Stalker 2 and Payday 3 playable demos lead Xbox Gamescom lineup

pcgamesn.com:

The first public playable demos of Stalker 2 and Payday 3 are among the highlights visitors to the Xbox Gamescom booth can look forward to, with many of the biggest upcoming games for the rest of 2023 lined up to appear at the show. Along with the hands-on Stalker 2 demo and other playable games including Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty and Armored Core 6, there’ll also be new looks at Starfield and Forza Motorsport at the show.

Microsoft announces that alongside its in-house games, which include “exclusive theatre presentations” for Starfield and the next Forza Motorsport, there will be “over 25 titles from our third-party partners and [email protected] friends playable in the booth.” The big highlights of these are probably the debut appearances of both Stalker 2 and Payday 3, which promise to be two of the best FPS games of the year.

With 150 stations laid out in the booth, hopefully you’ll be able to get a chance to try out the games that most interest you if you’re heading to Cologne. If you aren’t, there’s still a chance to try out the clown-masked heist game in the Payday 3 beta, although invites are sent out at random with fairly limited capacity, so there are no guarantees there.

There’ll be plenty more to get hands-on with, including Towerborne, the latest from The Banner Saga creators Stoic. DontNod’s gorgeous climbing game Jusant will also be there, as will strategy game spin-off Persona 5 Tactica. You’ll also be able to jump into Elden Ring developer FromSoftware’s next game, Armored Core 6, and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Phantom Liberty.

Here’s every game currently announced by Microsoft to appear at the Xbox booth at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany, which includes over 30 titles:

Of course, all