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The /v/GAs at Gamescom 2026
Note: Our editorial coverage at events is separate from our awards coverage, which is determined by our voters.
In our PAX East 2026 article, I shared that we’re gonna be pretty busy in the second half of the year. And here we are, having undergone the first of the three conventions and officially — busy as hell. In recognition of such, let’s look back at where we’re at, as well as how we plan to cover the remaining two.
This year, we attended MAGFest, PAX East, Summer Game Fest weekend, and TooManyGames 2026. Our Bowlbo interview, thanks to Chris O’Neill’s giving it a boost, has become our most viewed video of our coverage so far.
Three years on, there’s a lot I have learned. But I’ll save that wall of text for another article to talk about the process.
This feature marks our second outing at Gamescom. The first, done last year, kicked off F4cemeltor’s presence at the /v/GAs as a contributor to our convention coverage. We went so hard on the coverage last year that it took three months to get everything out — so please trust me when I say, I don’t want to wait until November to publish all our interviews.
For 2026, seeing as we’ve got two more conventions to cover, we’ve instead taken on a much lighter workload and have two video interviews (one each) on the docket, as well as some other things to write about, such as man-made horrors beyond our comprehension and people stealing shit at Gamescom without the organizers doing a damn thing about it.
Remind me again, what’s Gamescom all about?
Lines. Lines and lines and lines.
Actually, that’s only part of what they’re all about. Here’s the full story: Gamescom is a trade fair located in Cologne, Germany. It’s run by game — The German Games Industry Association and hosted by Koelnmesse, which is majority-owned by the City of Cologne.
As the largest gaming event in the West by number of attendees (and largest in the world by global trade reach), the convention is a crash course in what a show floor can look like at peak occupancy. That is both good and bad. The bad is that for popular AAA games, lines can easily reach several hours long, but the selection of indies is certainly not lacking, and neither is that scrappy spirit that brought them here.
In the first paragraph, I mentioned “trade fair”. That’s because it’s absolutely more than a consumer show; it has a significant business-to-business (B2B) component and many exhibitors also attend Gamescom for its lectures at gamescom dev. This might be an oversimplification, but imagine if PAX and GDC had like 20 babies, and you’ll have a rough idea of how the convention is structured.
In terms of geographic consideration, because Gamescom is in Europe, there is additional focus on country-specific and regional games. And although German is technically the official language, English is widely spoken also.
There are some quirks about Gamescom. Namely, it’s a common practice to hand attendees free shit like oversized bags or memorabilia (especially if they play a demo or otherwise engage with the brand at its booth). Entry for regular attendees is also one-entry per ticket, leading many to lock the hell in and stay the whole day at the convention.
As an American joined by a German, I was in good company. But I will say there is a whole lot to explore and it’s easy to be overwhelmed if Gamescom is someone’s first convention. I say it certainly shouldn’t be, but Gamescom can definitely be a great place to find great stuff bursting onto the scene if you treat it as the final boss of gaming conventions.
Take a look below, and you’ll get a taste of what it’s all about.
Opening Night Live
Geoff Keighley, Kyle Bosman for the preshow, and Eefje Depoortere as co-host, each presented Gamescom’s Willy Wonka-style intro: Opening Night Live. Much like Keighley’s other shows, this presentation introduces people to the games up ahead, and many, albeit not all, are available to play on the show floor.
Because Keighley doesn’t have his usual AV crew (ARC Creative/Leroy Bennett/PRG) with him, the camerawork, presentation style, and even Keighley himself look a little different. For that last thing, I think it has something to do with the cameras having a high focal length.
But in any case, Keighley’s introductory speech touched on the fact that component prices are higher than ever (though it didn’t mention AI), pinged the state of the industry again (atrocious for AAA, good for indies), and included a note of remembrance about his dad. Considering how many publishers of AI-assisted games pay for slots in his shows, he has a financial incentive to say nothing.
The based
Metro 2039
4A Games brought the segment with the most weight behind it. Executive Producer Jon Bloch’s read off the teleprompter was uneven enough that I spent the first thirty seconds wondering whether he was nervous that some asshole internet blogger was gonna accuse him, an American, of telling someone else’s story on their behalf.
Serving as a contrast beside him was co-creative director and audio lead Pavel Ulmer. He held a statuesque pose throughout and his tone was even. Between the two of them, the pitch eventually landed: this is a return to Metro 2033, and a dedication to the people of Ukraine.
Gears of War: E-Day
The new Gears of War game got a new trailer — and under Asha, it’s going to be on XBOX and PC only, which isn’t that much of a setback.
Rayman Legends Retold
Speaking as someone who got filtered right at Band Land, the second world in the original Rayman game, this was a welcome throwback.
Ananta
Great song, great premise. Sure, people averse to gacha will have their guard up because it looks like Genshin Impact or Zenless Zone Zero, but I’ll give this a try when it comes out next year.
The cringe
Mewgenics’ live performance had us clutchin’ pearls
The violinist-vocalist did a great job of making me feel uncomfortable and emasculated — though the lyrics were a bit rapey, sex is entirely the intent of the game. I showed this video to F4cemeltor back at the hotel and within 10 seconds of it playing, he asked me to turn it off.
Later in the show, they ran a second mid-roll for good measure, because who else was going to bang their own drum?
Two ads for Gamescom itself
Somewhere in the middle of the presentation, Gamescom ran a bait-and-switch: a fake trailer which baited, like a game teaser, then bated, like the convention was sucking its own dick. It was a really weird self-promo.
Later in the show, they ran a second mid-roll for good measure, because who else was going to bang their own drum?
On that note, we’re committing “Unauthorized journalism”, part II
We re-applied for press accreditation for 2026, and Koelnmesse somehow have gotten even more efficient in processing our application from inbox to the trash bin, all in the span of 20 minutes. Last year, it took about 45 minutes.
This sounds personal, but having heard from larger creators who can’t speak German, it truly isn’t. Gamescom has a rubric for creators and press and despite allowing people to speak their piece in a free-form plea for admission, they also aren’t particularly known for making exceptions to the rule. After all, what’s one small outlet in a sea of others for the largest video game convention in the world?
Ironically for Gamescom, we did get to engage in some investigative legwork by talking to S.E.C. Security, as well as developers hit by a string of nighttime burglaries and open-hour thefts discussed later in the article. The only thing Koelnmesse froze us out of was… well… the press office.
This “minor setback” didn’t stop Koelnmesse from accrediting us as trade visitors though, and the only conclusion I can draw is that they particularly liked it when we gave them money for the tickets.
A trade visitor ticket comes with a couple perks. F4cemeltor and I get official permission to be in the business area and the freedom to enter the venue up to 3 times a day, versus the one-entry-per-ticket kind of deal I talked about last year. You have your name printed on a pretty piece of paper, which means doxing yourself and very un-/v/ like, but on the other hand it puts you one step ahead of the people that don’t. It worked great for getting into the exhibitor entrance, even on Saturday and Sunday when it shouldn’t have.
This article, like all of our articles covering conventions, is our way of bringing you a taste of the convention — from a very personal, subjective viewpoint.
If Koelnmesse doesn’t ban us after this article, we may cover both the public and entertainment areas for next year too.
But as for this one, F4cemeltor joins me, and the content below is written by me thanks to his help. So without further ado, let’s dive right in.
Catching up on old friends
Nothing brings a greater joy than developers who are steadily making progress. And even if it sounds a little formulaic at this point, I do want to stop and recognize some of the people we’ve met and see what they’ve been up to.
- THANKS, LIGHT. found a publisher (Game Source Entertainment) and had its own dedicated booth in the indie area.
- MONOWAVE has made significant progression with its development, found a publisher (Phoenixx Inc.), and will be launching the week of Tokyo Game Show. It will provide roughly 7 hours of game for a ~$10 price.
- Wanderburg also found a publisher (Sidekick Publishing) and won an award at Gamescom: Most Entertaining. It also came out earlier this week!
- Stage Tour had both an Opening Night Live spot and a spot on the show floor. I got a chance to see their drums (which sadly weren’t hooked up to the machines) and they expanded stations on display from 2 to 4. I also spoke to a RedOctane Labs employee who says arcade booths for Stage Tour are still being considered (not confirmed yet) and mentioned “RATATATA” by BABYMETAL & Electric Callboy being a big hit with the German-speaking attendees.
A Fork in the Road For Yakuza Fans
As someone who started the Yakuza series at the nadir of its history (that is, Yakuza 3), I’m amazed the series is eating so damn well that now, it’s got a AAA copycat coming after it. That game is called Showa American Story, something I knew I’d like from the moment the first trailer came out in 2024.
I’m a fan of the two cakes rule, where having more of the same thing isn’t inherently bad — at least until developers copy the franchise’s characteristics en masse, and the term “Yakuza-like” becomes a thing. We’re not quite there yet, thankfully, so let me talk about these two.
Stranger Than Heaven — hopefully they strange it the fuck up
Stranger Than Heaven pivots Yakuza’s combat closer to Soulslike than any of its earlier installments. Daito’s fighting chops and versatility are dependent on his stamina, and if he’s lacking in that department, it results in him being noticeably less precise with his attacks and movement.
If knocked down and low on stamina, you’ll need to fight to get back up, or your enemy will punish you further.
The left and right triggers/bumpers on the controller determine which fists you hit with. The guarding can be done with one hand or both hands, and your weapon (bare fists/blade/two-handed) can be swapped out with a button.
I played all three time-period vignettes of the demo (Kokura, Kure, Osaka) and their order of difficulty ascended as I got further into it. Kokura has a bunch of geeks you can easily dispatch. Kure had a bunch of bladed geeks with a big goon that was slightly tougher. And Osaka had a most sinister swordsman who could genuinely fuck you up. After dying to this bald bastard a few times, I cheesed him by switching my weapon and basically shanking him to death. Then I got the congratulations screen.
Well, that covers that. What about its Chinese competitor?
Showa American Story
Disclosure: I’ll be getting a complimentary key to Showa American Story upon release via 4Divinity’s Achievo campaign; this was an opportunity available to all attendees of Gamescom.
Showa American Story (codename: Project Z) gave me a dozen reasons to smile. Namely, it’s the same silly as hell Yakuza soap-opera/comedy/beat-em-up that has earned the originator its cult fanbase, just from a different studio. It takes place in an alternative 1980s environment where Japan “bought out” most of America and influenced its culture, instead of what actually happened after WWII with Japan’s reconstruction.
Showa American Story blends Japanese, Chinese, and American culture together. The UI and subtitles are in English, the voice acting is in Japanese, and the Yakuza-like calligraphy when you’re about to fight enemies or do a special move is in Chinese.
What’s it all about?
You play as Chouko Chigusa, a 19-year-old stuntwoman who came to America from Japan, with her sister Aya to star in an action film. Shortly after arriving, Chouko was assassinated, Aya was abducted, and Chouko’s body was dumped in the desert.
However, she got a second chance at life. After an unspecified amount of time, Chouko was brought back to life and much like The Bride in Kill Bill, she punched her way out of the grave.
This is what I was able to glean from their website anyway. None of the four slices actually show this happening, but I can imagine we will get some of that in the final game.
However, it wasn’t just Chouko who was resurrected: an event called the Cataclysm occurred and zombies roam the earth, along with gangs such as “The Warriors” (who look just like the Furies) who act as highwaymen, though I noticed some people who look like The Warriors are able to integrate into civilized portions of the map.
Despite this being “post-apocalyptic”, it’s less of a Walking Dead/Metro form of post-apocalypse and closer probably to the world of Fallout. With your RV, you can travel from place to place, and among the first places you explore actually is a Japanified version of Hollywood, called Neo Yokohama.
What can you do in Showa American Story?
There is a lot, which is why I draw the comparisons to the RPG mechanics of the Yakuza games so much.
Each of the shops where you can buy stuff has a unique art banner on the menu (similar to RDR2 with the individual towns). You can speak to NPCs (and get into fights with some if you ragebait them too hard), and to put it simply, like Yakuza, there’s tons more to it than just beating up bad guys.
Chouko’s RV, the Guren, is a rest hub, similar to Ichiban’s apartment or the Survive Bar in Yakuza: Like A Dragon. You can read manga; bathe in food-spiced bath salts like tonkotsu, spicy shoyu, wild mushroom and curry; lift weights, eat snacks, drink, and cook food. Doing any of these activities gives Chouko specific stat advantages. You will accumulate resources throughout the overworld, and can even customize the layout inside the RV.
Ironically, the Chinese self-inserted influence is merely in the typography and the blatant copying, and with such talented people at the helm, I yearn to see if someone from the People’s Republic of China will be either a final boss or a prominent supporting character.
Are there any red flags raised in Showa American Story?
None more than the great Red, White, and Blue in this household. I feel really strongly that this game will both sell well and be received well. But even if I glaze it, I still have to be honest where it counts.
Three of these segments comprise one continuous vertical slice — the fourth was a Golden Gate Bridge bossfight against Mitsuki Akitora (the Man in Black) that looked disconnected from these three. Launching it at first resulted in a black screen that never loaded. The second time was successful. The cinematic leading up to that bossfight had a Hitman 2-style quality to it (aka, the facial capture wasn’t fully done). But I’ll chalk that up to simply saying they probably ran out of time to work on the demo.
Also, it almost goes without saying, but the fact the game used Unreal Engine 5 meant the 5080 GPU on the demo station got pushed to 99% utilization, hovering between 40 and 60 FPS on heavy fights on what appeared to be 4K resolution.
On the way out of the booth for the third time, one of the exhibitors said this game will be out Winter 2026/early 2027. Let’s fucking go!
4Divinity’s other three public demos
To get a free copy of a 4Divinity game (in my case, Showa American Story), 4Divinity’s hardware sponsor XPG wanted me to work for it. F4cemeltor and I decided to play ball.
Guns of Eschaton
Guns of Eschaton (made by Eschatology Entertainment) brands itself as a world-first Soulslike FPS. Having never played such a game before, I’m inclined to agree. Tank-like controls mean you have to be fairly deliberate with your movement, and you’ll usually die in two hits. However, the enemies tend to move fairly and predictably. You have to weaken enemies by hitting them in a specific spot indicated by their clothing. Then, you’ll be able to do bigger damage by hitting them on the head.
You can drink from a flask to revive HP (which will take some precious frames from you), but also you can set bear traps to take out enemies that sneak up on you. The traps might also backfire — since it’s a Soulslike, you oughta expect that.
I also forgot to mention — much like Showa American Story, this takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. Only this time, it’s after something called “The Burning” which made these living things hollowed out and empty.
Hope the full game’s better, because my preview sure felt like that.
The Defiant
You’re probably asking yourself, isn’t this just Chinese Call of Duty? Pretty much, yes. In The Defiant, you’re the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, fighting against the Imperial Japanese Army in Northeast China.
The demo reminded me of Festung Recogne from the original Call of Duty, though the map in Defiant was considerably more focused on defense. Also, enemies can push from all sides and easily overwhelm you.
On a meta note of copying, there’s a similar FPS game covering the Second Sino-Japanese War called Fourteen Years of Flames that was announced after The Defiant, but it hasn’t reached the West yet. If you’re looking for that kind of stuff, give it a few years, and if Defiant does well the West is more likely to get it.
If you want to see more, consider checking out Inven Global who reported on the game’s development back in July.
Genigods: Nezha
I didn’t play Genigods: Nezha, but F4cemeltor did. It looked very similar to Black Myth: Wukong, and given that’s also Chinese mythology that sold well, it makes sense fellow developers want to go down that path.
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Of the three, this was probably the most forgettable and opposite of my tastes. But that’s just my opinion: I ain’t buying this, but I did have to scan their booth to get Showa Story, so here you go. It’s your problem now.
Indies I Love
Grandma(88)
Much like my grandfather, who spent his years fighting the North Koreans as an army chef stationed in Austria, you’ll find Grandma(88)’s oma too tells a lot of BS: Believable Stories.
After a car crash, you visit your grandmother, who is “88” years old, and you get to participate in this two-way conversation through her memory banks as a young girl. You learn later on she was a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel — basically the female version of the Hitler Youth. Everybody was a part of it back then in Nazi Germany, because it was compulsory, but to what extent is explored in the work.
In the German culture and family dynamic, you don’t get to “um akshually” your grandma. But you do, at the very least, get a line of questioning. How long that thread lasts is entirely dependent on how you let her spin her stories.
Grandma will say something like “I was in the backyard with my best friend, we played on the swing,” and suddenly you’re grandma, free to interact with the world.
As she narrates, if you drift toward something she skipped, she might warn you to ignore it. You can move on. Or you can push further.
Pushing costs you. There’s a hearts meter, and if you lean on her too hard she gets upset and sends you home for the day. The devs were clear that it isn’t a roguelite, as you come back tomorrow and try the sequence again. But you can run out of opportunities when something big is about to come loose.
What makes it work is that losing a heart doesn’t necessarily mean your response was wrong per se. If you completely trust her version of events, you’ll never get the true ending. In other words, you have to be willing to be somewhat of a little shit to get to the truth, which is a hell of a thing to design around. ROTxBLAU also deliberately refused to tag choices with what’ll piss off grandma vs. not, because much like real life you can’t exactly know what’s a trigger unless someone outright tells you.
Funding-wise, they got through the prototype on a grant from the Alfred Landecker Foundation, and consulting on the facts was done through the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation. A proper localization into English will be available at launch, with French and Spanish under consideration “if a publisher shows up.”
Grandma(88) originated as “Meine Oma(88)” at a German game jam about five years ago. There were two years of prototyping and funding, and actual production got underway in 2024.
I interviewed Jakob and Ole from the development team, and I hope to get their interview out soon. When I asked if there was anything they hadn’t gotten to say, Ole pointed out that this is not a game you can make whenever you feel like it:
“We can’t just come back in 20 years and make this game again. It tackles this topic that you can speak about right now, and time’s running out.”
WTF — Waifu Tactical Force
Begone, forlorn gray and gloom. The waifus of WTF — Waifu Tactical Force are ready to take on this bright, Frutiger Aero inspired world.
Inspired by multiplayer classics like Quake and Titanfall, Waifu Tactical Force gives you a choice of ten characters, and with no locked/prefixed loadout classes like Battlefield or Call of Duty, you avoid the class archetypes established in these games and instead have the freedom to set your own configurations right from the get-go.
What we saw at Gamescom was five play stations: four people playing a 2v2 Team Deathmatch game mode, which drew a steady number of players, and a fifth station that let players get acclimated to the controls of the game. However, the game also has a 3v3 mode with a best-of-5 structure.
How Team Waifu became (anything but) Extremely Normal
The dev team making this game is Extremely Normal, led by Evan Hatch. Hatch spent his formative years studying philosophy and venture capital before embarking on video game development. The game itself was first birthed in 2022, with a scrap/rebuild in 2024.
Extremely Normal coordinates via Discord DMs, and he says people sometimes don’t know what their colleagues look like until they meet in person. Hatch says he hates meetings, and reckons having no office forces the team to stay organized.
The philosophy background translates into a vision of what the game’s all about: moving in style. Movement brings both momentum and inertia, and a good player is careful not to lose either. Much like most FPS games, if you’re stationary in this game, you’ll be easily killed.
What’s it about?
The story isn’t completely nailed down yet, but in our interview, Hatch explained a setup similar to an alternative Y2K, borrowed from Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: everyone born on the stroke of the year 2000 comes out with a magical connection to technology and mechs. Naturally among all the gifted, there’s some ideologue who cracks the Overton window — and we get a Red vs. Blue scenario as a result. For her worldview, Hatch looked into the works of Girard and Yarvin, who respectively were known for their theories on mimetic rivalry and techno-feudalism.
Smooth like Unity, but it’s actually Unreal Engine
The tech lead of Waifu Tactical Force carved Lumen out of Unreal 5 and baked the lighting instead, and Hatch calls Nanite and Chaos other Unreal Engine footguns. Hatch cited his dad, Kellan Hatch, a video game designer and director who made titles like WarHawk and Twisted Metal: Black as an inspiration for “fighting the engine for every single frame we can get”.
Hatch wants the game to be available across all systems and hardware configurations, not just for those with beefy rigs. Linux is supported too through the Proton compatibility layer — Hatch mentioned running the game on his Linux laptop running NixOS.
Avoiding the fate of hero shooters
With bombastic fails like Highguard and Concord, hero shooters have proven to be quite a high-risk endeavor. Hatch’s response is that WTF isn’t a pay-to-unlock hero shooter, but instead a premium product similar to Overwatch before it went F2P: this means it’ll cost more upfront, but give you all characters instead of locking them behind a paywall. Any DLC weapons will be cosmetic.
Hatch credits independence for the studio’s flexibility, and as holder of 80% of the company, he’s staring down an opportunity for success and, of course, the possibility that asking people to purchase upfront won’t work.
Were Extremely Normal ever to shut down, Hatch said in the interview that he’d rather open source the code and CC0 the characters than let a multiplayer shooter turn into lost media. He also mentioned that it would be possible to host servers, and give the replay of your matches back to you (similar to Counter-Strike).
We’re looking forward to seeing more of this real soon.
Jiří Kára Simulátor
The Czechs are looking to outdo the Brazilians this year, with their own boomer shooter brimming with local culture.
In Jiří Kára Simulátor, you play as Jiří, a raging alcoholic whose disastrous wedding documentary became a staple of the late 2000s in the Czech Republic. The game takes place the day after the wedding with Jiří hungover and the city wanting him dead for some strange reason.
Jiří Kára Simulátor plays slightly differently than Brazilian Drug Dealer. It takes the Skyrim model of play where your hands are represented in the controller triggers… sorta, the left hand is used for your tools, and the right hand is used for weapons.
The game had a successful round of backing on the Czech crowdfunding website Startovac, raising 272% of their initial goal of ~$21,600 USD. Development is underway, and their game was out in the business area when we had a chance to play it.
One of the things I really liked about these guys is the energy they bring. Even a scrappy figure like Jiří Kára can make it to the top if he grinds hard enough, and I look forward to seeing the finished work soon.
Burglaries and Brazen Thefts Strike Gamescom Exhibitors
It seems that thefts at conventions in general are on the rise. My media badge was stolen at an event outside PAX West last year. Someone’s banner got stolen at AnimeNYC the week before Gamescom. And at Gamescom, theft was unfortunately a factor for presenters and exhibitors too.
As I’ve gathered from speaking to developers who had their things stolen this year, the culture of stealing at Gamescom is not just incidental, but has been persistent for the past few years. The method of stealing varies from overt distraction thefts done by teenagers, to overnight burglaries in the trade hall and entertainment halls.
This came to a head this year, after developer Ryan Laley had his laptop stolen Thursday night, which was used to showcase his horror game, Mimic. CD PROJEKT RED’s response and offer to send hardware — from its @CyberpunkGame social media account with 1.9 million followers — helped signal boost the issue, and it went viral. Then came Gamescom’s response, which did little but piss everyone off:
Hey Ryan, we are deeply sorry for this tragic incident. We want to express our serious empathy. We are glad to hear that you already reported the incident to our local authorities and we hope that they can help you with your lost property! We also want to thank the compassion expressed by the gamescom community which shows that you are not left alone in this situation!
ChatGPT itself couldn’t have written a more artificial response.
On Sunday, Laley met with the Director of Gamescom, Tim Endres, and described the vis-a-vis as “a nothing meeting.”
By comparison, from what I heard from other exhibitors, Gamescom hadn’t reached out to them at all.
Independently of the tweets, I also spoke to iam8bit Presents, Tessera Studios SL, and Ukiyo Studios.
Pere Suau Massanet, the lead game designer of Tessera Studios SL, had his laptop stolen overnight on Wednesday after 7:30 PM, along with machines belonging to other Spanish developers. Games From Spain reported the incident to both security and police, and ultimately had to rent replacement PCs. Massanet said one of the machines stolen was his personal laptop containing his data, password, and banking information.
Massanet believes the theft was likely carried out by an insider, in other words someone working for Koelnmesse as a service partner. His reasoning was that the building was empty when they left, meaning the people responsible would likely have been among the staff working inside overnight.
And, while I hadn’t spoken to Laley on this topic, both an employee for Iam8bit and Laley reported having equipment stolen the following night in the business area. That meant it happened under an entirely different security provider’s watch.
“Who” provides “security” at gamescom?
Gamescom uses three different security contractors: RAD Sicherheit, S.E.C GmbH & Co. KG, and Securitas.
According to Koelnmesse’s own documentation, RAD handles Halls 1–5, 11, and Confex, while S.E.C. is responsible for the remaining entertainment halls. Additionally, Securitas is responsible for video surveillance. In other words, the incidents were not necessarily the result of one security contractor failing in one particular area, but at least two. The prevailing reasoning is that they were hired primarily for crowd control and limiting access, and not for stopping theft.
F4cemeltor, who worked as a security guard and bouncer in Germany (though not for Gamescom), explained what it takes to be a guard. Basically — a three-hour course, wearing something that has the company logo, or “SECURITY”, or failing both, a hi-viz jacket paired with all-black clothing.
That tracks with what we saw. Most RAD and S.E.C. staffers were wearing their proper uniform, though the few that weren’t threw on a hi-viz vest or black clothing. We noticed S.E.C. do some roving patrols on Saturday, but mostly they stayed put and managed crowds, including sometimes roping off the hallways to divide traffic or acting as crossing guards when traffic intensified. For an event of this size, one positive attribute as a result is that Gamescom has never had a crowd crush. But the behavior otherwise has given some attendees and exhibitors cause for concern.
Ukiyo Studios: We don’t trust security, we keep an eye on security.
Ukiyo Studios, a games marketing agency that provides PR and exhibiting services on behalf of developers and publishers at conventions, has suffered thefts at Gamescom every year since their first appearance in 2023. After seeing the tweet from Ukiyo Studios saying that gamescom had discouraged them from filing a police report, I spoke to On Takahashi to get more specifics.
Takahashi shared that Ukiyo has been a repeated victim of both overnight burglaries and distraction thefts during open convention hours, and says teenagers acting in groups and rogue security are to blame.
Theft, he says, is such a notorious fixture of Gamescom that exhibitors greet each other with it: “On day one we always ask: ‘Hey, have you had anything stolen?’ It’s that kind of culture.” Of all the events Ukiyo does each year, Takahashi says Gamescom is the only one where they tear down and lock up every piece of equipment at the end of each night.
To deter thefts, Ukiyo now assigns a staff member to shadow any group of teens that enters its stand, something Takahashi says he hates doing and shouldn’t have to.
For Ukiyo, the response to those thefts by Gamescom has left them with an even greater sense of loss than the thefts themselves.
In 2023, peripherals like computer mice, headphones, and controllers were stolen. Takahashi says a man representing Gamescom security, who was not wearing a badge or visible identification, discouraged him from filing a police report. The reasoning he gave was that the paperwork would be too much for the value of the items.
In 2024, when a ROG laptop was stolen from their booth by teenagers who distracted booth staff as they slipped the laptop in a bag, Takahashi returned to a Koelnmesse service center to report the theft, and was dissuaded once more by this same representative.
In particular, Takahashi alleged the man reminded him that Koelnmesse is run by the city, responsible for a high amount of the city’s GDP, and requested he not “rush” to file anything — the thieves might bring it back. Worried that filing anyway would freeze Ukiyo out of booth space at Gamescom, the studio ate the loss and used a spare laptop.
In 2025, a set of headphones was cut with scissors and taken from their booth.
On Sunday this year, Ukiyo suffered two additional thefts — theft of food and beverages overnight from their stall, and open-hour theft of a game controller.
Takahashi also reported security staff this year physically pushing attendees playing games at their booth after a news anchor came nearby, and shouting at them in German to move away, confusing both the attendees and exhibitors, as neither spoke German.
Separately, Takahashi pointed to an X post by Pirate PR, which denounced staff mocking cosplayers, and male guards photographing female cosplayers without their consent.
An impromptu query with S.E.C. Security
On Sunday at around 12pm, F4cemeltor and I stopped by the S.E.C. outpost at Messewache Ost and noticed security jerseys behind a stanchion, in what looked to be a laundry hamper. This outpost was at times unattended, and it looked like anyone who truly wanted to impersonate S.E.C. would be able to grab one trivially.
We asked to speak with an S.E.C. security manager, and the staffer we asked went into an office and came back with a man with blonde wavy hair, wearing a gray fleece jersey, who spoke German. He didn’t wear a name tag, but neither did any of the other security guards.
I didn’t detect any evasiveness from the S.E.C. manager, but he basically gave the same answer as Gamescom’s official statement: you can book someone to watch your stand as an additional service, and you can report the incident to them first before making a report to the police. There was little inroad to make, other than asking, outright: “are the allegations true you discourage theft victims from filing with the police?”
For that, we sent a packet of questions to the top brass. That included Marvin Gollius at the Gamescom press office, the press office for the Cologne Police, as well as Cologne City who are majority shareholders in Koelnmesse, the Gamescom fairgrounds.
Following up, and some owning up from Gamescom.
The Cologne Police were kind enough to send an acknowledgment letter and answer my questions, most of them right away and the rest a few days later. In the first batch, they said thefts this year were statistically similar to previous years (20+ individual incidents, five of them filed on behalf of exhibitors), and that they have no evidence to suspect an organized operation.
They also said they maintained a police presence on the exhibition grounds throughout the entirety of Gamescom, conducting patrols, directing traffic, and being available to visitors as a point of contact at the police information desk. They said they cooperate with Koelnmesse through a joint security committee.
When I asked whether they knew of Gamescom representatives advising exhibitors not to file police reports, they said they weren’t aware of any such cases. They also said that as a general rule, they advise filing a report whenever a crime is suspected.
As for Gamescom, they declined to answer my questions and instead pointed me to their two public statements: their reply to Laley quoted earlier in this section and this one below.
The City of Cologne, Koelnmesse’s majority shareholder, replied in two sentences that it has no documents or information on council papers on the venue’s security plans, security contracting, correspondence with Koelnmesse about security staffing, or oversight reports touching on security.
A Trip To the Business Section
Indie developers and individual attendees getting their shit stolen is not fucking cool. However, it wouldn’t be a /v/GA at Gamescom if it weren’t for the opportunity to roast the corporations that, in a much less literal way, steal from you.
We’ll also list some companies that aren’t as bad but were in the business area. The captions will let you know where I stand.
XBOX’s Sort-of Fan Fest for Sort-of Fans in Germany (but mostly insiders)
All the way back in May, XBOX announced a global FanFest tour that started in Los Angeles. Although we entered, we didn’t make it in. Still, I had my hopes up when someone who had the same first initial and last name as one of my friends appeared on the winners list — alas, this was another person entirely.
One notable surprise from Xbox FanFest LA is that XBOX’s CEO Asha Sharma gave everybody in attendance a free Xbox Series X, which is leagues above the shitty T-shirt they made attendees wear in 2017 saying they “witnessed the most powerful console ever.”
But, like they always say, you fatten a pig up before you butcher it. The good PR in June was soon followed by hard news in July. While former XBOX CEO Phil Spencer had managed to keep large-scale layoffs at bay for years, Sharma ultimately decided the reprieve was over. Among those affected was Chris Munson, whose primary responsibility was XBOX FanFest.
This led to the awkward situation where information to enter the sweepstakes wasn’t available on their website during the time the sweepstakes was held, though they did post a special link to enter on social media, and specialty outlets like Pure Xbox did report on it. However, because we’re not the superfans who bleed green, we missed the opportunity to enter for missing the deadline, and that’s on us for not trying hard enough to get in.
But, at the convention itself, it was nothing special. The event was held Wednesday night before Gamescom opened; winners received three hours of after-hours access to play demos like Gears of War: E-Day, Fable, and Minecraft Dungeons II, and got some free swag like laser-engraved bottles. Unlike the Los Angeles event, there was no surprise console giveaway. Attendees walked away with standard commemorative pins and lanyards, and the evening looked more like a VIP line-skip pass than a genuine spectacle.
At least they have their Tokyo Game Show appearance to fall back on, though it came with even more ridiculousness: you had to be a resident of Japan to enter.
Wrapping up, don’t forget to drop the spaghetti
I aimed to write an article that was shorter than last year, and somehow we got an even longer piece flying out the woodwork. Oh well.
Each convention attended is an opportunity to learn a little bit about this behemoth of an industry, as well as play some goddamn vidya.
Even though doing it this type of way, as opposed to watching YouTube videos or a streamer, is an extremely costly undertaking, I don’t take it for granted for a second. Thank you guys so much for believing in the project, and for putting up with this type of coverage. We’ll keep going with the convention coverage, so long as we keep going to events period. We might not cover all of them, or cover them particularly well, but it is a lot of fun to attend.
This is hard to do with a small team, and I knew going in that covering three conventions in four weeks was gonna be a tough endeavor. But we’ve got some great stuff up ahead before the year is over, and we’ll switch to awards mode before long.
Until next time!
Thanks to Donny Q for proofreading. And if you’ve got more time to kill, feel free to check out our other written and video coverage.
