight to, and defeated, the first boss. I may have gotten lucky of course, I did find a pretty good weapon that I liked early on – a rail gun in the main slot and a magnum in my second slot. However, I could see later levels getting much harder, especially if the games RNG looks upon the player unfavourably with poor weapon drops and lackluster skills earnt.

Holy Shoot has popping visuals with a striking color palette, appropriately hype-inducing music and it has several little gimmicks in its levels that spice up the encounters. One I quite liked were these crystals that if shot slowed down time for anything within its vicinity (the player included). If you want a fast-paced FPS roguelite then you can’t go wrong with this one.

Don’t Stop, Girlypop!

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: To be announced
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Spread the love! Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is a Y2K arena movement shooter where standing still is not an option. ❤ Just ❤ Don’t ❤ Stop ❤ Moving! ❤

The girlypop aesthetic is something that I’ve seen a surprising amount of recently. YouTube has been throwing some recommendations for its use in video games at me and I can’t say I hate it at all. I like the magical girl and bubblegum aesthetic which girlypop is often associated with. Although Don’t Stop, Girlypop! might be taking it to an extreme where it started to feel like visual noise to me. Which is a shame as this is a perfect game for speedruns.

I should remind you all that this is just my taste of course. If you’re into the Y2K, girlpop style of clear pink plastic and hearts everywhere then more power to you. And there were definitely parts of this aesthetic I enjoyed. The second level had a more fruitiger aero vibe to it which is definitely a style I click with.

If the visuals are something you enjoy or something you view as second nature to the gameplay then you’re in luck, because the core-gameplay loop of Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is very good. The game is all about speed, the faster the player is moving the higher the damage multiplier. It’s a game that promotes non-stop, fast paced boomer shooter action – heavily inspired by games from the Unreal Tournament era of PC shooters. 

One of its core mechanics is wavedashing/wavehopping, the sound of which has caused all the Melee players in the audience to perk their ears up to. The player can get mad speed through continuous wavedashing and bunnyhopping that will have the player blitzing through levels, and it becomes required for some of the games platforming segments (like when you have to outrun a train). The game also has a grappling hook, which is always a plus in my books.

So gameplay wise, this game is a real winner – a high-speed shooter that pushes for maximum skill and enjoyment, where weapon abilities can be changed together for interesting, room-wiping discoveries. It’s really just how much you vibe with the aesthetics that will dictate your overall enjoyment of the game. I reckon there will be some of you who really, really like the look of this game and others who it doesn’t click with. Kind of like Marmite. I’ll leave that up to you to decide, just know that regardless, the gameplay underneath is a lot of fun and I could see this game appearing in a future AGDQ.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam
• Release Date: 18 September 2025
• Demo?: Yes
• Wishlist: Steam Page

In this Roguelite set in a far-off mystic realm, ancient forces stir, and untold dangers await. As Towa, lead the guardians of the sacred tree in forging strong relationships and powerful swords to fight Magatsu’s forces and determine the future of Shinju Village.

I feel kind of bad for Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree. The game comes out very soon but I feel like it has been heavily overlooked by many gamers and that’s a shame given the game is very similar to one that was critically acclaimed: Hades. It’s not just copying Hades 1:1 with a Japanese aesthetic though – it has many of its own gimmicks some of which you experience immediately and one specific gimmick that’s really important but didn’t impact in the demo due to the nature of a demo.

Regarding what did matter in the immediate, the way Towa works is that it asks you to take two characters into the field at once, controlling both simultaneously with the left and right stick (unless in multiplayer or if you use the follow command). These two characters are split into an attack and support role, referred to in-game as the Tsurugi and Kagura respectively. In my case, I used Nishiki, the buff koi-man as my Tsurugi and Origami, the hot mage as my Kagura. The former attacked with big sword slashes and knockback inducing strikes while the latter fired off various AOE magic attacks.

It takes some getting use to controlling both characters and I won’t lie that I struggled with it a bit against the boss of my run, ultimately resulting in failure, but it definitely felt like it was a result in my lack of skill than the game being unfair (it would’ve helped if I had paid more attention to the skills I acquired along the way).

I didn’t try out every character but I did run around the HUB world and chat with some of them and they all come off as very charming. The HUB town is a great place to chill and relax between runs, having your usual side activities to partake in like fishing. It’s relaxing but also cruel given this game’s other mechanic: Sacrifice.

You see, the reason there are several playable characters in the game and you take two into the field with you is because at the end of a run, the player is forced to pick one of the two to sacrifice in order to harvest their life force and push forward into the next section. Over the course of the whole game, this will whittle down your party until just two are left.

It is a very interesting mechanic. It kind of reminds me of Captain Rainbow where the goal was to fulfill the islanders wishes and when you do they would up and leave the island, greatly changing the dynamics of the characters left behind. While I didn’t experience this in my demo time, due to the nature of the demo, I imagine that sacrificing a character will end their side-quest chain and any relevant cutscene or other characters story they were a part of would alter accordingly. 

This not only encourages replayability (which is the goal in all roguelites) but also encourages the player to not pick a favourite. If you really like Nishiki you could always chose to have him as the Tsurugi and always sacrifice the Kaguya, but that may not result in a good team balance by the end of the game and I suspect the game wants to encourage players to both get attached but not too attached as to stick with one party member. It wants the player to experiment and try out each combination of characters, before saying goodbye to them.

Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree is a game I think will score very well critically and gain a cult following over the years. It feels to me like it’s been looked over by the wider community, I myself only learnt about it from an episode of Kyle Bosman’s Delayed Input series. After playing it I think it deserves a lot more love, so I highly encourage you all to try out the demo and try it for yourselves.

RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: To be announced
• Demo?: Playtest sign-up
• Wishlist: Steam Page

A coin-pushing dopamine machine. RACCOIN is a roguelike deckbuilder where you combine special coins with powerful items to trigger wildly satisfying combos. Stack shiny towers, spin the lucky wheel, and shake the machine until all the coins drop.

Last, but certainly not least, I played RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike and I think that name says it all. I was recommended to try out this game from another attendee at Gamescom and I can see why. It takes the classic pier-time activity of a coin-pusher machine and adds on a plethora of rogue-like power-ups that turn it from a simple game of watching the coins drop into a crazy experience.

By the end of my run with the game I had tornadoes flinging coins into the air, birds dropping more coins down from the sky, ancient coins, coins that transformed other coins into different types of coins, magnets and gachapon items that rewarded me with even more skills and items I could use to add to the chaos. It was very overstimulating, in a good way.

The gameplay loop is simple. You have a limited amount of coins you need to put into the machine and a target amount of coins you need to get out. If you do run out of coins you can use money to buy more and if you run out of money it is game over. I never ever ran out of money though and this might be my one concern with the game. I became so powerful in such a short amount of time that I could buy out the power-up shop every time and I could not possibly fathom how I might end up losing. The demo was only 15 minutes long and in that time I became a Coin Pusher god. That’s exciting in the short-term but there’s no challenge in the long-term.

I’m sure there is something that happens later on that will up the difficulty and potentially kill a run but at least in my playtime it never arose and that might ultimately make this game struggle. I enjoy an overstimulating point pusher game but one with no challenge will make those points eventually worthless.

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