"Watch Dogs: Legion" has a completely new game concept: Players can slip into the role of all the characters they encounter in the London of the future - be they pensioners or street art sprayers. Each one has a unique story and personality. In the role, the aim is to save the people. After all, they are oppressed by a surveillance state; automation and artificial intelligence, unemployment and crime characterize everyday life. The pound has been overtaken by crypto-currencies. The goal of the new third-person game is to form a political resistance group. The players move freely on foot or in vehicles through the open game world, which consists of the real, recreated London districts. 

The missions involve recruiting characters from all over the city for the hacker group DedSec. Supported by a newly created AI called Bagley, DedSec investigates a group called "Zero Day" that plans to attack the Houses of Parliament. The British government commissions the private military company Albion to restore order in London and grants its CEO Nigel Cass access to the city's ctOS (central operating system), provided by technology company Blume. Cass starts hunting DedSec and forces the hackers underground.

New game concept: Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs: Legion

The playable, hand-painted graphic novel by the Polish indie studio Atomic Wolves portrays the dark vision of a democracy on its way to becoming an autocracy. 

"Liberated" takes place in a dystopian world whose society is permanently online. The new technologies have strengthened the government to such an extent that complete control of each individual is possible. The resistance is formed by a small group of people: the Liberated Men and Women. The game is divided into different chapters, telling stories from different perspectives.

In a gaming corner, visitors can use the switch console to retreat and lose themselves in the playable graphic novel. 

Playable Graphic Novel: Liberated

Liberated

Holograms are known from science fiction movies. With the help of a pulsating screen on which content is displayed as holograms, the VX1 brings historical video games like Snake & Co. into a futuristic form. Voxon Photonics has developed one of the world's most advanced 3D volumetric displays for this purpose. The technology brings digital content to life and visualizes computer content in space. No special glasses are required. 

The start-up started in a garage like many other well-known technology innovations. The founders, die-hard Star Wars fans, were obsessed with the idea of making "Dejarik" a reality, also known as "Holo Chess". Will Tamblyn and Gavin Smith decided to create a real holographic display. Meanwhile Ken Silverman develops software for the device. He is considered one of the best programmers in the world and came to Voxon after seeing a demo of the prototype. All games are programmed especially for the device - for example Snake in 3D ("Snaketron") and a hologram shooter ("Super Turrets").

Gaming futures: Hologram games

Voxon

The slogan "Occupy Mars" by Elon Musk is the program in this game: In search of "Planet B", people colonize the red planet in order to be able to turn their backs on the burnt out, destroyed earth. In the game by the Polish indie developer "Pyramid Games", players experience an open world with a realistic day-night cycle. The goal is to build a base on Mars under lifelike conditions and provide enough water, oxygen, energy and food to survive. 

Vegetables and cereals are grown in greenhouses - similar to the film "The Martian". Energy comes from solar collectors. Like real Mars settlers, you even have to connect pipes and cables yourself and make sure that the cables are routed correctly. Violent temperature jumps, sand and sun storms and meteorite showers make the work even more difficult. Message: Life on Mars is no walk in the park - maybe we should treat the Earth better. 

Occupy Mars is a highly technical, open world, sandbox game about Mars colonisation. Build and upgrade your base, discover new amazing regions, conduct mining operations, retrieve water and generate oxygen, grow crops, fix broken parts, learn how to survive on Mars!

Play new worlds: Occupy Mars

Occupy Mars

Big Brother, George Orwell's future scenario of total surveillance in the novel 1984 is reality: In the game of the Hamburg Indie Studio, the authoritarian government of the state nation has full insight into the lives of its inhabitants. one even investigates the lives of the citizens themselves. With the help of private files, news and information from the Internet, the task is to find those responsible for a series of terrorist attacks. 

"Orwell" is the state security program to spy on the digital lives of all citizens. It monitors their communications and can access any computer. To protect the privacy of citizens, investigators examine the data and decide what information is passed on to the security forces. But are these people really terrorists? What does the information you give to Orwell say about them? What if you find out things about them that not even their closest confidants know? What is the true price of the security that the nation craves?

Big Brother has arrived - and it’s you. Investigate the lives of citizens to find those responsible for a series of terror attacks. Information from the internet, personal communications and private files are all accessible to you. But, be warned, the information you supply will have consequences.

Play Big Brother: Orwell

Orwell

Democracy is a government simulation game first developed in 2005 by the British one-man indie studio Positech Games. In the fourth and newest part of the series, which will be released in autumn 2020, you play the president or chancellor of a democratic government. 

You decide what to focus on and what the ideal society should look like. To this end, you control taxes, the economy, welfare, foreign policy, transport, law and public services according to your personal ideas. Every decision affects the happiness of the citizens and influences factors such as crime and the environment. Players must also deal with protests, environmental disasters, homelessness and global epidemics, just like in real life.

Play a democracy!

Democracy4

Retro arcade with a future twist

Tejo

2020 is the year of the future. In early computer games and sci-fi movies, 2020 was considered the "future", with us living on Mars, making out with androids and playing with robot dogs. To this day, developer studios continue to draw future worlds with their games, worlds in which we might one day live. And they are more popular than ever before. The titles play in the future, are total works of art and tell about humanity in dystopian civilizations, but also about prostheses that make bodies stronger, more beautiful and faster and a society in which gender no longer plays a role.

Exhibition

Next Level – Festival for Games

Next Level 2020 - Festival For Games

Via tablet and headphones, the audience is guided across the Zollverein grounds and experiences the fusion of both levels in constant comparison of pre-produced audio/video material with the reality/live performance.

Video Walk with Lucia Kilger & Nicolas Berge

In of course i still love you loss of signal, the audience will be taken on a spaceship trip without mission: The performance begins long after the radio contact to the ground control has been lost. 

of course i still love you loss of signal

A performative installation and concert. A co-production by Next Level – Festival for Games, Theater im Pumpenhaus, Münster and Schauspielhaus Bochum. 

Why Not? Remember The Future

Simon will be unpacking themes of extractions, technology, accountability and climate through a Minecraft in-game tour of his last exhibition MINE, currently on show simultaneously at K21, Düsseldorf and on the Minecraft platform. 

Art meets Minecraft

In this session Dirk Meyer looks at the state of ecology and digitally and how their interdependencies are key to designing a vision towards positive futures in both spheres. 

Discussion on Ecology & Digitality

THE AGENCY examines surrogacy as an ambivalent phenomenon: Is the surrogate mother as a figure predestined to mark reproductive work as work?

Welcome to AshramMommies: A VR performance

The Architecture of Friendship is a collective project inspired by the notion of ecosystem and the value of interdependence led by Colin Self and Santiago Latorre, and performed with Carlos Maria Romero (aka Atabey Mamasita) and Nieves Arilla.

Architecture of friendship - creation studio

From #solidarityisforwhitewomen to #MeToo, gaming culture provides an interesting case study to explore the experiences of women within the transmediated spaces of gaming.

Black Streamers Changing the Game

Due to the global pandemic, the digital world becomes the safe space to meet, exchange and work together. What is the new reality? Do we stroll in a park outside similar to how we scroll the internet?

AR-Gaming during Corona Lockdown

Our cities are clean, tidy. Everything is recycled. Wait a minute... In 2018, when China said that the country would no longer accept "foreign waste", we found out that very little plastic can be recycled at all.

Evolution of Fish: Immerse into underwater wasteland

Only a small fraction of the global gaming market is featuring themes that aren't of a fictional nature. In this session Georg Hobmeier will introduce the audience to selected projects. 

On Documentary Games and the Extractive Industries

After everything ended, everything started. MengXuan is closing the festival with a self introduction as an avatar. Followed by a live presentation of her latest piece “Taì Chū 3030” - an after-death digital soul. 