GDC Europe 2012 loads up panels from 'Goldeneye' to 'Assassin's Creed 3'

GDC Europe,, will run from August 13th through 15th, 2012 in Cologne, Germany and include sessions from developers the world over discussing the industry.

GDC Europe, the continent's largest professionals-only event for the games industry, will run from August 13th through 15th, 2012 in Cologne, Germany and include sessions covering covering the spectrum from Goldeneye 007 to Assassin's Creed 3.

The conference will feature three summits geared toward the more recent trends in the industry: the Independent Games Summit, the Smartphone and Tablet Games Summit and the Social and Online Games Summit.

Notable panels and presenters include:

• Martin Hollis, formerly of Rare, who will give a postmortem on the N64's classic FPS, Goldeneye 007.
• Niklas Smedberg of Epic Games will speak about the Infinity Blade games and how to bring AAA-quality graphics to mobile platforms.
• Maciej Szczesnik and Marek Ziemak from CD Projekt RED, whose Witcher games have sold more than 4 million copies, will talk about the lessons learned from developing The Witcher 2 and how they'll apply them to their next game.
• Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net, who is creating a WWII simulator that lives aboard the decommissioned USS Iowa, will discuss the challenges and benefits of building a truly global business,
• Alex Hutchinson, creative director at Ubisoft Montreal, will cover the history of the Assassin's Creed franchise, up to and including Assassin's Creed 3.
• Executives from Capcom, Konami, Microsoft Studios and Remedy Games will be available at an "Ask the Publisher" panel, which will lend insight into how and why publishers make their decisions.

Just as GDC Europe begins to wind down, gamescom, the world's largest trade fair for interactive games and entertainment, will be winding up to run from August 15th through 19th in Cologne, too.

Rest assured that Polygon's passports are in order, and we'll soon be Germany-bound to bring you all the news from both.