Europe’s largest video game exhibition, Gamescom, officially kicked off in Cologne, Germany on Tuesday, bringing iconic franchises *Final Fantasy* and *The Witcher* to the center of global gaming attention. The event comes as the global gaming industry searches for a much-needed momentum boost, navigating a wave of widespread layoffs and cutthroat market competition.
A sold-out opening ceremony marked the start of the four-day event, where around 5,000 in-person attendees gathered to get an exclusive first look at dozens of upcoming titles. Canadian gaming host Geoff Keighley led the nearly two-hour showcase, highlighting dozens of anticipated releases ahead of the show floor opening to the general public on Wednesday.
One major high-profile release is notably absent from this year’s lineup: *Grand Theft Auto VI*, the most anticipated game launch of 2025. Developer Rockstar Games has opted to skip Gamescom, planning its own dedicated reveal event for the title ahead of its November 19 launch, a move that industry observers say will likely draw significant attention away from the expo. Many rival studios have even shifted their own release dates forward to avoid going head-to-head with *GTA VI*, creating an unusually packed schedule of new game launches this year.
Instead, the biggest cheer of the opening night went to Polish studio CD Projekt Red, the developer behind the globally beloved *The Witcher* franchise. The studio announced two major updates for the franchise: a completely remastered version of the 2015 blockbuster *The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt* will launch for free on September 29, a welcome offering for cost-burdened gamers facing soaring prices for consoles and gaming hardware. A brand-new expansion for *The Witcher 3* will also drop next year, ahead of the long-awaited 2028 launch of *The Witcher 4*. To date, *The Witcher 3* has already sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, cementing its status as one of the best-selling role-playing games of all time.
Another headlining franchise at this year’s show is Square Enix’s legendary *Final Fantasy* series. Director Naoki Hamaguchi appeared in person at the event to unveil new footage from *Final Fantasy VII Rebirth*, the third and final entry in the full remake series of the 1997 genre-defining original title.
The showcase also shone a light on developers from around the globe, including Ukrainian studio 4A Games, which gave a first preview of *Metro 2039*, the next addition to its acclaimed post-apocalyptic first-person shooter franchise. Scheduled for a February launch, the new entry carries deeper thematic weight amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. “Metro has always been a story about avoiding war, but now that war is at our doorstep, we have built a story about its consequences and the price of freedom,” said executive producer Jon Bloch.
Chinese developer HoYoverse, which rose to global fame with its open-world hit *Genshin Impact*, also took the stage to reveal *Nodus Fall*, a new cooperative action role-playing game set in a dark, twisted medieval fantasy world. Other major developers showcasing new titles include Nintendo, which will present *Nintendo Switch Sports Resort*, and Microsoft’s Xbox division, which will show off the next entry in the *Call of Duty* franchise, *Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IV*, and *Gears of War: E-Day*. Notably, Japanese console giant Sony, maker of the PlayStation 5, is absent from this year’s exhibitor lineup.
Starting Wednesday, hundreds of playable stations will open to the public, where tens of thousands of attendees – many arriving in elaborate cosplay of their favorite game characters – will get to try out the new titles firsthand. Organizers confirmed that more than 1,600 exhibitors from across the globe will showcase over 800 unique games at this year’s event. Last year’s Gamescom drew nearly 360,000 attendees, a figure that almost returned to the pre-pandemic high of around 370,000, signaling a strong rebound for in-person industry events after years of COVID-19 disruptions.
Beyond the exciting new game reveals, the shadow of industry turmoil hangs over this year’s expo. The global gaming market is facing unprecedented pressure: soaring demand for memory chips from the fast-growing artificial intelligence sector has driven up component costs, pushing console and hardware prices higher for consumers. At the same time, an overcrowded release calendar means there are far more new games than consumers have time or money to play, squeezing studio profit margins.
This combination of intense market competition and shrinking margins has forced dozens of studios to implement cost-cutting measures, resulting in thousands of layoffs across the industry. Data from the ASGC Games Industry Layoffs Tracker shows that nearly 10,000 gaming industry workers have lost their jobs since the start of 2025, putting the industry on track to hit 15,000 total layoffs for the year. If that figure holds, it will come close to matching the 2024 record for layoffs, which followed a massive hiring boom during the COVID-19 pandemic when demand for video games surged.
Opening the show, Keighley acknowledged the conflicting emotions defining the current moment for the global gaming industry. “It is no secret that the video games industry is changing and evolving,” he said. “On one level it is exciting, and on another it’s kind of scary.”