Humankind 2 was announced today at Gamescom's Opening Night Live showcase, and I have to admit that I was among those who raised an eyebrow at the announcement trailer and wondered: Is this AI generated? A number of commenters speculated that it was.

Nope, says the studio.

"The Humankind 2 live-action announcement trailer was filmed at Nu Boyana Film Studios in Sofia using real actors, practical sets, and custom-made props created specifically for the production," developer Amplitude Studios told PC Gamer over email. "We will be sharing behind-the-scenes images from the shoot soon."

PC Gamer has seen a few of those photos, and they do indeed show actors on a sound stage with partial sets and a typical blue backdrop for compositing.

In my and the internet's defense, the trailer does have something of an AI look to it. From the fisheye perspective of recently-birthed infants, we're stared at uncannily by a prehistoric woman, a hollering Viking aboard a longship, an American settler in a wagon, and other new parents from throughout space and time.

In the backgrounds: a giant tornado, bandits on horseback, a nuclear explosion, outer space. The studio hasn't commented on how those special effects were created, but they may well just be old fashioned CGI. I've asked for clarification on that point.

As for the game, the first Humankind was decent—Fraser described it as "a solid 4X that could use a bit more personality" in his review—and the sequel will introduce "new progression systems, innovative features, enhanced visuals, a modernized UI, and gameplay improvements," according to Amplitude.

Humankind 2 will release on PC in 2027, and there's a Steam page with more information live now.

An unlikely collaboration has been revealed between Blizzard Entertainment and CD Projekt Red, the studios behind Diablo and The Witcher series, respectively.

The two companies announced the team-up in separate blogs posted to their respective websites, with CDPR sharing a substantive breakdown of the studios' relationship with each other, and Blizzard opting for a more straightforward explanation of what the collab actually means right now.

The TLDR is that The Witcher 3: Remastered, which was announced during today's Gamescom Opening Night Live, is coming to Blizzard's Battle.net launcher when it releases on September 29. Meanwhile, the upcoming Witcher 3 expansion, Songs of the Past, will also come to Battle.net when it launches next year, and if you pre-order it, you'll get a Geralt of Rivia-inspired skin in Diablo 4.

That's exciting enough, but it sounds like CDPR and Blizzard have a lot more planned for their big new partnership that's still to be revealed. "Both CD PROJEKT RED and Blizzard Entertainment create worlds that allow players to immerse themselves in captivating adventures for hundreds of hours," says CDPR global PR director Radek Grabowski in a statement. "Both studios have always had the ambition to raise the bar — for themselves and, in doing so, for the video game industry. Their worlds and characters have inspired not only other game developers, but also musicians, filmmakers, cosplayers, and, of course, countless players."

The official CDPR Twitter account adds: "And that's just the beginning of our partnership with Blizzard…"

According to Blizzard, we'll learn more about its collab with CDPR during this year's BlizzCon, which takes place on Saturday, September 12, and Sunday, September 13. GamesRadar+ will be in attendance and you can bet your bottom dollar we'll give you all of the firsthand details as they come.

The Witcher 3 Remastered has "improved combat," which hopefully fixes the 2015 RPG classic's biggest problem