Gamescom 2026 adventure game round-up – Part 1

• Previews by Laura Cress and Victoria Sykes
• Published:

Introduction

by Laura

Amongst a surprising and quite frankly turbulent year for the games industry at large – who had Double Fine going independent again on their bingo card? – gamescom thankfully managed to remain a thriving constant in 2026 as one of the world’s largest gaming events. 

With over 200 games from over 40 different countries in the Cologne convention’s Indie Arena Booth alone (just a tiny area of the whole exhibition’s offerings), Vicky and I once again had our work cut out for us trying to get through as many adventure (and adventure-adjacent) games as possible.

The best bit of the job is always meeting the developers who have put their hearts and souls into the demos we have the privilege to preview. Making new friends as well as bumping into old ones is always a pleasure. Charles Cecil appearing at Adventure-Treff’s Friday evening meetup with German comics of the second Broken Sword game to sign was an unexpected highlight.

Let us hope, given the unfortunate spate of laptop thefts that happened at the expo this year, that next year gamescom is able to provide better security for those developers. While other in-person gaming events have fallen by the wayside, it is genuinely heartening to see that there is still a huge space that exists for gamers, journalists and developers to connect and play games – let’s keep it that way!

Here is just the first half of our convention coverage, as there’s only so much genre goodness you can cram into one article. 

The Wolf Among Us 2

Developer: Telltale Games
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 1 & 2
Release date: 2027
by Laura

It’s been 13 years since the first Wolf Among Us was released, an episodic fantasy-noir adventure game based on Bill Willingham’s dark comic series Fables, in which a cast of famous fairy tale characters are secretly living in a modern-day New York City community.

For the characters of Fabletown, however, only six months have passed, with Bigby, the shapeshifting wolfish sheriff, back investigating a deadly conspiracy. Design Director Jessica Hara Campbell and Principal Scene Coordinator Leslie Harwood led us through a level with Bigby and brand-new character Faye from the NYPD as they looked through an apartment for clues. As a “mundy” (or “mundane,” a non-magical citizen), Faye doesn’t know about the city’s enchanted side.

At least some of the original characters and cast are returning, and the demo felt like stepping back into the original’s dark, twisted world, but with new design tweaks. Unlike the original’s fixed camera angles, the sequel will let you manually rotate the camera around Bigby and the scenes he’s investigating. The team will also be adding a hint system.

As expected from a Telltale game, choices will once again play a big role – from timed dialogue options to major relationship-changing turning points, such as deciding whether to tell Faye about the existence of magic or keep it secret.

The remaster of the original is due up first, but the wait for The Wolf Among Us 2 shouldn’t be much longer as the game, while episodic in nature, will be released all at once at some point in 2027.

Frieda Is Changing

Developer: Mucks! Games
Platform: PC
Release date: Q1 2027
by Vicky

With members of German developer Mucks! Games looking resplendent in their game-themed red and green stripes, I sat down with Luzie Kehle, the co-founder, director, writer and art director of Frieda Is Changing to find out how Frieda is doing.

Based on an interactive media project – and funded on Kickstarter in only 72 hours – the game follows the story of the eponymous protagonist, a 14-year-old girl on an isolated island village whose sister Amelie disappeared two years earlier. In this ‘fun-horror’ point-and-click adventure, Frieda must solve puzzles; navigate the secrets, lies and mysteries of the village and the people who live there; discover what happened to Amelie; and attempt to understand the physical, emotional and maybe even supernatural changes in herself. 

Equipping players with a trusty notebook where Frieda notes down her observations, the game features a creatively depicted choice mechanic. How Frieda acts will determine how other people react to her: Will she say what is really on her mind (she’s really quite frustrated!), or will she act polite to get the information she needs?

Frieda Is Changing has a unique visual presentation, mixing hand-drawn comic book panels with a smattering of spooky Tim Burton. Despite its cute and somewhat whimsical style, there are real feelings of grief, transformation and anger lurking in the shadows, supported by an atmospheric and unobtrusive sound design.

With around seven hours of gameplay in the full release, with three different endings, this is one story you can sink your teeth into. 

SOKO 1977: Anti-Terror Task Force

Developer: Paintbucket Games
Platform: PC
Release date: January 2027
By Laura

From the creators of The Darkest Files comes a new game based around a real political crisis. This time it’s 1977, West Germany, where you take command of a special police force tasked with stemming the rise of terrorist organisations against the state. 

Like its predecessor, this is a hand-drawn, first-person 3D adventure. In the demo there were three terror suspects I had to identify and arrest before they carried out an arson attack. To do this I had to corroborate clues from witnesses at previous protests – their clothes, what cars they drove – and drag the correct options to each suspect’s blank avatar. Some clues will be false, however, so make sure your choices all make sense!

As head of the task force, I had a team of officers with different abilities – some are better at using force, some at showing empathy, for example. To gather more intel, I then had to match their skills, Dispatch-style, to the abilities needed to complete small timed missions on a map. Assign the right people to unlock more information. Fail at tasks and lose reputation – the case is off if it hits zero. In between, you can walk about your office, chatting to staff, and even hold press conferences.

Best of all, the developers are releasing the game, commissioned by Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education, for free when it comes out in January 2027. That’s because while it’s based on fictional events, they wanted more people to learn about this period of German history. But this is no mere history lesson, as the demo revealed a complex yet intriguing game behind it.

When Sirens Fall Silent

Developer: LKA
Platform: PC
Release date: 2027
by Vicky

From the creators of The Town of Light and Martha Is Dead comes a new psychological detective thriller When Sirens Fall Silent. Sitting down with Luca (founder and director) and Antonio (animator), I steeled myself for LKA’s latest haunting offering due out next year.

When Sirens Fall Silent tells the story of Mila, a rookie policewoman with a troubled past who in 1991 is thrown into a high-profile kidnapping case in Rome. First-person 3D crime scene investigation is the focus here, but the game also has a multi-layered narrative dialogue system focusing on emotional interactions and behaviours of characters, and the choices you can make based on your assessment of them.

Already the game looks and feels very polished, with immersive spatial audio to sell the unsettling atmosphere. It promises to be a dark, distressing, and not easily forgotten mystery, being part of LKA’s thematic Storie Senza Voce series, which shines a light on the ‘forgotten people’. With topics such as trafficking, violence, trauma and misogyny being front and center, combined with Mila’s increasing mental fragility, the game experience should be as thought-provoking as it is fear-producing. 

Inkblood

Developer: Hey Bird!
Platform: PC
Release date: 2026
by Laura

In this Golden Idol-like deduction game, you play as an inquisitor following a murderous cult and its trail of death, piecing together information and solving deadly crimes. Inkblood’s extra twist is that you decipher the mystery behind these misdeeds from the comfort of your horse-drawn carriage, looking out on the rainswept, chaotic scenes from inside.

Strafing left or right you can view different areas of the carriage, such as helpful notes you can pin up à la Papers, Please, reminding you what you’re looking for. Peering out of my carriage’s window, I could see a dead body on the ground – in the present. But using a special magnifying glass, I was suddenly able to look into the past of wherever I pointed the tool – a new way of swapping between what was and is.

I then had to turn my attention back inside and choose who I thought the killer was from a selection of pictures of people I had taken using my camera. The crimes and questions will get more complex and layered as you continue to press your way across a map of unravelling destruction, with this twist on the deduction genre itself trundling into release at some point later this year.

The Mystery of Oak Island

Developer: Visionaire Studio UG
Platform: PC
Release date: Coming soon
by Vicky

Have you ever wanted to be a part of a real-life 200-year-old mystery? Well, in The Mystery of Oak Island, you can. Announced back in 2016 (with a successful Kickstarter), the team behind the Visionaire Studio adventure game engine and the fan-made freeware Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space are at least nearly ready to bring the enigma of the Canadian Maritime island to the surface.

Firmly positioned as a classic point-and-click (presented in hand-drawn 3D), this adventure tells the historical legend of a huge treasure buried deep in the ground. Curiosity sparked in the 1800s when settlers found a depressed groove in the earth, and upon digging what they called ‘the money pit’ found a mysterious stone tablet with strange markings and various booby traps that made it look as if the shaft was man-made – and therefore, surely hiding something.

According to developers Thomas Dibke and Daniel Carl, The Mystery of Oak Island will weave together three different characters’ stories. Spanning 10 chapters filled with challenging item-use puzzles and around 20 hours of play time, there’s plenty of opportunity to become well-acquainted with the conspiracies surrounding the treasure. 

The myth surrounding Oak Island also foretells that seven deaths must occur before the prize is revealed, so let’s hope players emerge unscathed from their time on Oak Island.

Tom the Postgirl

Developers: Oopsie Daises, ARTE France
Platform: PC
Release date: 2026
by Laura

This creepy yet cheeky point-and-click game has touches of Tim Burton and Rusty Lake, with you as Tom the aforementioned postgirl travelling to different hand-drawn locations in her village, making deliveries, and uncovering odd goings-on while she does it.

As you make your way around the map as Tom, grinning in her fabulous red coat – a rare splash of colour against the black-and-white cartoon-like backgrounds – you can decide where to deliver post to next. Each area feels like a little collection of vignettes of different animations and potentially disturbing things to explore and uncover. You might peep through the bushes to see a lady having a picnic with a goose, or peer through the window of a house to see a man with pictures on his wall – creepily, all of you. 

As one so often does when delivering post, Tom finds an alien device very early on in her travels, which appears to act as a kind of guide to whether you’ve ticked off every interaction in each scene. (I couldn’t see a reward for doing so, but perhaps progression is reward enough!) There’s no voice acting or even written dialogue in this game, just sound effects and music, but the absurd scenes really speak for themselves, like a zanier Machinarium. 

I wasn’t able to speak to any of the team at gamescom, but information at the booth said this quirky adventure will be arriving later this year, so fingers crossed for all fans of disturbing yet cute adventure games!

We Were Here Tomorrow

Developer: Total Mayhem Games
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
Release date: October 2026
by Laura

Playing on different monitors far enough apart that we couldn’t hear each other, Vicky and I had a blast trying out the newest instalment of this long-running We Were Here co-op adventure series due out in just a couple months. 

This time the theme takes a distinctly scientific slant, as we two explorers awoke to find ourselves trapped inside a mysterious facility. We had our walkie-talkies to communicate with each other, and we had only just started to need them when I shrank Vicky in a shrinking machine for her to explore the area’s puzzles at miniature level! The fact that Vicky’s voice got increasingly high-pitched as she got smaller was a clever and hilarious touch! 

In one puzzle, Vicky squeezed herself into a lab machine, and then had to read out different symbols she could see, which I had to decipher in the main lab. (We failed miserably – not sure if the problems were tricky or we were just suffering from gamescom exhaustion.) Later puzzles promise to challenge the laws of time, gravity and space, so here’s hoping they’ll prove just as inventive (and that we’ll be a little better at solving them next time).

Editor's note: Vicky is still in the process of being unshrunk. Laura was last seen being startled by the mechs at the Metal Gear Solid display. When we returned to inform her that their gamescom coverage was only half done, strangely she was nowhere to be found. Stay tuned for more when the search party has succeeded in locating our missing operative!

Photo header courtesy of gamescom's Koelnmasse image database.

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