Gamescom 2025: Day One Recap

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It was a cold and cloudy morning in Cologne, but luckily without rain. While this might have led to fewer people in the early hours, the famous Koelnmesse was still full of halls for gaming, business meetings, and presentations. Another Gamescom officially opened on August 20th and will last until August 24th.

We also found ourselves in the city, and our goal this Wednesday was to tour all the halls. We weren’t entirely successful, as we only managed to visit half of the 11 halls. It was impossible to resist the indie, AA, and AAA titles. There’s so much to see that you can’t try everything even in five days, so you really have to be selective!

Let’s start with our local developers. At a slightly smaller booth, equipped with several computers, you can learn all about the Croatian gaming scene thanks to Games Croatia and the Croatian Game Development Alliance (CGDA). There, we were greeted by titles such as SHROT, Atre: Dominance Wars, Escape Simulator 2, Pompeii: The Legacy, and Dark Queen of Samobor, among others. We didn’t want to bother Aleksandar Gavrilović and Benjamin Noah Mariček too much, but they revealed that this is the largest showcase of our games at an international convention so far.

After seeing what local developers have to offer, we headed to halls 6 to 9, where the biggest and best titles at the event are located. The queues were packed, and visitors waited for a chance to try out Borderlands 4, Hollow Knight: Silksong (along with nineteen other Xbox titles), Pragmata, Morbid Metal, Crimson Desert, and Anno 117 Pax Romana. We also noticed that the PlayStation booth was “missing.” In short, if you are willing to wait for hours, you might not even get a turn.

If you prefer smaller productions and a more personal approach, an entire hall is dedicated to indie games: the Indie Arena Booth. You can truly find something for everyone there. From games like Fractured Blooms, Demonschool, and Aethermancer, to “cozy” and “survival” titles, and games from China, Japan, Brazil, and America—it’s all there. We’ll show you more about this through the interviews and conversations we had with the developers, as we’re preparing more material.

We apologize if we forgot anything, but there is simply too much content to see and write about. Besides games, Gamescom is also rich with various cosplay events, computers, peripherals, and social gatherings and parties. It’s going to be a crazy week. That’s it for today.