At this year's Gamescom in Cologne, my husband and I suddenly had a disco. The first cosplay in our lives 💚

Hopefully this is okay to share here (read the rules and I think it should be okay) but we just saw that we made it into this wrapup article of top games showcased at gamescom and had to share somewhere. For a smaller team out in Hall 10.2, getting included with some of the big games that had massive booths in Hall 6,7, & 8 is a wild and super gratifying feeling!

So this isn't all of it because I'm too lazy to unpack even more + much candy and soda and a thermos cup

Were both there on Friday and Sunday. Had loads of fun! Thanks to everyone who came up and took pics. If any of these people find this post, please feel free to send me the pics you took with us, I'd also love to chat more!

The cosplayers were so amazing <3

Hello, if you attended Gamescom on Sunday 30/08 and played LoL in hall 10.1 until the event was closed at 8pm, please DM me. We played together as Kindred and Katarina in this match, but I forgot to add you in-game afterwards. GG

So this is my 4th GC and it just decreases in quality.

1. Security just gets worse every year. Back in they day they used to shorten paths once the main bulk of people where in. This year they didnt even let us take shortcuts in heavy rain at 15:00 when basically noone was entering GC (like 20 people max).

2. they are selling to many tickets. They should reduce the tickets to 1/2 and ask for double the money. There are too many people.

3. i feel like demos are getting too long. Like i get that you wanna play some time if you queue for 4 hours. But maybe the queue wouldnt be 4 hours if they had more than 6 pcs and 1 demo wouldnt last 20 minutes?

4. influencers should only be allowed on 1-2 days

This was my first gamescom; I was there from Wednesday to Sunday showing my game (Bet on Beta). During my breaks, I had quite some time to play other Indies, and those are my favorites, out of the games I played (no order on the list):

• Bruce’s Gym is a neighborhood gym tycoon game. You're not buying brand new shining equipment; instead, you use recycled material for handmade gear, like using plastic bottles full of sand for the weights. Coming from Brazil, I can relate a lot to this game, as I had volunteered designing playgrounds for kids in poor places and needed to be creative with the materials to use. But the most interesting part is that the game is not only about your own business. In the demo, there was a polluted river on the side of the gym and a dirty alley. And you can also use the gym's money to improve neighborhood conditions, and that impacts your gym too. Seeing that river cleaned up was one of those moments in gaming when you realize “Wait, so that I can do that!?”, and I love those moments.
• Drone Tanks is a fast-paced roguelike shooter; the movements of this game feel so good to play, everything is super responsive, and the map encourages high mobility gameplay. The art style and the enemy mechanics were also quite interesting. I would need more time to really get good at this game, but I can see how rewarding the experience will be.
• Bento Blocks is a puzzle game and a master class on game design. During the whole game, you are learning new things to do and then challenging what you learned on increasingly complex puzzles. The learning and challenging experience is so smooth that you are in a constant flow of enjoyment. Most puzzle games also try to have such an experience, and I think that Bento Blocks delivers it really well.
• Haunted Cleaner is a cozy game where you are a psychic cleaner; there is a puzzle aspect to it where you need to clean/organize the place while also satisfying the ghost's needs. I usually do not play cozy games, but the art style and mechanics were so satisfying! Also, as we were in the same booth, I saw a lot of people playing this game, and it was quite fun seeing how happy the parents were seeing their kids having fun while cleaning the bedroom!
• As I am also making a game which satirises the corporate world, I was really interested to play Pocket Boss. Their installation was quite funny, where you had a treadmill and needed to walk and play on a phone in a totally non-ergonomic way. The game is a series of different mini-games where you need to make the chart “look good”. I loved how the “work” is only focused on the charts instead of what would really be needed to do to impact the charts. I think this experience is a mix of an art installation and a game, which makes it different from the other more commercial indie game from my list, but I find it funny and interesting that those type of experiences which blures the frontiers of what a game is.

Have you played any of those games?

If you wish to revisit any of the booths, or you missed anything, or were unable to attend, feel free to check it out!

Hi all,

This was my first time at Gamescom. I always read that it is very crowded but could not have imagined this. I even gave up and decided to skip Saturday though I had a ticket.

Anyways, while I can understand why people are queuing on merchandise, giveaways and upcoming games, there were equally long lines in games that are already out.

The two particular ones were Plague Tale Resonance and Star Wars Zero Company. Even on sunday, I managed to try Alien Isolation 2 and Stranger than Heaven, but the former two had longer lines.

I gave it a thought and the only explanation I can find is people just don't want to buy a new release and instead want to try it for free. But even then; 1- you can try and refund on Steam, 2- you can try Plague Tale on Gamepass and 3- if you work for the time you wait at the queue even for minimum wage, you will be able afford the games.

I seriously cannot understand it. Do you have any thoughts or possible explanations on this?

Hallo zusammen,

ich habe am Freitagabend nach der Gamescom in der RB48 Richtung Wuppertal eine Post-time-Skip Chopper Cosplayerin kennengelernt.

Irgendwie sind wir im überfüllten Zug ins Gespräch gekommen und dadurch, dass die Bahn natürlich immer alle anderen vorlässt, hatten wir einige Zeit uns zu unterhalten. Meines Erachtens nach haben wir uns dabei gut verstanden. Sie war extrem sympathisch, aber leider bin ich übertrieben schüchtern und hatte Angst davor, dass es komisch sei nachzufragen, ob man in Kontakt bleiben möchte, bzw. um sich später etwas mehr auszutauschen. Direkt im Anschluss habe ich es dann auch schon bereut nicht nachgefragt zu haben.

Ich bezweifle zwar stark sie auf diesem Wege zu finden und jetzt ist es vermutlich tatsächlich weird, aber zumindest diesmal will ich etwas versucht haben. Falls das hier also jemand gelesen hat, der den Chopper kennt, oder sogar der Chopper selbst, wäre ich unendlich dankbar es mich hier wissen zu lassen, bzw. sie darauf aufmerksam zu machen.

Vielen Dank an alle für die Aufmerksamkeit bis hierhin <3

This year we went to Gamescom as exhibitors for the first time with Archangel: Demon Rush , our first commercial game.

There were three of us, we had one playable PC, and we estimate that somewhere between 70 and 90 people actually sat down and played the game over the five days.

Some people came back another day with friends. We had players suddenly realise they'd been playing for half an hour. We met publishers and streamers and, on top of all that, Gamescom week brought us +664 Steam wishlists.

We also ended the week physically destroyed, discovered that we'd been approaching MeetToMatch very much like first-timers, and our first morning started with several teams near us arriving at the booth only to discover that some of their equipment had been stolen.

So yeah. We learned a few things.

We were exhibiting with Games From Spain in the Indie Area, Hall 10.2, sharing the space with around 30 Spanish games.

Our setup was in the 18+ section of the booth, which was slightly hidden away. The 18+ label was fairly broad: a game didn't necessarily need buckets of blood or gore to end up there. Some horror themes were enough.

The kids still wanted to get in, of course.

Most came in with their parents, although every now and then one would mysteriously appear on their own.

And I completely understand them. If I'd seen a slightly hidden videogame area with a massive 18+ sign when I was a kid, I probably would have wanted to get inside even more.

One PC, and people coming back with friends

Gamescom was open from 10 AM to 8 PM, although as an exhibitor you're there earlier, getting things ready or taking advantage of the quiet halls before they become completely packed.

And then you do that for five days. There were three of us and we were wrecked by the end.

Our demo didn't have a fixed timer. Players had to reach a certain amount of progress, so depending on how they played, a session normally lasted somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes.

One thing we heard several times was:

“Wait... I've been playing for half an hour?”

For me, that's worth a lot more than someone saying “the graphics look nice.”

If somebody sits down, starts playing and half an hour later hasn't noticed that half an hour has passed, you're probably doing something right.

We also had quite a few people come back another day, or return with friends specifically to show them the game.

Seeing somebody come back, point at your setup and basically say “try this one” was amazing.

Players and developers give you completely different feedback

Another interesting part was seeing how different the feedback from regular players and other developers can be.

A player tells you very quickly whether they're having fun, whether they understand what's happening and whether they want to keep playing.

Another developer might point out an animation, a game-feel issue or some tiny combat detail that you've stopped seeing after months of working on the same game — and that you can probably improve in a couple of days.

Several developers working on similar types of games specifically came over to try Archangel and gave us some very useful feedback.

After roughly six months of taking the game to events and making changes based on watching people actually play it, Gamescom was probably the first time we had a fairly strong feeling of:

“Okay. A lot of this is finally starting to click.”

Meanwhile, something completely different was happening on Steam

Before Gamescom, our Steam page and Playtest had been live for roughly five months.

Up to that point we'd accumulated around 500 wishlist additions.

During Gamescom week:

+664 wishlists.

Our best day:

+291 in 24 hours.

So in one week we added more wishlists than we had during almost all of the previous months combined.

We had QR cards at the booth, but obviously those numbers didn't come from the 70–90 people who physically played the game.

The real jump came from the Gamescom event on Steam.

For part of the event we were buried fairly deep in some of the listings. Once we started appearing near the top of Strategy — at one point roughly 4th — and fairly high in the overall game list, our exposure changed dramatically.

We have the impressions, visits and wishlist numbers day by day, and the before/after difference is pretty wild.

But if I put all of that here, this stops being a post about our first Gamescom and turns into a Steam analytics thesis.

If people are interested, I can post all of those numbers separately.

For us, the two sides of Gamescom ended up doing very different things.

The physical show gave us feedback, contacts and validation.

The Steam event gave us reach.

Together they ended up being much more valuable than we expected.

Our first morning didn't exactly start well either

When we arrived, several teams very close to us in the Games From Spain area had discovered that some of their equipment had been stolen.

Imagine spending months preparing for Gamescom, arriving on the first morning expecting to have everything running, and instead having to file police reports, find replacement hardware and rebuild your setup while the show is already starting.

The affected studios later spoke publicly about it on social media, it got quite a bit of attention and Gamescom eventually issued a statement as well.

I'm not going to get into responsibility here because that's an entire thread on its own.

What I will say is that the teams handled it incredibly well.

They found replacement equipment, got their games running again, had plenty of visitors and managed to turn around a pretty awful start to the week.

I'm curious about this from other exhibitors:

At large shows like Gamescom, do you normally leave your hardware set up overnight, or do you take the most valuable equipment with you?

It's one of those things you don't really think about until you see it happen right next to you.

There are lots of stupid little things you don't know the first time

For example:

bring food.

It sounds trivial until you've spent four days living off food trucks and leave at 8 PM with absolutely no desire to start looking for a supermarket.

Water, snacks, food that will survive a few days.

Eating at the show occasionally is fine, obviously, but five days of sausages, burgers and burritos start taking their toll on both your body and your wallet.

I think a hot dog was around €6.50. One day is fine. After five, your stomach starts requesting a meeting with production.

Also: organise shifts properly.

There were three of us and we still ended up exhausted.

Being next to the players is fantastic because you can see exactly what they're doing, where they get confused and what they're enjoying, but five almost-full days on your feet is a lot.

And if you're thinking:

“We're already in Cologne, we'll do some sightseeing too.” Yeah.Well. Sort of.

Gamescom + meetings + networking + dinners + parties + sightseeing for five days works brilliantly on paper. Your legs may have a different opinion.

There are two Gamescoms, and we only knew about one of them

This is probably one of the biggest things we learned.

There's the Gamescom everyone sees:

the halls, the games, the queues, the booths and thousands of people.

And then there's another Gamescom that's much less visible.

Professional areas, meetings, receptions, private parties, LinkedIn contacts and conversations that started months before anyone arrived in Cologne.

Our exhibitor passes were gold because of this.

Apart from getting into the halls before the public, they also gave us access to professional areas, where almost every day some country, region or organisation seemed to be hosting a small reception, often with food and drinks from their region.

We went to one organised by Games From Spain and another by Catalan Arts, but there were plenty more.

And this is where you start noticing immediately who's at their first Gamescom and who's done three or four.

The veterans already had a lot of these events marked down. They knew where to be, when to be there, and who they wanted to talk to.

Not because they were hunting for free food, but because these are much more relaxed environments for meeting publishers, studios and other people in the industry than trying to do it in the middle of a hall full of thousands of people.

And then there are the parties

There are a huge number of private parties and events around Gamescom.

Some happen during show hours, others start after the halls close: publishers, platforms, brands, associations...

A lot of them are invitation-only and, if you don't know the right people, you may not even know they're happening.

Some companies also use Gamescom as an opportunity to take contacts to offices, showrooms or private exhibition spaces outside Koelnmesse.

And one thing people who had been attending for years kept telling us was that some of the best contacts are made at the parties.

After experiencing it, that makes a lot of sense.

In a formal meeting you have 20 or 30 minutes. One person is pitching, the other is evaluating, and everybody gets straight to business.

At a party you start talking to somebody normally, they introduce you to somebody else, and suddenly you're having a conversation that you probably never would have got through a cold meeting request.

You meet the person first.

The business comes later.

For those of you who've done several Gamescoms, GDCs or similar events: do you also find that some of the best contacts happen outside the formal meetings?

Because we definitely came home with that impression.

MeetToMatch doesn't start when MeetToMatch opens

This was another reality check.

We more or less assumed:

MeetToMatch opens, you search for publishers, send meeting requests and get meetings.

Technically, yes.

In practice, you're competing with an enormous number of people doing exactly the same thing.

Studios looking for funding, companies selling services, outsourcing, QA, marketing, localisation, people looking for work...

There's a lot of noise.

People who have already done three or four Gamescoms arrive with their homework done.

They've started through LinkedIn, email, mutual contacts and previous events months before MeetToMatch even opens.

So when the platform finally becomes available, instead of saying:

“Hi, we're a studio you've never heard of. Would you like to see our game?”

you can say:

“We've been talking for a few weeks. Shall we meet on Thursday?”

At that point MeetToMatch stops being the tool you use to find the contact and becomes the tool you use to put a time and place on a relationship you've already started.

That difference sounds small until you're actually there.

Our next Gamescom is going to start months before Gamescom.

Accommodation also starts months before Gamescom

If you want to stay in Cologne, relatively close to Koelnmesse without paying an absurd amount, I'd start looking early in the year.

We met people staying in Düsseldorf who had a pretty rough time with trains this year.

Disruptions, delays, cancellations... missing one train could mean waiting nearly another hour.

After ten hours at Gamescom, that's a lot less amusing than it sounds on paper.

Leverkusen seemed to work considerably better.

But next time our priority will be pretty simple:

Cologne + close to the venue + book very, very early.

Sometimes saving a bit of money on accommodation becomes surprisingly expensive in exhaustion.

And then there are those moments that validate years of work

This was probably my favourite part.

You're in Hall 10.2, inside an area with around 30 games.

You see somebody walking around. They look at several screens, wander past a few games and, out of everything there, decide to sit down at yours.

They play, they finish, you start talking...

And it turns out they're a publisher. Or a streamer. Or someone who's spent years working with games and evaluating products.

During Gamescom we spoke with around 3 publishers who were actively looking for games and roughly 5 streamers who liked Archangel and told us they'd try to stream it at some point.

That doesn't mean we're signing three publishing deals tomorrow or that all five streamers are definitely going to play it.

But it does change how it feels.

Your friends can tell you your game is great, and your team has obviously believed in it for years.

But when somebody has 30 games in front of them, walks around and voluntarily chooses yours, plays it and then tells you they like what they see...

that feels different.

Would we do it again?

Yes. Absolutely.

But next time we'd do quite a few things differently.

Contacts prepared months in advance.

MeetToMatch used to confirm meetings, not to start relationships from zero.

Accommodation booked much earlier.

Better shifts.

More food.

More rest.

And, above all, we'd arrive understanding that you're not simply going to a videogame convention.

You're going to those two Gamescoms.

The one everybody sees.

And the other one, much less visible, happening through meetings, professional areas, receptions, parties, existing contacts and conversations that often started months before anyone arrived in Cologne.

I think that second Gamescom is the one you only really start discovering once you're no longer a complete beginner.

It was exhausting. Some pretty awful things happened, and some amazing things happened too.

But after spending years making a game, seeing a complete stranger sit down, start playing and then half an hour later look surprised when they realise how long they've been there...

that's hard to beat.

And for those of you who've already done a few Gamescoms:

What did you learn on your second or third Gamescom that you really wish you'd known before your first one?

Because after these five days I think the biggest thing we learned at our first Gamescom was how much we still didn't know we needed to know.

And if anyone reading this stopped by Games From Spain in Hall 10.2 and played Archangel: Demon Rush:

thank you.

Seriously.

Watching people enjoy the game was probably the best part of the entire week.

This is everything we got for free. No money spent. I won the logitech Hardware at tencent.

Catched the tshirts and figurines at the award Show.

This is probably a massive long shot, but I met a girl on the KVB after Gamescom on Saturday, August 29, around 20:30. I believe we were on line 3 or 4, and we both got off at Friesenplatz.

I accidentally bumped into her bag, which is how we started talking. We ended up having a really nice conversation, and I felt like we really clicked, but somehow we never exchanged contact information.

I remember a small black Japanese/Chinese-looking character or marking on the left side of her forehead. It looked a bit like the one Gaara from Naruto has on his forehead, although I’m not sure if she was actually cosplaying him. They also spoke fluent English.

When I exited the station and turned around, she was already gone.

I’m posting this from a burner account because if my mates find this post, they’re never going to let me hear the end of it. 😭

If by some ridiculous chance she recognizes this, feel free to send me a message. I’d genuinely love to talk again. :)

So many awesome games I wouldn’t have on my list if it weren’t for Gamescom. See you next year!

I was there on Friday, arrived around 11 because my train was very delayed and then tried to see as much as I could. I focused on the indi area because it's the most interesting for me to be honest and I was wondering if there were any games that stood out to you guys? any multiplayer ones? I felt like there were some very good ones, but I sadly didn't manage to see everything.

I was one of the Actors that accompanied you, on your Arc Raiders mission, this was actually my first Gamescom and my first Cosplay ever. I have dabbled with Games in my life, but hell i am getting a Console and trying some of this stuff, i am Finishing my paperwork and moving to Speranza

Who is this post for? For people who're thinking about going to Gamescom for the first time (2027+?), especially those not living in Germany.

Hi! 2026 was my first Gamescom. I got a bundle ticket which includes ONL (the Opening event) and Wednesday wildcard ticket. I was going with friends for whom it's not the first time.

We booked a hotel in Dusseldorf (it's cheaper there and there are direct trains to Cologne) and we were extremely lucky with the DB trains (despite the works on this line) - no abrupt changes, severe delays or huge crowds (we were taking an earlier train and then chilling in Cologne before the event).

What I didn't like:

• Local authorities seem to be completely ignoring one of the largest event of the year with ~300000 attendees (that's ~30% of the city population itself!). No additional trains, more than that, they planned works on the tracks resulting in multiple train cancellations (at least it was known up front). No additional banners on train and bus stations, nothing. For comparison in Amsterdam where I live they install special signs inside the Central Station on big occasions like Formula 1 Grand Prix (which is not even taking place in Amsterdam but a lot of people come through it) so you immediately know where to go. For DB it's just another working week, nothing special.
• Gamescom sent us free public transport ticket by email (thanks for that) but it was extremely poorly communicated how it works. The paper said it's a ticket for the VRS network without further explanations. We thought Dusseldorf isn't part of it and were overpaying by buying extra tickets to/from Dormagen until the conductor told us it's included (during our last trip of course).
• Gamescom website was terrible. Information hard to find, scattered all over the place and also it was annoyingly slow even on flagship smartphones. I assume someone just slapped it together with AI in a weekend without anyone with a UI/UX experience having a second look.
• Outside queues... They are inevitable with that many attendees but they were organized quite poorly. You just stand outside in a long line. Toilets? No. Sun/rain protection? No. Water? No. But what was simply infuriating is how little information was provided. On Wednesday we came up to the South entrance (45 minutes in advance of course). There were 2 lines already. Absolutely no indication what they are for, no signs like "w/badge right, no badge - left". You had to go to the beginning and try to get some information from others or from the 3 security guys standing at the gates doing anything except managing the gathering crowd. During our wait they tried to manage the queues once (!) by shouting something indistinguishable while standing right at the beginning so the majority of the people couldn't hear them anyway. Again, no signs AT ALL. Then all of a sudden a big crowd of people came and they formed 2 more lines in parallel so now there were 4! And guess what? When the security opened the gates it was a mess and all fairness was thrown in the toilet, people who waited for more than an hour were pushed away by the newcomers, etc.
• There are just too many people. Your chances of playing a game you're enthusiastic about are almost zero. Or if you're lucky you can spend several hours standing in line (or sitting on the floor as many did) to get your 25 minutes of gameplay and that would be the whole day for you realistically speaking. Fast lane slots were sold out in a minute after they would become available (every hour).
• Merch area. I expected it to be a huge collection of official items but it ended up being a bazaar of 3rd party stores selling T-shirts, figurines, cosplay items, etc (except Gamescom's own booths with Gamescom merch). Honestly it looked cheap and overpriced at the same time. All the official merch was at company's areas.

There was indie area and the vibe was really nice there, I discovered a couple games I genuinely look out for. There was a retro gaming corner with obscure old consoles, etc.

Sometimes you could see hardcode Gamescom goers who know how to play this game. They had huge branded bags from upcoming games, quite a bit of merch. They looked sweaty but focused. They were the minority and I was not one of them.

I was in Dusseldorf and Cologne multiple times before and in the end my personal highlights were not the Gamescom itself, which was mostly disappointing, but the Chocolate museum and black pudding at cafe Frueh.

TLDR; If you're not living in Germany and are not a super hardcore fan of something, it's not worth it given that Gamescom ticket + hotel + transport is at least 500euro. A slim chance of playing a couple of upcoming games or a dozen indies (most of which are in early access on Steam anyway and half of which are not fun) is hardly worth it.

I (39M) went to Gamescom for the very first time with my son (10M).

We stayed in a hotel about 30 min drive from the Messe. For me it was an incredible experience. I grew up playing games for as long as I remember and I've always loved it, but I also grew up at a time where people would say they are a waste of time and look at you funny if you were a little too enthusiastic about it.

I have never seen so many like-minded people enjoy and cherish games from all over the world. It's also nice to see people dress up in video game characters and embrace the culture.

It made me happy.