We attended Gamescom 2025 with our own tickets and money. This is not a sponsored article, some assets are provided by our dear partners.
Gamescom 2025 has come and gone and left us with more games on our wishlist that we will ever be able to play. And of course, some pretty nice goodies to boot. Personally my last experience with Gamescom was a small dud, Covid had just raged through the world and the edition that followed had publishers, shops and developers struggle with many problems. It was a meager Gamescom I attended in 2023 and I was eager to get back to a full blown Gamescom in 2025.
And while the gaming industry is in a financial struggle and correction right now, Publishers did not skim back on building their boots or goodies they gave out. See below in some of our pictures or you might have picked up our stories on our Instagram.
While we felt this was a successful edition of Gamescom; especially after the downfall of E3, Gamescom is now our biggest hands-on event for gaming. With Gamescom 2025 also came some of the growing pains that were clearly visible for us and others. Suddenly being the biggest baddest gaming event had not prepared the Koelnmesse for the storm of people and nationalities attending their halls.
Peaking the charts – Gamescom 2025
How did Gamescom 2025 fare on the charts? Pretty damn good, the numbers are in and Gamescom 2025 peaked at 357,000 visitors coming from 128 countries to visit the Koelnmesse. Gamescom’s Opening Night Live had 72 million views when airing; 1568 exhibitors on the floors from 72 countries. With strong growth coming from the US, China, Canada and Japan. And that’s the influence of E3 no longer existing right there. To prepare for this they did some internal changes to the halls, making a bigger indie area, an extra entertainment hall and relocating the Event Area to the Conflex hall.
But that was not nearly enough to prepare Gamescom for the growth it had. In order to get to the Conflex you had to exit the venue and then check in again, have another bag check, and stand in the queue. But worst of all it wasn’t named Conflex on their hall plan but Event Area, the Koelnmesse had no pointers towards the Event area but only to the Conflex hall. The tickets we had for the Witcher in Concert even had another name and entry hall that had us roaming for a solid half hour to figure out how to get there.
Furthermore we stumbled upon several other things, personal only speaks German. A security guard with a megaphone shouting at a crowd in German while most of us there didn’t understand a word. That guard then got slightly angry that nobody did whatever he shouted. A lot of panels and shows on the game floor were also in German and while queuing for 2,5h I had no clue what was going on. Some Exhibitors did adapt to a more international public and it was a blast to attend those. Be more international and have personal speak in English, have demos with language options because and please don’t leave 3 out of 4 doors closed after an event in the Conflex finishes.
Bombastic and Fantastic
We attended Opening Night Live, the half day early access with limited visitors to the entertainment areas on Wednesday and the normal Thursday and Friday event days. We usually avoid the weekend days due to them being a lot busier than the weekdays. Where we wrong this year, both Thursday and Friday sold out and were as busy as a Saturday. Long queues and barely able to move through the halls to get from point A to point B. Gamescom was booming this year.
The booths and stands were also amazing and a blast to see and inspect. Endfield making a small factory booth, World of Warcraft recreating a house for their housing demo, and so on. It’s always amazing to see how creative some booths can be. Even if you are not queuing for something or just want to have a look around it truly is something else.
Our highlights and peaks
We went in with a plan and managed to beat some longer queues due to planning and walking fast as hell. We also decided to spend a day at the indie area because that’s where we have found some real gems. The games below are in a random order and all of the games and our impressions are based on demo or even alpha builds and open to change before release.
Bloomwalker
My personal favorite that blew me back when I engaged with the demo. Comfy game inspired by studio Ghibli and Alice in Wonderland. Time flew by as I played it and had a nice talk with the devs afterwards. Really really really looking forward to this. Xbox announcement article here.
The Outer Worlds 2
Not a playable demo but a game-play demo with live commentary from 2 developers. More on itemization and different approaches when doing missions. Definitely peaked our interest in this one.
World of Warcraft Housing
Having an amazing booth that transported you straight into Azeroth. And a playable demo on how housing will work. Spent 20 minutes making an abomination by clipping things together as the person next to me made a cozy bedroom.
Pokemon Z-A
Multiple demos spread out over the entertainment floors. Only did one that highlighted the new combat system. It’s better I guess, more flexibility, abilities still on cool-down. Demo was fully in German and I had no clue what was going on but ended up leaving a bit more hopeful for the Pokemon games.
Borderlands 4
We were cursed when it came to this one. First demo was at Asus ROG where the game overheated their laptops that made them crash or run really poorly. We queued at the official Boderlands 4 booth that was amazing, and ended up playing the Switch 2 version, that ran OK but really felt like it couldn’t deliver the full Borderlands 4 experience for a demo. Keep an eye on our Game Reviews section for a review later this year.
Cronos the new dawn
Our longest queue of Gamescom, and we decided to this one last on Thursday. Blooper team did not expect their demo to draw such a huge crowd. It took us 2.5 hours to enter the booth and get the Switch 2 as the platform for the demo. Unfortunately it did not do the game credit. Loading screens took a while and made a part of our demo time just, loading screens instead of gameplay. Mechanic wise, yes we look forward to diving into this one.
Gamescom 2025 – The heart of Gaming
Gamescom , the heart of gaming, has been their slogan for many years. For us Gamescom is the heart of gaming because of the people that are there. Having conversations with devs asking for feedback, seeing their passion and sharing ours. It’s what makes Gamescom a truly amazing event. Watching and trying games is one thing but having a talk with a developer or community manager making those connections and being part of the gaming community. And that’s what makes Gamescom the heart of gaming for us.
Indie Area bursting with fans
The indie area is our favorite last day place to spend time in. This year the area was overflowing and we barely had room to play any games. We talked with some devs, added games to our wishlist to support them and keep our eyes on the game when it releases.
But to actually get a hands on it was way too cramped, as the entertainment halls got overcrowded people flocked to the indie area. The indie area is not that big but nearly took us a full day to get through.
The amazing cosplayer community
Many booths got cosplayers for their booths to flair it up, options to have photo shoots with them and admire their insane craft of detailed recreating your favorite characters. Some of our own BGeek cosplayers where at the scene raising cosplay standards and stealing the show.
Anhyra Cosplay in Dune: Awakening cosplay posing at the Level Infinite sand worm booth showing who’s boss.
Yuji Koi Cosplay with several cosplays at the Duet Night Abyss booth stealing the show.
Maike Huster at the Exoborne booth by Level Infinite with an insanely detailed exo suit and weaponry.
All in all this was an amazing edition of Gamescom. See you next time.