5 takeaways from Gamescom 2026: A truly global show, AI's impact, Apple and Google's charm offensive, and what was missing

This year’s Gamescom is likely to be the biggest ever. While the final numbers aren’t in, we know that the expo floor space was sold out (unless you count that B2B floor that was empty) and the event has been growing every year. The event felt as lively as ever.

So after a week at one of the world’s largest gatherings and celebrations of the games industry - which included the rebranded Gamescom Dev (formerly Devcom) - what have we learned?

We’ve rounded up some key takeaways from Gamescom below.

1) It’s truly global - and every country wants in

There have long been delegations from various countries around the world at Gamescom. This year, it felt like things stepped up a notch.

Led by Maliyo Games, Nigeria had its first-ever delegation and pavilion at the show. As did Morocco. Meanwhile, Dubai housed the UAE’s biggest pavilion ever at the show to date, while Invest Qatar also had a presence on the trade show floor.

Brazil Games not only had a B2B booth, but it set up its first-ever dedicated Brazilian Indie Pavilion in the B2C space, too.

Then there was the UK’s sizable presence courtesy of UKIE, Catalonia, Switzerland, Netherlands, the Nordic All Stars booth, France, Australia, South Korea, China’s Zhejiang province and many, many more.

Why are they all doing it? As we were told by Brazil Games, Kocca and Maliyo - Gamescom is a great chance to showcase their country’s developers, creativity and culture to the world. And crucially, these companies might cut investment, publishing or other deals with the many thousands of industry professionals in town.

It’s also a signal of the investment pouring into games from governments and regional bodies around the world.

The Mobile Mavens discussed the importance of government support earlier this year. Scottish Game Network’s Brian Baglow said it had moved from a “nice-to-have benefit to a priority”.

2) Asian companies out in force - but this was a global show

As I’ve noted many times during various event takeaways - including GDC 2025 and Gamescom 2025 - Asian companies were once again out in force at this year’s expo.

One of the biggest showings was Hypergryph’s Arknights: Endfield, which had an enormous booth to show off the game, as you can see below, as well as banners in the corridors between the halls. The company is sparing no expense in making a splash. We’ll have an interview with one of the co-founders on the site soon.

Arknights: Endfield also won the Audio/Visual Excellence and People’s Choice accolades at the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards in association with Samsung Gaming Hub.

Elsewhere, there were a host of Chinese developers including HoYoverse, Infold Games (yes, Love and Deepspace had a large presence after the company’s decision to pull out of BiliBili World), Pawprint Studio with its upcoming Aniimo, Tencent Games, NetEase and more. And of course, there were other Asian developers and publishers like Krafton, Sega, Bandai Namco, Nintendo and many others.

But Gamescom 2026 wasn’t just about Asian companies taking over the show floor. It was a truly global event. Xbox showed off the likes of Halo, Forza Horizon 6, Gears of War: E-Day and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Giants Software had a giant tractor to showcase Farming Simulator, Embark was in town with Arc Raiders, EA Sports FC had a notable booth and 4A Games presented Metro 2039.

Meanwhile, there were banners around the show for games like CD Projekt’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expansion Songs of the Past, Funcom’s Dune Awakening and Remedy’s Control Resonant.

3) Apple and Google attempt a charm offensive

After years of regulatory and court battles that look to puncture a hole in the dominance of the App Store and Google Play - and take payments off-store - Apple and Google put on a charm offensive at Gamescom.

Google had its “biggest Gamescom showcase yet”. The consumer booth had what the company itself described as a gacha machine packed with more than 53,000 prizes. It wasn’t just about mobile, though, Google was promoting premium and free-to-play titles that are also available on PC, too.

Apple, meanwhile, appeared at Gamescom Dev to share best practices for the App Store - such as how to take advantage of Apple Games and boost discovery.

The timing is almost unbelievable after all these years and attempts to maintain the 30% status quo, keep anti-steering policies, burn organic platform discovery in favour of their own ad strategies and disrupt the foundations of the mobile games industry with ‘privacy’ initiatives. But engagement from what remain the largest mobile platform holders is welcome and a positive for the industry.

Perhaps threatening the bottom line is making a difference.

4) What was missing

Well, let’s start with the big one, GTA 6 was a no-show. In fact, I didn’t spot a single promotion around town for it, either.

Of course, the GTA 6 extended look on Netflix was timed in line with the expo, but it was strange that what could be one of the biggest game launches ever was not at one of the world’s biggest ever consumer games trade shows.

Nintendo and Xbox both had a big presence, but curiously, PlayStation didn’t have a large booth once again. So that’s two giants of the industry right now not heading to the consumer expo this year.

While there were plenty of cross-platform mobile games on show, there’s definitely a difference between the mobile companies you meet outside the consumer expo and the games you see represented in it.

Of course, marketing is a completely different ball game in mobile compared to other platforms. Still, Huawei AppGallery, Samsung and even Google Play were represented - as well as some smash hit mobile-only games like Infold’s Love and Deepspace.

There was also no large presence for Roblox - an enormous platform that at last count had 123 million daily active users. And the highly popular ‘friendslop’ games taking over Steam weren’t exactly taking over the show.

Last year, I noted that streaming platforms like Paramount, Disney and Netflix were showing off their top IPs at Gamescom. In fact, Netflix largely seemed to forget it had a games division in favour of big booths for Wednesday, Stranger Things and One Piece.

This year, none of these were at Gamescom. There was no real sign of the transmedia trend that has seen smash hit TV shows and movies based on the world’s top games.

There was no attempt to capture the crossover between games and wider entertainment forms on the scale of last year.

This year, it was all about the games. Unless you count Rewe and Subway as tapping into the cultural zeitgeist.

5) AI

The impact of AI on the games industry is undeniable - wherever you sit on opinions over its actual practical implications right now.

At the show, the Pocket Gamer team spoke to a number of people in the industry about the latest developments. One of the most surprising statements for me was from my interview with Hypergryph co-founder Ryan.

Arknights: Endfield currently uses almost no AI, he said - flying against a narrative that many Chinese developers are going all-in on the tech. Though, of course, it's worth noting the title began development before the current hype around generative AI.

That stance doesn’t look to change any time soon. While Ryan said it’s an exciting technology, it’s currently not suitable for the studio.

Elsewhere, Anel Ceman, SVP at NC Mobile’s casual division, told us AI is at the core of its plans. Modern Times Group CEO Maria Redin said the company is harnessing AI tech.

The use-case isn't just about finding efficiencies, she explained, but it’s about improving quality, increasing content output and, in a perfect world, “getting more games to the market” by removing bottlenecks in production, analytics and testing.

She added that making the most out of AI was about embracing the tools and not taking down the workforce.

Steel Media GM Dave Bradley, who has his own AI Gamechangers newsletter, shared a few takeaways on where the AI discussions are heading right now.

He noted a move to on-device AI, which has potential benefits around cost, security and latency, as well as making personalised experiences without calling back to a data centre. Companies like Parable Studio and Studio Atelico are currently working on projects around this implementation.

Meanwhile the discussion is moving beyond AI as an efficiency tool to what the tech might enable in creatively - new mechanics, more reactive worlds and experiences that weren't possible before.

The official Gamescom Dev Leadership Dinner itself was sponsored by Thinking AI (rebranded from Thinking Data) and Google Cloud, to give you an idea of how much companies are trying to push the tech and who to.

And the rest

There were a few other takeaways from the show beyond these. Direct-to-consumer was a big conversation - perhaps part of why Apple and Google turned up. It was particularly interesting to see Sensor Tower SVP for gaming and entertainment Chirag Ambwani share the market intelligence firm’s own estimates around this - such as how Monopoly Go could be making around a third of its sales from D2C.

Parts of Gamescom also felt like they could have come from 10 years ago with old giants having a major presence, from Nintendo and Xbox to Ubisoft and Tomb Raider.

As the industry contends with rapid advancements in tech like AI, a discless future for consoles with rising hardware costs, shifting geographical influence and changes in the regulatory landscape, there’s a chance Gamescom could look very different over the coming years.

It's not just Asian companies investing heavily in a global presence, as ASGC founder Amir Satvat highlighted in his Gamescom Dev keynote, many of the industry's job openings now emanate from Asia, too.

And yet, as much as the industry is going through disruption and change, there were still many familiar names that have been recognisable for decades.