DashFight at gamescom 2023: Day 2 — One Punch

Yesterday, I shared my experience visiting the halls of gamescom for the first time. For the second day, I decided to wander less and be more focused in what and when I visit.

As my first goal, I wanted to visit the Owlcat’s stand to see what they have cooking for the Warhammer 40 000: Rogue Trader game, but the appointments were booked in their entirety. But I did meet someone who’s associated with them in a roundabout way: Fextralife’s head honcho, the owner and the main contributor to the wiki and YouTube channel under the same name.

Moving on from there, I got webbed into listening the explanations of what Gcore cloud solutions can bring to gaming in terms of network endpoints and cloud computing for AI learning. They did, however, fail to answer me if they could help the server-based fighting games like Riot's upcoming Project L. Still, I feel like I learned a good bit about what Gcore does and why they're partnered with companies like Bandai Namco.

Finding nothing of use in the restricted press and trade only pavilions, I moved onto the public ones, and I was in shock at the sheer amount of people present that day. By my rough estimation, there probably were three to four times more people than the day before. Many of them were sitting on the floor near the walls, simply resting and taking a breather. I took a detour towards the merch area, and as expected, all the stands were as busy as it gets. After I may or may not have bought a single merch item, I soldiered on towards the exhibition halls 6 and 9, where most of the public stalls were located. When I moved on past the MK1 booth, the length of the queue made me thankful that I managed to get in the day before.

Hall 9 was full not only with the games, but also with huge stalls for various TV shows and movies, like the Witcher, Wednesday, and Rebel Moon. But the highlight of that was a giant statue replica from the Squid Game. A bit late for the hype, but I guess, people still love and remember the show.

Hall 6 is dominated by several Bandai Namco stands for Tekken 8, Armored Core VI, Little Nightmares 3, SAND LAND, and that unpronounceable Naruto game. I made way towards the Tekken one, and was greeted by very cool statues of Jin Kazama and King, as well as the cosplayers that were happily taking pictures with the fans. After waiting for about half an hour, I was able to get into the playtest area, where I got matched against a Lars main. We traded blows for far longer than anyone else there, and when the staff realized this, we were swiftly shown were the exit is. Right by the exit we met Michael Murray, one of the main game designers of the Tekken Project. He was answering some fan questions, but sadly, only from those who were privileged enough to be invited to the community lodge.

From there, I made way to my final destination: One Punch Man: World demo area by Crunchyroll Games. There, I got treated like a king, resting in the separate area and taking pictures like this.

After small wait, a PR manager and one of the game's producers invited me to a PC to let me experience the game. They explained the mechanics, reasons behind some of the game design decisions, and the future vision for the game. Expect to see a material about Crunchyroll and their involvement with fighting games and gaming in general in the coming days.

After I was done and exhausted, I decided to take a look at the Cologne Cathedral. Because you don't go to Cologne and not see that. It's as grandiose and magnificent as I expected, menacing and whimsical at the same time. But at that point, rain has started to fall, so I made a quick retreat to the Hauptbahnhof and made a trip towards my hotel, ending my day 2 at gamescom.