This article was originally published on August 22, 2025 - read the full issue here

By Alan Wen

With the epidemic of layoffs continuing, the game industry may still feel like it's on fire. But while the scorching sun bears down on Cologne, you might not get that impression when wandering the busy halls of the Koelnmesse for another record-breaking Gamescom.

With more than 1,500 exhibitors from 72 countries, its status as the biggest global gaming show in the world is unrivalled following E3's demise. In the smaller, hushed conversations, no one's denying – whether from the headlines or from bitter experience – that times have been tough. But just as I have been steeling my worn-out feet for a week of back-to-back appointments, the industry is soldiering on, and there's still so much to celebrate and to play.

There's nonetheless a sense that the landscape has shifted. Triple-A bombast may have led the charge as Opening Night Live began with Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, but even host Geoff Keighley couldn't resist piggybacking on Hollow Knight: Silksong ahead of its release date finally being confirmed. It's telling that even with Nintendo's return to the show with Switch 2 on record-breaking form and Microsoft showing off new hardware with the Asus Xbox Ally duo, the longest queues weren't for any of the first-party line-ups but Team Cherry's hugely anticipated title (that it was merely a shinier version of the original E3 2019 demo was the one consolation to my FOMO).

Which is not to say that the traditional major publishers weren't present. You have to give it to Capcom, in its eight consecutive year of record profits, for delivering three of the best demos on the showfloor in terms of polish and pacing. That includes Pragmata, which seemed doomed to development purgatory but is arguably the Japanese publisher's most excitingly original title in a while.

But triple-A publishers no longer seem to be dominating the conversation, even if they may still have the most spending power to have a coveted slot on ONL (up to $520,000 for the privilege, no less). And while showcasing the broader culture of gaming, whether that's an anime adaption of Sekiro or a live performance from this year's critical darling, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, ONL looks ever more like an extension of Geoff Fest.

Gamescom is of course a huge show, with announcements coming thick and fast, making it almost impossible to keep up with. Based on just my own appointments, though, there's never been more horror and licensed IP (or both at once), likely deemed safer bets in tumultuous times. Konami may have gone over the top, though, with a four-hour media demo of Silent Hill F, an interesting choice for a show where attendees' time is at such a premium.

However, to place Silksong as a lightning rod for indies feels almost as foolhardy as GTAVI being the saviour of the game industry. If anything, the biggest threat to triple-A's hubris of charging more for games is coming from China: the likes of NetEase's Where Winds Meet is an example of big-budget production values that can occupy the same space as Ubisoft's open-world behemoths but with a free-to-play model, while Fate Trigger looks like a serious anime-flavoured challenger in the online shooter space. It's not for nothing that ONL's 'one more thing' came from Game Science. That the next instalment of Black Myth chose to debut with English-language audio is a clear sign that its priorities are global.

It would be foolish to surmise the pulse and trends of the show from just a tiny fraction of what has been exhibited over this week, and to borrow a quote popularised by the late Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman, no one knows anything.

Of course, from some conversations behind closed doors, it's clear there's still an advantage for studios with proven formulas and tech that serve as foundations for more ambitious projects. But just as I've seized the opportunity to grab any source of nourishment from the business booths, the appetite for games of all kinds is still very much alive at Gamescom. Whatever disillusions there have been throughout the industry over the past year, the passion and optimism for the medium is still burning.

This article was originally published on August 22, 2025 - read the full issue here