If your love of video games crosses over with a love of LEGO sets in the venn diagram of life, I’ve got good news. Not only are there more Animal Crossing sets arriving in January 2025, but the previously teased Mario Kart sets have finally been revealed. 

Revealed during Gamescom 2025 in Cologne, there are a total of six Mario Kart sets and three Animal Crossing sets due to be released on January 1, 2025, so it’s shaping up to be a great start to next year. LEGO first teased Mario Kart sets as part o??f Mario Day way back on March 10, so it’s been a long almost six months waiting for ??more news. 

The six Mario Kart sets will not only feature all of Mario’s most well known and belove??d characters and their instantl??y recognizable Karts, but also buildable and customizable tracks which will open up a huge amount of variation and possibility for endless layouts. 

The six new Mario Kart sets, al?ong with their brick cou?nt and price, are as follows:

Some of these sets are also designed to incorporate previously released electronic LEGO sets of Pri??ncess Peach, Mario, and Luigi, making them digitally interactive as well as physically. When these figures are put into t??he driver's seat, they’ll be able to collect coins and scan item boxes. 

If your interests lay more in Animal Crossing, you’ll be happy to know that three new Animal Crossing LEGO sets are also set to be released on January 1, bringing the total number of sets in the collection to a ?nice round 10. 

As a fan of both Animal Crossing and LEGO, I love this collection. Particularly for the relatively low price range and the fact that they’re perfect for introducing my young daughter to the worlds of both Animal Crossing and brick building sets.

The three news sets com????ing to the collection are as follows:

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Playground Games has announced a brand new game mode in Forza Horizon 5. Ti??tled Hide and Seek, this mode will?? pit five "Seekers" against one "Hider", who will do their utmost to escape the pursuit.

The trailer marked the beginning of Xbox's Gamescom 2024 livestream. Coming September 10, Hide and Seek will be available as a free update for all. While the core gameplay will be based very much on the childhood activity we all pa?rticipated in, there will be a few adaptations.

You'll have to make strategic calls in Forza Horizon 5's Hide and Seek mode

In Hide and Seek, you can't just outrun your Seekers if you become a Hider. A special meter will be available at the bottom of your screen, and as the gauge fills up, you can camouflage yourself. As a result, you can e??ven hide in the open and make a fool out of those pursuing you.

But beware: drive too close, and the hiders can ping your location. This will help them track you down before approaching the Endzone. From what I understood, the Endzone will be visible as a bright-orange location, but it will take time to activate. While hiding might be the right choice in cert????ain situations, be ready to run when required.

Forza Horizon 5, released in 2021, continues to get more content in festivals and seasons. I am more than intrigued to try out Hide and Seek when it goes live on Septemb??er 10, 2024. The mode will also have its own reward track, which will include XP from the games you play. Playing continuously will also help you to unlock a play streak and get bonus XP as well.

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The “one last thing�at Gamescom Opening Night Live was a reveal for a new game in the Mafia series: Mafia: The Old Country.

Unfortunately, it didn’t tell us much aside from the fact that the game is going set in the early 1900s in Sicily. It’s going to give a look at the birth of the Mafia, so I suppose it?? could be ?considered a prequel to the entire series.

Aside from that, there was no gameplay shown. However, I got a press release afterward that says that it will involve “action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed Mafia series is known for. It promises a “deep, linear narrative with that classic mob movie feeling.�/p>

Honestly, I love Mafia. I got deeply into the first game back in 2002. I enjoyed the second game. I haven’t played the third, but I should since my expectations are set appropriately low. Then Mafia: Definitive Edition is maybe not quite as definitive as the name sounds, but it was a cool revisit to the first game. On a planet where every big budget game seems to be an open-world affair crammed full of side distractions, the more linear narrative of the (first two) Mafia games, where the open world is more of a backdrop, sounds very refreshin??g.

I'm weirdly hyped over a nothing trailer.

We’re promised that we’ll hear more about Mafia: The Old Country in December 2024. ?It will be coming t??o PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

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Starfield made its grand return during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024, with new information about its Shattered Space expansion and a?? surprising free car update arriving today. While Shattered Space isn't quite here yet, you won't have to wait long for its release, as it's coming out at the end of September thi??s year.

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024 revealed that Starfield will receive a free content update tonight that introduces the REV-8 space vehicle, allowing you to drive around the universe in style. It's completely separate from the expansion, so anyone who owns Starfield will ?get access to it. The REV-8 also features flying capabilit?ies, a mounted turret, and armor to make combat easier. You can even drive around with companions to make space travel a little less lonely.

Bethesda also revealed during Gamescom that the Shattered Space expansion will launch on September 30, 2024. While it was known that it'd be released sometime in Fall 2024, this is the first time the exact launch date was revealed. Considering Starfield was released in September 2023, Shattered Space launching shortly after the game's one-year anniversary sounds fitting. Anyone who purchased Starfield's Premium or Constellation Editions will have access to the expansion, with premium upgrades avail?able for anyone who wants to experience it.

As of now, details on other future Starfield expansions and free content updates are unknown. While we know more expansions are coming beyond Shattered Space, information about their content, prices, and release dates remains to be discovere?d.

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Since its initial release date nearly four years ago, Genshin Impact has developed a massive following on PC, mobile, and PlayStation, with no signs of slowing down. If you know about this famous gacha game b??ut never got the chance to play it, you'll now have another opportunity to with ??its release on Xbox consoles on November 20. For those on other platforms, you'll get to dive into the new region of Natlan soon, too.

During the Gamescom Opening Night Live stream on August 20, MiHoYo revealed that Genshin Impact will launch on Xbox series X/S and ??Xbox One on November 20, 2024. You'll have three months to decide whether to swap platf??orms or try it for the first time.

Even sooner than that, Genshin Impact's sixth nation, Natlan, will become available on August 28, giving everyone on PlayStation, PC, and mobile a chance to dive deep into a new region in just over one week. Like previous region updates, it'll com??e with its own set of resources, bosses, and quests to complete. During the trailer, we also get a chance to meet Mualani, Kachina, and Kinich, who'll all be future playable characters during and after the update.

Xbox players?? won't quite have a chance to a??ccess this new area on launch, but at least it'll be available for the November release.

Genshin Impact's Natlan region will be available on August 28, 2024, and the ??game will launch on November 20 for Xbox?? One and Xbox Series X/S.

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Infold Games opened up registration for Infinity Nikki’s closed beta on mobile platforms today, and as part of the Opening Night Live stream at Gamescom, a new trai??ler has been shown off depicting... stuff.

What a weird trailer. It opens up with some sort of stuffed animal burlesque show before cutting to a bunch of disjointed scenes like riding on a train full of chicks (as in baby chickens). No wait, they're, like, haunted bags. It tells very little about the gameplay, but we at least already have a lot of information already.

Infinity Nikki is something of a follow-up to Love Nikki: Dress Up Queen and Shining Nikki, both of which were fashion games. This one, on the other hand, is a “cozy open-world RPG.�There’s still an element of fashion with a metric tonne of hairstyles and outfits, but now you get to wear them out into a fantasy world in order to catch bugs and fish, which ar??e things you wouldn’t really want to do in such nice attire. There’s also combat, if you can believ??e it.

Earlier today, Infold Games opened registration to the closed beta for Android and iOS. PS5 and PC versions ar?e on the way but don’t seem ??to be included in the closed beta. The date for the actual release has not been stated.

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Gamescom 2024 is kicking off in Cologne, Germany on August 20, and Geoff Keighley will be starting the convention with Opening Night Liv?e. There’s s??ure to be a lot of surprise reveals, but we do know a little something about what to expect. 

Gamescom Opening Night Live will be streaming on both YouTube and Twitch, with what promises to be an epic show beginning at the following t??imes, depending on your location:

• 11 a.m. PST
• 2 p.m. EST
• 7 p.m. BST

A pre-show, hosted by Kyle Bosman, will begin 30 minutes before Opening Night Live. This pre-show will feature additional announcements and trailers, so make sure to sit down and get comfortable for w?hat’s to come!

And what is to come? Well, over on Twitter, Keighley has been pre-revealing some of what’s to come at Openi??ng Night Live, with content from the following games?? and developers featuring in the show:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (First campaign playthrough)
• Dune: Awakening (Extended look at gameplay)
• Dark and Darker: Mobile (Gameplay world premier)
• The First Berserker: Khazan (New trailer)
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (New trailer)
• inZOI (New trailer)
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (Gameplay trailer)
• Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Gameplay trailer)
• Monster Hunter Wilds (New trailer) 
• Marvel Rivals (New heroes and updates)
• Panic & Okomotive (New intellectual property reveal)
• Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (New Trailer)
• Squid Game: Unleashed (First look)

NetEase Gam?es, which is set to have two unannounced titles set up for visitors to play at its booth at Gamescom, will also feature in Opening Night Live alongside a spooky new title from THQ Nordic and Tarsier Studios. A teaser trailer for th?e latter unnamed game is already available, and intriguing to say the least:

Perhaps the most exciting reveal at the event, at least to me, is a new trailer for Little Nightmares III. The upcoming sequel will feature online co-op gameplay, allowing you to ‘face your childhood fears together� The third game in the Little Nightmares franchise was announced at Gamescom 2023, and the development team made the decision back in May 2024 to delay release until 2025, so I’m excited to ??see what the new t?railer will reveal.

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After many years of waiting, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl (to give it its full title) is not far from release. Admittedly, the developer did have to delay the game once again, but thi??s final push should ho?pefully make the long-awaited follow-up even sweeter.

However, we must be coming to the end now, as GSC Game World has announced that STALKER 2 will be at this year's Gamescom. In a recent post on X, the studio announced that the demo "will await you in the public zone" at the event, which kicks off late?r thi??s month.

The fact that the post mention?s the Xbox booth suggests t??hat it's going to be the Xbox Series X|S version of the game. Not much else has been said about the demo, so if you are attending Gamescom 2024, you may be able to get your Exclusion Zone-based survival horror kicks whilst you're there.

No more delays for STALKER 2

Along ??with GSC Game World, other developers and publishers who will be attending Gamescom 2024 include: Capcom, EA, Blizzard Entertainment, Ubisoft, SEGA, Konami, THQ Nordic, and many, many more. The event is being held at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, ??Germany between August 21 and August 25.

However, not all will be in attendance. Sony recently confirmed that PlayStation won't be at Gamescom this year. Neither will Nintendo, which means there will be no announcement for the anticipated follow-??up to the Switch (which eve?ryone is just referring to as the Switch 2 until we hear otherwise).

Back to STALKER 2. It's good news that there will be a public demo available at the event, as it also means it's definitely close to finishing development. Although it was also at Gamescom 2023. Having said that, it's been a very long time since there was a new entry in the series, and the likes of Chernobylite can only pick up some much of the slack.

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The summer is stretching on, and though it's got some games in the pipeline, it looks like So?ny won't be showing up to Gamescom this year.

Sony will be not showcasing at the upcoming Gamescom 2024, as confirmed by Eurogamer, reported first by Games Wirtschaft. This makes it five years since Sony showed up at a Gamescom, ba??ck in 2019.

Even though it’s not th??e most surprising decision, it still comes a??s a disappointment for those hoping to see Sony's games at the show, especially with how the PlayStation State of Play presentation in May was received by fans.

Sony had revealed release dates for Concord, Astro Bot, and the God of War Ragnarok PC port during the State of Play, with all three titles set to launch this year. Concord will be released on August 23, which falls amid the dates for Gamescom 2024. Moreover, the release dates for Astro Bot (September 6) and God of War Ragnarok PC port (September ??19) are also not that far off.

However, PlayStation is not the only platform skipping the major video games showcase event, as Nintendo will also not be present at Gamescom 2024.

While both of those major console platforms?? will be a no-show, Xbox has doubled down on its commitm?ent to Gamescom 2024. Xbox has announced that it will return for Gamescom this year, and will host its “biggest booth yet�

Moreover, Xbox has also revealed some of the games and DLCs that they will be showcasing at? Gamescom 2024. Fans can expect to hear about the following games and DLC:

• Age of Mythology: Retold
• Avowed
• Ara: History Untold
• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• Diablo Immortal
• The Elder Scrolls Online
• Fallout 76
• Towerborne
• World of Warcraft: The War Within

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