Gamescom kicked off last night with the Microsoft conference, and following in the footsteps of their recent E3 showing was book-ended with the tagline "the greatest games lineup in Xbox history." And with a focus on the upcoming backwards capability with Xbox 360 titles for the Xbox One and games like Halo, Tomb Raider, and Forza, this time we did get to see games not present at the E3 show. Games like Crackdown 3, Scalebound, and Quantum Break.


Kicking off the show was a look at Quantum Break from Remedy, the veteran developers behind Max Payne and Alan Wake. Continuing their long history of providing cinematic action games (and long delays), Quantum Break looks to be the studio's most ambitious game yet. With complicated time mechanics, a story centred on time travel and the always bad messing with the space-time continuum, Quantum Break is also set to launch alongside a live-action TV series. Although full details were scarce, both the game and the live-action footage looked pretty impressive, with familiar faces showing up both digitally and in-person. From that bad guy from Game of Thrones, to one of the X-Men, and even that guy from The Wire and Fringe, Quantum Break is clearly aiming high with its combination of action-game and live-action narrative. Quantum Break is due April 2016.



Next up came something we were all hoping to see at E3, Crackdown 3. And it looks pretty amazing, even in this early state. So much so that the only real bad thing you can say about the game is that the title acknowledges the existence of the abysmal Crackdown 2. One of the most impressive elements of the presentation, which blended in-game footage with behind the scenes head talkery, was a proposed multiplayer mode powered by the cloud that will allow for full city-wide destruction. An impressive feat if the team can pull it off. Either way it's good to see Crackdown 3 in action, and that jumping from building to building and collecting green orbs of light hasn't lost any of its charm.



Anther title missing from their E3 lineup was Scalebound, the collaboration between Microsoft and Platinum Games. Shown here in considerable detail, Scalebound pairs the douchiest game protagonist of all time with a cool looking dragon as they fight shiny foes wearing shiny medieval style shiny armour. Visually the game looks great, and the mix of eastern and western art is interesting to say the least. The fact that the soundtrack, which seems to be full of terrible dub-step, is somehow strangely appealing speaks volumes of the talent at Platinum Games.



Hey it's Xbox! Guess what that means? Halo baby. And the focus of the Gamescom presentation of Halo 5 was all about the multiplayer. To the point where they dragged out a pair of Halo shoutcasters (which, is apparently a word now) to go over a recent tournament held at developer 343 Industries' studio. To describe the commentating as frantic and unnecessarily verbose would be an understatement, but behind the linguistic barrage of words like "clutchest", the multiplayer footage did look good. And by that token, very Halo.



Speaking of Xbox and Halo, you might a well throw some Forza into the mix. Which is exactly what happened, with a look at Forza 6. And the way in which it handles rain, which the presentation went into a lot of detail about. Turns out Forza 6 will feature the most realistic rain puddles in the history of racing games. So there's that to look forward to. Kidding aside, the Forza games have always looked fantastic, and Forza 6 continues this trend. But with rain.



Finally, we got to see Lara Croft and a new snippet of gameplay from the upcoming Rise of the Tomb Raider. A snippet which focused almost exclusively on stealth based action. The kind of stealth that means hiding in bushes, waiting patiently until the right moment to sneak up on an unsuspecting bad dude, and stab them in the neck. Visually, the game looks fantastic and the rainy nighttime action set-piece shown, if nothing else, continued the theme of great looking rain coming to the Xbox One later this year.



The Microsoft Gamescom conference, which overall felt like a smaller scale version of the one we saw at E3 (for one, there weren't any expensive sports cars being lowered into a large auditorium), was definitely a success. In addition to the exclusive titles above, Microsoft also showcased a fantastic lineup of indie games and third party titles, like Thimbleweed Park and Just Cause 3. Also little snippets of news, like Live with Gold to include the Xbox 360 offerings once backwards capability is added in November.

You can watch the entire conference below.