Batman, good boys, and space whale texting: all the other Gamescom games I saw but didn’t have time to write about

Oh, seventeen last things

Image credit:Warner Bros. Games Hooded Horse/Saber Interactive/Thunderful Publishing

It’s been a month since Gamescom 2025 lowered its shutters and sent ninety thousand nerds squeezing into the tiny Cologne tram station outside. In newsworthiness terms, a month’s time is roughly equivalent to five millennia, so this roundup of all the games I played at the show (but haven’t already covered elsewhere ) comes with an admission of tardiness.

Also: excuses. Who knew Silksong would come out while I was still unpacking?

Super Meat Boy 3D

Image credit:Headup

Despite the modern graffix and newly discovered third dimension, I was surprised by how much Super Meat Boy 3D feels like the precision platformer that so easily exasperated my 2010 self. It’s still demanding and relentless, but there’s a snappy, spring-loaded quality to the run ’n’ jumping, and the near-instantaneous offer of a retry makes deaths seem like momentary setbacks even as you’re dashed on the same spike trap fifteen consecutive times. The post-level replay of all your attempts running at once, with that one successful Meat Boy powering through the dwindling pack, is just as cathartic in 3D as well.

Cosmo Tales

Image credit:Bohemia Interactive

Here’s an unexpected one from milsim specialists Bohemia Interactive: a Saturday morning cartoon of a space combat game, in which your chirpy AI-infused rocket van switches up its weapons and defensive tools by phasing through dimensions mid-flight.

It’s all intentionally light and bloodless – instead of exploding, enemy ships glitch out of the fight like malfunctioning holograms – and the gee-whiz dialogue is clearly written for young’uns, but the shoots of a decent casual action game are visible. The visual palette swaps for each dimension, in particular, are a nice touch. Swapping laser guns for rocket cannons requires shifting into a hyper-saturated otherworld, while time can be slowed with a trip to the “noir dimension”, appropriately rendered in moody black and white. It’s out in early access next year.

Good Boy

Image credit:Team17

A chilled-out Metroidvania where you’re a Curiosity-style space rover, rolling around an exoplanet collecting funky bugs, and also your mind has been implanted from a deceased dog. This, and the fact that one of your wider objectives is to find and meet other pooch-brained rovers, had me briefly worrying that it might have a similar problem to A Storied Life: Tabitha in offering an unintentionally macabre take on grief. But, ultimately, Good Boy is more of a celebration of pets as they are, rather than how they were, with the still-barking dogs of Observer Interactive developers serving as inspiration for the rover cast. It’s got heart, this, and some brains too: tying progression into researching and upgrading your chassis means that the ability gating isn’t simply a matter of capturing the right insect.

Rogue Point

Image credit:Team17

Strangely, for a game whose Steam blurb declares that “teamwork is everything”, my demo of tactical roguelike FPS Rogue Point tasked me with clearing an oil rig of baddies all on my lonesome. Still, this did help ratchet up the tension, which I can easily imagine is tangible even with a squad of four – enemies are smart enough with flanking and grenades that you’re constantly stretched between corner-checking and the need to keep moving.

Since gathering intel pickups helps identify routes and secrets in subsequent runs, these also act as an all-too-tempting prize that both encourages and rewards risky manoeuvres beyond securing the key objectives. I don’t know if I have it in me to consistently endure eight missions of such stresses in a row, as per Rogue Point’s standard deployments, but I respect the deviousness of how it pushes and pulls you around its arenas.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam

Image credit:Team17

Speaking of stress, here’s the ‘Nam-themed spinoff to infamously unforgiving WW2 shooter Hell Let Loose . What happens when that game’s vast 50 vs 50 multiplayer battles and near-instant deaths are transplanted to a time of automatic rifles and close air support? Terror, it turns out. I never actually got KIA’d but only because the constant cracking of near-miss shots so easily suppressed me back to the relative haven of a protective shed.

I’m always a bit sceptical of massive, dozens-per-side matches like this, which can feel like a game is merely happening around you. Even if you try to make a bigger impact than just taking potshots from a hut. But then, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam’s combined arms approach does allow for distinct roles, and the asymmetric quality intrigues. You’d think the Yanks, with their tanks and gunships, would have the edge, but I’m told Expression Games had to “nerf the tunnels” employed by the Viet Cong side as they were just too effective for surprise attacks. Which is something Lyndon B. Johnson never thought to do.

Ninja Gaiden 4

Image credit:Xbox Game Studios

Not to downplay Team Ninja’s role in their own game, but watching director Masakazu Hirayama tear through Ninja Gaiden 4’s half-robot, half-demon wretches with hitherto-unflipped acrobatic flair made the influence of co-developers (and proven exaggeration enthusiasts) Platinum Games look clear as day.

As Masakazu explained to me via translator, Ninja Gaiden 4 is still about mastering a toolbox of sharp-edged ninja tools and using them to de-limb monsters. Given the 10 year gap since the last mainline game, though, there’ll be some optional concessions to newcomers, like automatic guarding and dodging toggles. Conversely, there’s also a Master Ninja mode for experts and/or masochists, with all aids permanently turned off and enemies programmed to swarm you in packs. Will it be all things to all ninjas? We’ll find out on October 21st.

Beyond These Stars

Image credit:Balancing Monkey Games

We’re previously covered how this sci-fi citybuilder, in which your home base lies on top of a colossal space whale, looks to reject the colonial assumptions that similar strategy games take for granted. You only settle on planets your people had previously been displaced from, and taking too many liberties with your piscine host will see it push back in ways a non-sentient environment could not. It’s the latter that I found most interesting during my Gamescom demo, with the whale taking their polluting guests to task in what is essentially a series of disappointed cosmic DMs. You can respond with acceptance, defensiveness, or admissions of ignorance, and while our particular chat ended in an amicable agreement to do better, pissing off the whale is a very real risk. They may even start disregarding your navigational cues, dragging your civilisation off course.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

Image credit:Warner Bros. Games

I can see the appeal of Legacy of the Dark Knight: flowing Arkham-style punch-ups framed by comedy plastic remixes of Batman’s less terrible films. It needs some technical work, though. The punching is fine in a Baby’s First Brawler kind of way, but gliding and grappling around a brick-built Gotham City lacks the smoothness that Rocksteady had down to an art. And the Batmobile handling – I tried the Robert Pattinson model – feels awful, like trying to iron a shirt in front of an industrial electromagnet.

Turok: Origins

Image credit:Saber Interactive

There are encouraging signs from Turok: Origins that it could be more than another weak reboot. Thwipping arrows into dinosaurs is a pretty timeless pleasure, and from what I’ve played, Saber do appear to be threading the needle of making a Native American/indigenous power fantasy without breaking out any obvious stereotypes. All the same, much of my demo played like a dozen other co-op FPS games already sitting in my Steam library, with so-so shooting – often against just regular dudes, sans the dinos – and basic, drama-deprived objectives. Bursts of excitement come from the Mantles, super-suits with more creative abilities and ultimates (like dumping a thousand hungry insects down an enemy’s pants), but again, class powers are hardly a novel concept.

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival

Image credit:Saber Interactive

I want to be upfront in saying that Hellraiser’s specific flavour of body horror, all flayed skin and impaled nipples, was and remains Not My Thing. It’s gross , as it is in Revival, but not strictly scary . Neither is the surprising emphasis on combat, be it pistol headshottery or the slower melee duels against knifey cultists. Now, being pursued through the stony Labyrinth by a teleporting Chatterer , for no better reason than he thought it’d be a laugh and that he knew I couldn’t do a thing about it? That’s scary. Hopefully these moments of genuine terror don’t get lost among the knife fights and squelchy stuff.

John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando

Image credit:Focus Entertainment

While Toxic Commando is plainly having another go at the ultra-dense horde shooter strategy that’s previously served World War Z and Space Marine 2 , it also borrows from a far less predictable corner of Saber’s back catalogue: the weighty vehicular play of RoadCraft and MudRunner . And credit where it’s due, it works. Almost all of my favourite demo moments involved our crew’s adopted 4x4 in some way, shape, or form, from ploughing through zombie crowds to winching open supply caches as the reward for a herd well killed. By the end of the run, it really did feel like the fifth member of the team, and who would’ve expected that kind of genuine attachment in a love letter to meathead 80’s action flicks?

Romestead

Image credit:Three Friends

Stardew Valley meets polytheistic mythology. I appreciate how brisk Romestead feels – wood becomes buildings, and buildings become towns, at a clip that precludes extended spells of gathering sticks. And it’s the same story with its more adventurous side: the path from cutting down a few stray undead to fighting a giant demigod is remarkably short. The actual Roman gods get involved too, accepting prayers in exchange for boons, though I’d hope these get a bit more exciting further up the tech tree. New building types are nice but c’mon, Jupiter lad, you can do better than that.

Flask

Image credit:Ghost Ship Publishing

“Roguelite strategy autobattler” combines three things I’m barely interested in typing out, let alone playing. Nonetheless, Flask showcased enough personality to make for a genuinely compelling demo, and not just because of its impressively revolting hand-drawn art.

You play as a heavily indebted alchemist, ordering homunculi into battle to harvest the valuable blood of slain monsters. Each homunculus (great word) can be equipped with five empowering flasks that they’ll chug on a timeline, with each bottle associated with a particular element. Stacking elements in a row will add more powerful effects, so there’s some tricky decision-making to do over whether to arrange your flasks by their direct effects or build around the element bonuses.

There’s also a neat asynchronous multiplayer element, where the game’s bosses essentially represent other players – you’ll fight their minions, complete with the flasks they last had equipped. There’s no cost if ‘your’ alchemist loses a fight in someone else’s game, but a nice, capitalistic leaderboard will keep track of who’s bringing home the most blood.

Daimon Blades

Image credit:Streum On Studio

There’s a lot to say about Daimon Blades that doesn’t strictly pertain to what you do within it – the fact that this is Streum On Studio’s first game since regaining independence, for instance, or how it’s a distant prequel to sci-fi shooter E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy. All you really need to know, however, is this: you can be friends with the swords .

Moment to moment, Daimon Blades is a Darktide/Vermintide-style, first-person melee slasher, albeit one adopting a roguelike structure over fixed missions. At this, it seems fine, if perhaps a little overtuned towards some of the more blade-resistant enemy types. It’s the claymore relationship-building that I remain most curious about: each blade is possessed by a demon, who’ll grant bonuses for involving it in glorious bloodshed, or debuffs if you disappoint it by dying a lot. Maybe it’s just a twist on conventional weapon XP systems, but it sounds like a fun one.

The Lonesome Guild

Image credit:Don’t Nod

Borne of loneliness during the Covid pandemic, The Lonesome Guild is a family-friendly ARPG about forging bonds first and slapping bad guys second. Party members, who are all introduced suffering their own version of enforced solitude, must be approached and chatted to before they can level up, so farming XP won’t do much good unless you can get them to open up around the campfire. The buddy system still plays into combat, mind, with opportunities for more powerful team-up specials between characters that increase as your friendship with them deepens.

It might look, and even sound, too much on the kiddywink side. But The Lonesome Guild’s battles do require some sound striking and dodging fundamentals, and because you can possess and control any of your pals at will (they’re cool with it, apparently), there’s a respectable dynamism even with the simplicity of individual character’s movesets.

Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf

Image credit:Thunderful Publishing

I wouldn’t call the original Planet of Lana ’s brevity a weakness, but Children of the Leaf is definitely looking to make everything bigger. Including the puzzles – you’re still juggling the human Lana and cat-monkey companion Mui more or less simultaneously, only now Mui can be directed almost anywhere on-screen, expanding the scale of this sequel’s button-pushing, wire-cutting conundrums. Some, including an underwater maze I had to navigate with both Lana and a Mui-hypnotised fish, span multiple screens.

With greater size comes greater complexity, and I’m a touch concerned that this could slow down the pace; another strength of the original, where you’d never get stuck on a solution for long. Still, I was never outright frustrated by the demo’s puzzles, and even if I was, at least I’d have another game’s worth of lovely, painterly background art to look at instead.

Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era

Image credit:Hooded Horse/Ubisoft

I don’t think Olden Era is specifically attempting to entice non-strategists, but as someone without a HoMM-playing bone in his body… I did not hate playing Olden Era. Besides the pure aesthetic qualities of its richly colourful overworld and elaborate fantasy battle animations, navigating its different strategic layers – exploring, recruiting, building and so on – proved comfortably frictionless.

I was still crap in fights, clearly being better suited as a peacetime faction lord, though the new Arena mode sounds like an agreeable way of getting some practice in: it lets you draft hodgepodge armies of units and magical artillery that you might be hours off unlocking in your main campaign. And I’m rarely against games including a ‘make action figures fight’ mode.

Check out our Gamescom 2025 event hub for all the PC game announcements and preview coverage from Cologne.

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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