As August winds down, Geoff Keighley prepares to serve us another steaming bowl of gaming news from Gamescom 2023, Europe’s non-E3.
As usual, the event will be held in Cologne, Germany, with a meaty Opening Night Live show to end the summer of gaming. This will be hosted by Mr. Video Games, Geoff Keighley, and promises enough announcements, reveals, and interviews to make you forget Summer Game Fest.
This guide will tell you when and where to watch Gamescom 2023 Opening Night Live, as well as any Switch news.
Is Gamescom 2023 Opening Night Live?
Gamescom 2023’s Opening Night Live is Tuesday, August 22. Check out all the time zones below:
- North America – 11am PDT / 2pm EDT
- UK – 7pm BST
- Europe – 8pm CEST
- Australia – 4am AEST (23rd August)
Just over one week until we are live in Germany for @gamescom Opening Night Live on Tuesday, August 22.
Thousands of fans, lots of games — it's going to be a fun night! pic.twitter.com/mSmIMZa5aM
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) August 13, 2023
Watch Opening Night Live where?
Opening Night Live 2023 will be live-streamed on The Game Awards’ YouTube and Twitch channels if you can’t attend in Cologne.
We’ll also stream the event on Nintendo Life with a live chat so we can discuss it as it happens. This will be posted to the site 30 minutes before the event on August 22 if you want to watch with us.
Is Opening Night Live long?
Not yet confirmed. Based on previous years, we expect the showcase to last about two hours, but we’ll let you know if Keighley changes it.
Nintendo at Opening Night Live?
Only two games have been confirmed for next week’s opening show (more on those later), and Nintendo has confirmed it will be at Gamescom, but it’s unlikely to make any first-party announcements, so it’ll likely skip Opening Night Live.
Some expect Nintendo to reveal the Switch 2 at Gamescom. We’ll see what Nintendo brings to the show again.Instead of a Nintendo-fest, the Big-N drops its bombshells during Directs and the like, and the developer usually has one in September.
Opening Night Live will feature which games?
Switch releases are uncertain. Alan Wake II, Black Myth: Wukong, and Crimson Desert are the only games Keighley has confirmed will appear, but neither will be on Nintendo.
Fighting game fans are excited for Mortal Kombat 1’s reveal trailer, which will introduce a new fighter. This is coming to Switch, so stay tuned.
That’s all we know, but Keighley has teased that the presentation will “showcase many of this holiday’s biggest games”, so there’s more. Keighley cautioned against high expectations because this year’s show is “less about announcing brand new projects”.
Since Sonic Frontiers and Return to Monkey Island sold well on Switch last year, we’re not ruling out the occasional Nintendo-related announcement.