20 Things We Learned From Gamescom 2016

1. Zelda's Breath Of The Wild Combines Far Cry, Dark Souls & Fallout

Granted, the build of Zelda that was available to go hands-on with at Gamescom was also the same that Nintendo had shown at their Treehouse event back at E3, but actually getting to play it for myself was pretty eye-opening.

Gone are the slow ramp-ups to exploring the open-world that tend to come after hours of preamble in many other entries in the series, as Breath of the Wild is immediately very freeform from the get-go, and it couldn't be a better fit.

Mysterious quest-givers and dialogue-spouters pepper the landscape, Dark Souls-style, a crafting system encourages you to hunt packs of enemies, Far Cry-esque outposts can be cleared and looted - and that's only within the first half hour. There's a ton of weapon variety, Link moves and climbs with more than a touch of Shadow of the Colossus about him, Ganon returns as a mystical, serpentine force, and across the board, the entire project is just steeped in the Nintendo 'seal of quality' we've come to know, love and rely on.

Breath of the Wild was my Game of the Show for Gamescom 2016, and I can't wait to play more.

--

What do you make of the various new trailers and gameplay snippets? Let us know in the comments what your favourites are!