Summary

  • Opening Night Live at Gamescom Aug 20 to reveal new game titles, including horror teaser.
  • The Beast is Coming, potentially tied to the Dying Light franchise as a trademark had been filed recently for "The Beast."
  • Fans speculate on the connection to Dying Light protagonist, Kyle Crane.

Gamescom will be holding its annual Opening Night Live event on August 20, showing world premiere looks at new titles while also providing updates on some of the most anticipated games of the year. While many titles have long been confirmed to appear, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, Marvel Rivals, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Civilization VII, and Dune Awakening, there's now a really good reason for horror fans to tune in as well.

Opening Night Live's host, Geoff Keighley, took to X with a new horror teaser, stating that "The Beast is Coming." The live-action clip showed a young woman out in a wooded area, and while at first it seemed light-hearted and cheerful, it soon took a dark and disturbing turn as she begins finding corpses and is covered in blood herself, breaking the fourth wall to ask the viewer to help her.

It's not clear what the teaser is promoted from Keighley's clip, although when comments below the post stated that they didn't want live-action or pre-rendered cinematic trailers - something many have complained about for not truly being representative of a final product - but wanted "the real thing" (meaning gameplay), Keighley simply teased, "I'd tune in then," indicating that there may be a gameplay reveal for this horror title.

Characters from horror games including a Clicker from The Last of Us Part 1, Isaac in helmet from Dead Space Remake, Chucky from Dead by Daylight and the masked clown from Until Dawn.
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Some Fans Already Believe They Know What "The Beast" Is

And It Could Be Tied To A Well-Known Zombie Franchise

It didn't take fans long to look into what "The Beast" could be, with several comments pointing to the recent trademark for a new Dying Light game called Dying Light: The Beast. As spotted by Kurakasis last week, the title appeared on the United States Patent and Trademark Office last week with the series' developer Techland listed as the owner. It's unclear, however, if this is the second DLC for 2022's Dying Light 2 or if it has grown and become its own full standalone title.

As for any story references, some comments under the YouTube version of the teaser stated that the sounds used at the end of the trailer aligned with some used in the zombie title. Others on X have speculated that "The Beast" could be referring to the first Dying Light's protagonist, Kyle Crane, who transformed into a Sentient Volatile and escaped the quarantined city of Harran in one of the endings to that title's expansion, The Following.

While mentioned by name at one point, Crane didn't appear in Dying Light 2, likely to avoid choosing a canon ending to The Following, but The Beast could change that.

Whether this turns out to be an accurate guess is yet to be seen. Horror fans won't have to wait much longer to find out for sure, however, as Gamescom's Opening Night Live streams on the official thegameawards YouTube channel at 11am PT, 2pm ET, 7pm BST, and 8pm CEST on August 20.

Source: Geoff Keighley/X, thegameawards/YouTube, Kurakasis/X