Day 1 at gamescom: Murasaki Baby, Rime, Helldivers, Resogun – video

The doors of the cavernous Koelnmesse are open and gamescom 2013 proper is underway! Of course, we got started a little early on Tuesday with our annual press conference. At a rough count, we revealed around 20 unannounced games for PS Vita, PS3 and PS4 during the show, including seven titles (six of which are all-new IP) from our Worldwide Studios group: Murasaki Baby, Rime, BigFest, Helldivers, Shadow of the Beast, Resogun and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture .

Duly, these brand new games were our first port of call when we hit the showfloor on Wednesday morning. Not all were shown in playable form, but the three that were are in absolutely fantastic shape. Resogun is a frantic, furious and mesmerizingly pretty twist on Housemarque’s beloved Super Stardust formula. No other developer blows stuff up with such consummate style and bombast as the Finnish studio and its further refining its face-melting art here. I cannot wait.

Also playable was Murasaki Baby for PS Vita, a bewitchingly dark and macabre adventure from new studio Ovosonico, set up by Massimo Guarini, director of 2011 cult favourite Shadows of the Damned. LIMBO, Escape Plan and early Tim Burton are all obvious touch points, but there is something wonderfully new about how you interact with the game world, leading the mysterious heroine literally by the hand through a strange, disturbing land.

Finally, Helldivers. Wow, this one is not for the feint-hearted. Gleefully dubbed a “suicide sim” by director Johan Pilestedt, Arrowhead’s new squad shooter is utterly sadistic – if you found Hotline Miami and Dark Souls a little too forgiving, then this one’s for you. Crucially though, it’s also immensely enjoyable and very, very deep. We’ll have more on this one in the next few months.

In the meantime, check out the above video which we filmed on the show floor, featuring the creators of Rime, Resogun, Murasaki Baby and Helldivers giving you a little more detail on what to expect from their new games. And check back tomorrow – we’ll have another video for you from Cologne!