Scan, Compare, Save.
Find all your collectibles at the best price, with our mobile app.
Gamescom closed its doors on Sunday 30 August in Cologne, after five days that began with Opening Night Live on Tuesday 25 August. The 2026 edition brought together 368,000 visitors from 131 countries and 1,743 exhibitors from 66 countries, across 233,000 square metres of fully booked space.
Square Enix confirmed Final Fantasy VII Revelation for spring 2027, CD Projekt Red dated a free remaster of The Witcher 3 for 29 September, Xbox marked its 25th anniversary with 25 playable games, and Grand Theft Auto VI stayed out of the halls even though it releases on 19 November. Here are the gamescom 2026 announcements, put in order.
Koelnmesse published its figures at the close: 368,000 visitors from 131 countries, compared with 357,000 last year. That is just below the all-time record set in 2019. On the trade side, the show counted more than 36,000 visitors, around half of them from abroad, with the biggest increases from Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States.
The real record is elsewhere: 1,743 exhibiting companies from 66 countries, 11 per cent more than in 2025, spread across 48 national pavilions representing 41 countries. Foreign exhibitors made up 72 per cent of the total, the highest share in the show's history. The 233,000 square metres of floor space were fully booked.
Another first in the show's history: Frank-Walter Steinmeier is the first German Federal President to visit gamescom. He opened the gamescom congress, which this year focused on the role of video games in education, democracy and civic participation.
Online audiences also grew. By Saturday evening, the show's programmes had passed 624 million views worldwide, 78 million of them for Opening Night Live alone. The dates for next year are already set: 23 to 29 August 2027, with public days starting on 26 August.
The show hosted by Geoff Keighley traditionally takes place the evening before the halls open, and it is where the biggest announcements are made. Square Enix showed a new trailer for Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the final part of the remake trilogy, built around the Weapons, the planet's response to those draining its energy. The publisher confirmed a spring 2027 release on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S and PC, without a specific date.
Grinding Gear Games dated version 1.0 of Path of Exile 2 for 11 December 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox, almost two years to the day after its early access began. The Duelist class, missing until now, was revealed at the same time.
The surprise of the evening came from HoYoverse. The Genshin Impact studio presented Nodusfall, a dark fantasy co-op action game built in Unreal Engine 5 rather than Unity, without the anime style of its other games. Players control Weavers who take on giant creatures in small groups. No date or platforms were given.
The rest of the evening was given over to returning older series: Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake for 2027 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, Metro 2039 for February 2027, Mega Man: Dual Override for 2027, Crazy Taxi: World Tour for 2027 and Turok: Origins for spring 2027. Exodus got a date, 7 April 2027, and Mewgenics a console release on 8 September 2026.
Shorter but widely reported: Snoop Dogg became an elusive target in Hitman: World of Assassination, playable from 27 August to 26 September 2026.
The most widely reported announcement of the show came from CD Projekt Red. The Polish studio presented The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered for 29 September 2026, with improvements to visuals, performance and gameplay. The upgrade is free for anyone who already owns the game on an eligible platform: PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. A native version releases the same day on Nintendo Switch 2 and on Battle.net.
The studio also presented Songs of the Past, an expansion due in 2027 that takes Geralt to a new region, Letten, a rural area that appears peaceful. Another move announced the same evening: the two original expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, become free for all owners of the game.
As the remaster costs nothing for those who already own the game, the complete editions in the catalogue are the most direct way to get it. They include the base game and both expansions.
At Opening Night Live, Konami showed a Silent Hill: Townfall trailer focused on its cast, with Richard appearing alongside the protagonist Simon. The game, developed by Screen Burn and co-published by Annapurna Interactive and Konami, is a standalone psychological horror story set in Scotland. It releases on 24 September 2026 on PlayStation 5, Steam and the Epic Games Store. At the show, the publisher also had a playable attraction based on the game, a Castlevania: Belmont's Curse demo, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.2 and its Yu-Gi-Oh! card games.
No new merchandise was shown in Cologne for Silent Hill, but the POP figure range based on the game arrived this year, numbered 1203 to 1209. It includes James Sunderland, Heather Mason, Alessa Gillespie, the Nurse and Pyramid Head.
On the Microsoft side, Gears of War: E-Day got a story trailer. The game is set fourteen years before the first instalment and follows Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago during the first days of the Locust invasion. It releases on 6 October 2026 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, available from day one on Game Pass, with five days of early access for the Premium edition.
Here too, there was no new merchandise. The series' POP figures are those from earlier games, featuring Kait Diaz, JD Fenix, Delmont Walker and Queen Myrrah.
For its 25th anniversary, Xbox had set up 140 gaming stations and 25 playable titles, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Gears of War: E-Day, Fable, Forza Horizon 6, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Alien: Isolation 2, Metro 2039, Minecraft Dungeons II, Stranger Than Heaven and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. An Xbox FanFest took place on site on Wednesday 26 August, from 8pm to 11pm. The stand included adaptive controllers, height-adjustable stations and a quiet room.
Nintendo was in hall 9.1, stand A10, from 26 to 30 August, with nine first-party games playable on Switch 2: Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, Splatoon Raiders, Star Fox, Pokémon Pokopia, Mario Kart World, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Super Mario Bros. Wonder - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, the Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 collection, and Donkey Kong Bananza. Partner titles were also available, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, 007 First Light, EA Sports FC 27, Metaphor: ReFantazio and Minecraft Dungeons II.
Sony was not there. PlayStation has not had a stand in Cologne since 2019 and prefers its own State of Play broadcasts, where it alone controls the schedule. This is the seventh edition in a row without the Japanese manufacturer.
Focus Entertainment and Asobo Studio showed the launch trailer for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, a prequel to the A Plague Tale series, at Opening Night Live. The game came out two days later, on 27 August 2026, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, available from day one on Game Pass. It tells Sophia's origins through a parallel story set in the Minoan era. The trailer uses a cover of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence.
Ubisoft was in the halls, without its own presentation. The publisher showed Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Tactics, a turn-based strategy game in which you command Rainbow Six: Siege operators in solo missions against terrorists, planned for 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. It also confirmed Rayman Legends Retold for 1 October 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2 and PC, and showed a music level.
Paradox Interactive, Iceflake Studios and the LEGO Group jointly announced LEGO Skylines during Opening Night Live. It takes the idea of the Swedish publisher's city management games and moves it into bricks: you start with a plot and a house, which grow into a neighbourhood and then a city, with a full simulation of electricity, water, sewage and hospitals.
The game is announced for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC via Steam, without a release date. Iceflake Studios is the studio that took over development of Cities: Skylines II after the original team left.
The gamescom award committee announced its winners on 28 August, across nineteen categories combining jury votes and votes from visitors on site. CD Projekt Red and SEGA took three awards each, Capcom and Ubisoft two each.
The Witcher 3 won the categories linked to its presence at the show: best trailer for the announcement of the remaster and Songs of the Past, best booth, and best merchandise for the pin badge and medallion offered on site. SEGA won best line-up, best audio with Creative Assembly's Alien: Isolation 2, and best PC game with Total War: Warhammer 40,000.
Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword was named best gameplay and best PlayStation game. Forza Horizon 6 won best Xbox game, Rayman Legends Retold best Switch 2 game, and Tides of Annihilation the most epic game category. The special HEART OF GAMING award went to the charity speedrunning group Games Done Quick.
The most anticipated game of the year had no stand, no demo and no trailer in Cologne. Rockstar Games does not attend trade shows and handles its own communication, and it chose to show the game elsewhere, in the middle of gamescom week.
On 27 August, Rockstar broadcast Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look, a 26-minute presentation captured on PlayStation 5, exclusively on Netflix worldwide for six hours, before it went up for free on its YouTube channel and the game's website. It is the first time Rockstar has partnered with a streaming service for this kind of presentation. Grand Theft Auto VI releases on 19 November 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
For gamescom, this says something: the show broke its exhibitor record in the same week that the biggest release of the year was presented elsewhere.
The show has never hosted so many companies, or such a high share of exhibitors from abroad, and the opening of the congress by the Federal President confirms its status as an event of national interest in Germany. On that point, the 2026 edition is a clear success.
The picture for the industry is less positive. The German specialist press describes a consolidating market, with studios bought or merged and thousands of job cuts, an oversupply of games on every platform, and German studios struggling to find publishers and distributors. The show is growing while production shrinks.
The announcements reflect this caution. Apart from Nodusfall and LEGO Skylines, the Opening Night Live reveals mostly dated or revived existing series: The Witcher 3, Gears of War, Silent Hill, Metro, Rayman, Heroes of Might and Magic, Mega Man, Turok, Crazy Taxi. Add Sony's absence for the seventh year and Rockstar's, and what remains is a show that has never been bigger, but whose biggest news is increasingly decided outside its halls.
The next edition takes place from 23 to 29 August 2027 in Cologne, with public days starting on 26 August.
Banner: photo Celestinesucess, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
0 comments
Loading comments...
Bandai Namco Entertainment THE WITCHER 3.COMPLETE ED P5 VF
£72.62The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition (Xbox Series X)
£11.99Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Base Game (Nintendo Switch)
£49.99Grand Theft Auto VI - PS5 (2026)
Grand Theft Auto VI - Xbox Series (2026)
POP figure Silent Hill: Pyramid Head #1205 (2026)
£16.00POP figure Silent Hill: James Sunderland #1206 (2026)
£14.99POP figure Silent Hill: Alessa Gillespie #1203 (2026)
£16.99POP figure Silent Hill: Nurse #1204 (2026)
£16.24POP figure Silent Hill: Robbie #1209 (2026)
£14.99POP figure Gears of War: Kait Diaz #475 (2019)
£9.99POP figure Gears of War: JD Fenix #114 (2016)
POP figure Gears of War: Delmont Walker #116 (2016)
£9.70POP figure Gears of War: Queen Myrrah #476 (2019)
£32.70
Arnaud Bruckler
