Watch Disintegration's first gameplay trailer featuring hoverbikes and snarky robots

Disintegration, the new game from one of the original creators of the Halo franchise, finally got its gameplay debut at Gamescom, and it's probably not quite what you were expecting. Though the new trailer developer V1 Interactive shared includes gameplay scenes from a first-person perspective, you're not playing as a boots-on-the-ground style soldier like Master Chief. Instead, you're floating around on a heavily armed Gravcycle (AKA hover bike).

That eye-in-the-sky perspective allows you to rain down pain on opponents with your own arsenal of weapons, and it's also the perfect place to coordinate your squad's actions. According to V1, Disintegration is a first-person shooter with a strong infusion of real-time tactics. You can direct your squad to attack certain priority targets or use special abilities, including a rad time-distorition field that slows down enemies and their projectiles. 

One of my favorite parts of the Halo series was watching the emergent battles between NPCs, hanging back to see the way they flanked each other (while sneaking in a key sniper shot every now and then if my side started losing). It looks like Disintegration is pretty much that plus the ability to actually order around the troops and participate in the battle myself, so I'm up for it.

It doesn't hurt that I love wise-cracking robots, which it looks like Disintegration has in ready supply. Or maybe they're cyborgs? In any case, I want to learn more about Romer and their comrades ASAP. Disintegration is coming in 2020 with a full campaign mode and multiplayer, so we won't have to wait too long.

Find more games to play soon with our list of new games of 2019.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.