PC – GamerDEAL

September 5, 2026September 14, 2026

Crazy Taxi: World Tour Hands-On at Gamescom 2026: The Childhood Chaos I Have Been Waiting to Drive Again

A Childhood Memory Came Back to Life

There are games I remember because they were good, and then there are games that somehow became part of my life outside the screen. Crazy Taxi belongs firmly in the second category. I loved the series as a kid, but one of my strongest memories has almost nothing to do with actually holding a controller. When my younger brother had trouble falling asleep, I used to invent bedtime stories for him about a completely crazy taxi driver racing around the city, picking up passengers, taking ridiculous shortcuts and getting into increasingly absurd situations. Years later, standing at Gamescom 2026 with Crazy Taxi: World Tour in front of me, that memory was the first thing that came back. This was easily one of the meetings and hands-on sessions I had been looking forward to most at the entire show, and that kind of emotional baggage can be dangerous because nostalgia has a habit of setting expectations impossibly high.

That is why I was genuinely relieved when I started playing and realized that SEGA has not forgotten what actually made Crazy Taxi fun. World Tour still understands that the player should almost never feel comfortable. You pick a direction, accelerate, make a decision, change that decision because something else suddenly looks more important, jump, drift, crash, search for the next objective and immediately move again. The game has an almost constant forward momentum, and that was easily my favorite part of the Gamescom experience. I never felt like I was waiting for the game to entertain me. Instead, it kept creating reasons for me to do something, and after a few minutes I stopped thinking about the fact that I was testing an upcoming game at a trade show and simply started playing it the way I used to play Crazy Taxi years ago. That is probably the biggest compliment I can give it.

September 4, 2026September 14, 2026

Honkai: Nexus Anima at Gamescom 2026: HoYoverse’s Creature Collecting World Is More Interesting Than It First Appears

A World Built Around Bonds, Not Just Creatures

Going into my meeting with HoYoverse during Gamescom 2026, Honkai: Nexus Anima was one of those games I thought I understood before I actually spent enough time looking at it. On the surface, the description is simple enough: this is a creature-collecting adventure strategy game set within the Honkai universe, where you meet creatures called Anima, build a team around them and use their abilities in battle and exploration. The obvious comparison is Pokémon, and visually there are moments where your brain naturally goes there, but after seeing the game in more detail I think reducing Nexus Anima to another creature collector would be unfair. What immediately caught my attention was how much effort HoYoverse is putting into making the creatures feel like part of the world rather than collectibles waiting to be added to a menu. The environments I saw felt broad, colorful and deliberately inviting, with enough visual variety to make exploration feel like something I would actually want to do without constantly being pushed toward the next objective. I liked that feeling. There was no sense that the world existed only as empty space between missions. It felt designed for wandering, discovering things and simply spending time with the Anima accompanying you.

The foundation for all of this is the Nexus, a system of invisible connections between paired concepts called Aspects, including Love and Hate, Light and Dark, and Reality and Illusion. Following an event called the Sundering, those connections were broken and their remaining power became scattered throughout the world as Anima. That concept sounds complicated when explained on paper, but it gives HoYoverse an interesting excuse to make creatures radically different from one another, both visually and mechanically. This was one of my favorite parts of what I saw. The Anima did not feel like slight variations built from the same design template. They have different shapes, personalities and abilities, and those abilities matter beyond combat because different companions can influence how you interact with the surrounding world. The starting town of Iia is a good example. Its New Quarter, commercial areas, architecture, Nexus Hall and True Nexus Building give the location a stronger sense of identity than I expected from an opening area. I personally enjoy games that let me explore at my own pace, and Nexus Anima seems to understand that exploration becomes far more interesting when the creatures traveling beside you are involved in it instead of disappearing into an inventory the second a battle ends.

September 3, 2026September 14, 2026

Petit Planet at Gamescom 2026: HoYoverse’s Cozy Galaxy Made Me Want to Slow Down

A Different Kind of HoYoverse Game

Walking into my meeting with HoYoverse at Gamescom 2026, Petit Planet immediately felt different from almost everything I normally associate with the company. There are no enormous battles demanding perfect timing, no constant pressure to optimize a character build, and no feeling that the game is trying to push you toward the next challenge as quickly as possible. Instead, Petit Planet is built around the idea of slowing down. You become a Planet Tender responsible for developing your own small world by gathering resources, planting crops, growing trees and flowers, crafting furniture, reshaping the terrain, fishing and gradually turning an initially simple space into a home that feels personal. What surprised me most during the presentation was how deliberate the visual design feels. The colors are soft without becoming dull, the environments are bright without constantly fighting for your attention, and practically everything I saw seemed designed to make the player feel comfortable. I personally found that incredibly refreshing at Gamescom, where you spend entire days moving between loud booths, trailers, presentations and games competing to be more spectacular than whatever you saw five minutes earlier. Petit Planet did the opposite. It invited me to stop.

That accessibility is clearly part of the product strategy rather than simply an artistic decision. Petit Planet wants to be approachable to someone who might not normally consider themselves an experienced gamer. The controls, pace and visual language are designed around gradual learning rather than punishment, while the core activities do not seem obsessed with measuring performance. At the same time, I would not describe the game as something created exclusively for children. The art direction is too carefully constructed for that, and the appeal of building a peaceful space at your own pace is obviously much broader. Personally, I think this may become one of its biggest strengths. There are plenty of games that claim to be relaxing, but many eventually introduce timers, optimization loops or resource pressure that turn relaxation into another checklist. From what I experienced at Gamescom, Petit Planet seems far more committed to preserving that gentle rhythm. My concern is that HoYoverse will eventually need to find ways of creating meaningful progression without damaging exactly what makes the game attractive. Relaxation works when I still feel curious about what comes next. If everything becomes too safe or predictable, calm can very quickly become boredom.

September 2, 2026September 13, 2026

Daedalic at Gamescom 2026: Ghost Haunting, Hordeguard and Star Trek’s Q Trials

Ghost Haunting Brings Classic Point and Click Design Back to Life

During our meeting with Daedalic at Gamescom 2026, the first game presented to us was Ghost Haunting, a handcrafted 2D point and click adventure developed by Cologne based studio Creative Monkeys. We did not play the game ourselves during the meeting, but the presentation provided a detailed look at its story, visual direction and accessibility systems. The project is heavily inspired by the LucasArts adventure games of the 1990s, combining low resolution pixel art, linear storytelling, environmental puzzles, item combinations and conversations with strange characters. The developers want the game to look like something from the classic era while still benefiting from three decades of improvements in game design. Every pixel has reportedly been created and adjusted by hand, reinforcing the feeling that this is a carefully produced adventure rather than a quick attempt to imitate retro graphics.

The story follows Gigi, an unpredictable eight and a half year old girl whose grandmother was the only person who truly understood her. After her grandmother dies, Gigi is not given a proper explanation of what happened and assumes that she has simply travelled to the realm of the dead. She later discovers Baron Butternut, a demon trapped inside a talking pumpkin, as well as the truth about her grandfather’s secret work hunting ghosts and monsters. Gigi decides that if spirits can travel from the realm of the dead into the world of the living, she should be able to make the same journey in reverse and bring her grandmother home. Despite the subject of death, the game is built around absurd comedy, including a toilet dwelling goblin, an organisation of verified vegan vampires and a suspicious character named Dr. Calligraphy. The adventure is set in Germany’s Eifel region, with forests, castles, legends and real locations used to give the fictional world a strong local identity.

September 1, 2026September 14, 2026

ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE Hands-On at Gamescom 2026: A Childhood Aviation Dream Finally Takes Flight

Gamescom is full of games that I want to play, but ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE was different for me from the moment I walked into the meeting. Aviation has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My father served in the Air Force for close to 30 years and today continues working in the defense industry, including in the aviation field. I grew up in a house where aircraft were never just machines you saw in movies. During school holidays, my father would take us to the Air Force Museum, and during the year there were occasions when he took us to his base and we could see where he worked. Sitting down at Gamescom 2026 and getting my hands on the next mainline Ace Combat therefore felt strangely personal. I was not simply approaching it as another journalist moving from one appointment to another. For a few minutes, I felt like the kid who used to stare at military aircraft and try to understand what made each one different.

September 1, 2026September 14, 2026

Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 at Gamescom 2026: Warcore, Massive Battles and My First Look at the Future of Total War

Going into my Gamescom 2026 meeting for Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000, I had a very different level of curiosity than I normally have before a strategy game presentation. I have been playing Total War with my brother for years, and during the last couple of years we have also fallen deep into the Warhammer 40,000 universe, so seeing these two worlds finally come together felt personal. I had the chance to see the game in action, study the battle interface, learn about the technology behind it and later sit down with David Petry, Battle Product Owner, and Joy Dey, Tutorial Lead Designer at Creative Assembly. What became clear very quickly was that Creative Assembly is not simply taking Total War: Warhammer and replacing swords with bolters. This project is forcing the studio to rethink how Total War handles projectiles, battlefield readability, ranged combat, controls, scale and even the technology underneath the series.

August 15, 2026August 15, 2026

Honkai: Star Rail Version 4.5 Brings a Summer Trip to Astropolis on August 26

A New Stop in Astropolis

Honkai: Star Rail Version 4.5, titled To Roll the Stars in Astropolis, launches on August 26, 2026, taking the Trailblazer away from Planarcadia and into Astropolis, one of the Interastral Peace Corporation’s major strongholds. Following the appearance of the Voracity and the new crisis threatening Planarcadia, the story will focus on finding the power needed to protect the region while navigating the IPC’s upper management. Astropolis also introduces a much lighter side to the update, with Robin and Aventurine joining the Trailblazer for an interstellar summer vacation alongside the main storyline.

July 21, 2026August 9, 2026

I Know a Spot Review: Cozy Camping Game to Unwind With

A Camping Game That Wants You to Do Almost Nothing

I Know a Spot is one of those games that makes its intentions clear almost immediately. There are no enemies to defeat, objectives constantly flashing on the screen, timers pushing you forward, or complicated progression systems demanding your attention. Instead, you arrive at a peaceful outdoor location, unpack your camping equipment, decorate the area however you like, customize your vehicle, and spend some quiet time surrounded by nature and your dog. It is an incredibly simple concept, but after playing it, I realized that simplicity is also its biggest strength. If I had a difficult week and wanted a game that required almost no mental energy from me, this is exactly the kind of experience I could see myself launching just to relax for a while.

The world is built around forests, lakes, mountains, seasonal scenery, soft lighting, natural ambience, and carefully arranged camping locations. The audio deserves particular attention because the sounds of nature, the campfire, and the general environmental atmosphere are probably some of the strongest parts of the experience. I could easily imagine leaving I Know a Spot running on a second monitor while studying, working, writing, or doing something else. In that sense, it almost feels like an interactive background environment rather than a traditional game. You can actively decorate when you feel like it, then simply leave the campsite on screen and enjoy the atmosphere. For players looking for constant interaction, that might sound boring. For the right person at the right moment, however, that lack of pressure is exactly what makes it appealing.

July 15, 2026July 26, 2026

4PGP Four-Player Grand Prix Review: Fast, Accessible Racing That Needs More Depth

Fast Formula Racing Built for Everyone

4PGP Four-Player Grand Prix delivers exactly what its name promises: quick formula racing designed around local multiplayer. The game supports split-screen races for up to four players, alongside Remote Play Together for players who want to compete with friends online. Its structure is immediately accessible, with four difficulty levels named Rookie, Novice, Veteran, and Expert, plus an assist mode and a detailed tutorial. I appreciated how quickly I could start racing without spending time navigating complicated menus or adjusting dozens of technical settings. The controls are tight, acceleration and braking can be controlled through analogue inputs, and both keyboard and gamepad layouts can be remapped.

The pace is extremely fast, which creates a strong sense of speed even when the mechanical side of the driving remains relatively simple. The colorful art style, smooth animation, and wide selection of camera angles help every race feel energetic. 4PGP also targets 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, and the consistent performance makes steering through crowded corners feel responsive. From a presentation perspective, the game understands that arcade racing needs to look exciting from the first lap, and watching a full grid of cars accelerate together is easily one of its strongest moments.

July 12, 2026July 12, 2026

Delta Force Announces Tactical Crossover With Rainbow Six Siege

The next major Delta Force season is shaping up to be its most ambitious update yet, and the newly announced crossover with Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege immediately caught my attention. Instead of feeling like another random collaboration designed purely for marketing, this one feels surprisingly natural because both franchises have always been built around tactical teamwork, communication, and carefully planned engagements. Alongside the collaboration, Team Jade also confirmed a brand new Operations extraction map, a new Warfare battlefield, and another Operator joining the roster, making this one of the largest content drops the game has seen so far.