Microsoft's Gamescom 2015 stream and announcements
Tuesday 4th August
- BST: 3pm
- CEST: 4pm
- PT: 7am
- ET: 10am
With E3 being a week later this year, and Gamescom a week earlier, Sony's decided to skip its annual European press conference at Gamescom in favour of Paris Games Week. It's going to be fascinating to see how Microsoft seizes the spotlight as a result.
There's an understandable emphasis on European studios for the publisher's big show, with concrete details expected on Remedy's Quantum Break, as well as a strong likelihood of a proper look at Crackdown. From further afield comes Platinum Games' Xbox One exclusive Scalebound, which will be seen in action for the first time.
That's a serious slate that Sony should be envious of, but will Microsoft serve up any surprises alongside the games we're already expecting? And what about third-parties - will Mafia 3 or Homefront: The Revolution make an appearance?
EA's Gamescom 2015 conference stream and announcements
Wednesday 5th August
- BST: 9am
- CEST: 10am
- PT: 1am
- ET: 4am
EA's Gamescom press conference is a dry formality, but it's at least enlivened - for those lucky enough to be in the audience - by Peter Moore's warm-up routine. He truly is the thinking man's Bobby Chariot.
But how are the games doing? On this front, EA might be onto a winner. Star Wars Battlefront will hopefully be stomping back into the limelight, while Mirror's Edge: Catalyst should balance the all-out warfare rather nicely with open-world parkour tailor-made for the era of Edward Snowden. Elsewhere, Garden Warfare 2 will presumably receive the same bewilderingly extensive stage time it always does, and FIFA 16 will be looking less out of place in Europe than it always does in Los Angeles. Hopefully Pele will be air-dropped in with a bunch of new anecdotes, too. Who else has patted his hair?
On the more speculative side of things, it would be wonderful to find out exactly what Criterion's been working on - and how much progress has been made on the exciting open-world mixed vehicle prototype it showed off at E3 2014. Stick a release date on that, and we'll even forgive EA for Rory McIlroy's latest.
Call of Duty's Gamescom 2015 conference stream
Wednesday 5th August
- BST: 6pm
- CEST: 7pm
- PT: 10am
- ET: 1pm
Call of Duty has its very own conference event all to itself this year. We know that the multiplayer beta is coming to PlayStation 4 owners later this month, with other platforms to follow at the end of the month, but what other news does Activision have up its sleeves? With most expected game modes having been announced and detailed already, it's something of a mystery.
Blizzard's Gamescom 2015 conference stream and announcements
Wednesday 5th August
Media briefing
- BST: 11am
- CEST: 12pm
- PT: 3am
- ET: 6am
Thursday 6th August
World of Warcraft expansion reveal
- BST: 5pm
- CEST: 6pm
- PT: 9am
- ET: 12pm
Blizzard actually has two events taking place at Gamescom this year. First, there'll be a press briefing on Wednesday morning at 11am, where you can expect to hear a little more about all of the company's known quantities: Legacy of the Void for StarCraft 2, the recently-revealed Grand Tournament expansion for lovely old Hearthstone, and perhaps even a new Hero or two for Heroes of the Storm. We might even get a beta date for the studio's next game Overwatch. There won't be a stream for this event unfortunately, but we'll be discussing all of the breaking news in our live text coverage.
Things get really interesting on Thursday evening, however, when the publisher will lift the lid on the sixth expansion for World of Warcraft. It's not even been a year since the previous expansion was released, which leaves us speculating that the development team has either achieved their dream of a faster development cycle for the game, or BlizzCon (the traditional home of the WOW expansion reveal) is being cleared for something else - maybe Diablo, maybe some as-yet-unannounced aspect of Overwatch. This second event
will be streamed, and we'll be running commentary on all of the expansion announcements as they happen as well.
@ Blizzard trying to nickel and dime their dying player base even more with Bi-Annual Expansion releases.
