Gamescom: Witcher III – Songs of the Past and IKEA x Xbox

Witcher III: Songs of the Past

The annual Gamescom kicked off last night, in Germany. It’s the world’s biggest gaming event, with over 1k exhibitors (gaming companies, developers, and retailers) from nearly 60 countries. As usual, the event was live broadcast via Geoff Keighley and his two-hour presentation included many new game announcements and trailers. You can still watch last night’s broadcast on YouTube.

Here are the games that I’m interested in:

Gears of War: E-Day: A few years I got all these Gears of War games on Black Friday. I started them, but I just never liked the game. Even though this is an Xbox exclusive game… I am not sure if it’ll sell the console (especially at today’s more expensive pricing).

Warlock – Dungeons & Dragons: I’m a big Dungeons & Dragons fan, so naturally, I was very interested in seeing gameplay footage of the game. They had the actress who plays one of the characters from Warlock introduces the game. It looks good. It looks like God of War fighting style. It does suck that Wizard of the Coasts took the license away from Larian Studios (who made the award-winning Baldur’s Gate III). I just hope it wasn’t a mistake, that Warlock is really good.

Metro 2039: I don’t know why I’ve never really gotten into the Metro games. I own a few of those games – I just never really found it compelling. I think the game suffers from their naming convention. For example, Metro 2033 is the first game. You would think 2034 is the next game – but nope, it’s Last Light, followed by Exodus, followed by Awakening. I think I have the first three games. Update, I just checked, I do own three Metro games, but it’s only the first two. I own Last Light and Last Light Redux (I’m assuming an updated version).

Path of Exile II: Yeah, yeah, I’ve been playing POEII for a while now, but it was in “beta”. Apparently, the launch of the game is coming on December 11, 2026. Perhaps I should jump back into the game and see what’s changed. It’s been a long time since I played.

Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake: I love Might and Magic, but I’ve always found Heroes of Might and Magic games waaay too hard. The game creator was a board game fan and was developing Heroes as a completely different type of game than the beloved Might and Magic series. Unfortunately, the software company (New Worlds Computing) thought changing Heroes to Heroes of Might and Magic as a name-recognizing branding… so they shoehorn in M&M stuff into Heroes. I own all the Heroes games, of course, but again, I think the game is very, very hard (even on easy!!!) I know it’s probably just me and how I play.

Witcher 3: Songs of the Past: I heard about the expansion for a while now, but it looks like CD Projekt Red is making it official. You can wishlist it on their gamestore GOG. I hate to admit this, but I’ve never beaten Witcher III. I get really far in the game, but then something turns up and I just forget about the game. Maybe with the new expansion, it’ll motivate me to play again.

The game will include a free remastered (on September 29) with revamped skill tree and other updates. They also showed off footage from the upcoming expansion. I’m definitely interested in the new expansion.

They also talked with Miles Tost, the lead developer. He said visuals are updated, but includes updated combat and new finishers. The best news of all, is that they said the old expansion, Blood & Wine will be free for those who own just the base game. I already own Blood & Wine, but for those who never bought that expansion – you benefited from waiting so long!

Riding on the Gamescom excitement, IKEA and XBOX announced their collaboration: “YXSTABY”. If you were wondering about that crappy name, it’s a weird pronunciation of the Xbox controller layouts – a, b, x, y, start, trigger.

However clever they think they are, nobody likes that stupid name. And personally speaking, for myself, I did not really like ANY of their collaboration.

That weird tilty Xbox chair? What? Why? What kind of game asked for that????

The chair with the controller tucked underneath is a good idea… but how uncomfortable is that mesh chair against hard plastic of the controller? I don’t know… It’s a nice idea for easier access to a controller though.

That X pillow? Lame. Can’t imagine that it’s comfortable… and why would you want an X pillow?

The only thing that I think is cool is the Xbox display box. Like many gamers, I do own a ton of Xbox controllers. I love their design, and I have bought many of them based on their color and theme. My favorite is the Fallout controller, of course. As you can see from Ikea’s promotional photo, they had the Pipboy and Vault Boy bobble head in that display case. I was going to buy three display case… that is until I saw the price: $30 each. Whoa, man, that’s not worth $30. I think I can live with not displaying my controllers. My controller shoebox works just fine.

Yours,