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Gamescom 2026

Homo Ludens

As early as 1938, the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga argued that play is a fundamental element of our culture – and that human beings are playful creatures. Nowhere is it more evident that this is truer than ever almost a century later than at Gamescom, the world’s largest gaming trade fair. It begins on 26 August. We’re giving you a sneak preview of what visitors to Cologne can look forward to.

  • Text
    Verena Stuhlinger
  • Photos
    Koelnmesse / gamescom

Cologne is world-famous for two events in particular. One is Carnival. The other: Gamescom. The latter is currently in the run-up to the event, with the opening night taking place on 25 August. From 26 to 30 August, the event transforms the city into a massive gaming festival. Underground trains, parks and cafés are teeming with cosplayers, anime characters and elves. The boundaries between everyday life and the virtual world? They visibly blur.

But Gamescom isn’t just a trade fair. It is Europe’s largest Magic Circle, a temporary space where millions of people follow different rules for a few days. An approach which, incidentally, also originates from Huizinga.

What does this look like in practice? Across 233,000 square metres with around 1,600 exhibitors, visitors have the opportunity, amongst other things, to meet up with the huge community from all over the world, experience talks under the theme ‘Games inspire a vision of the future”, or to try out the latest gaming releases.

1/7

And we reckon these games are particularly worth checking out: for indie fans, we recommend heading to the Indie Arena Booth in Hall 10.2, where ‘Denshattack’ by Undercoders awaits – a wonderfully mad arcade game in which you perform tricks on a Japanese train as if it were a skateboard. At SEGA and Microsoft Xbox, you’ll find ‘Stranger Than Heaven’, a cinematic, story-driven game, also set in Japan and featuring an appearance by Tupac Shakur, whom the rapper Snoop Dogg, who was also involved in the game, helped to arrange with Shakur’s heirs. Nintendo is showcasing two highlights in Hall 9: »Orbitals«, a fully co-operative game in the visual style of Daft Punk’s animated music videos, and »Minecraft« for the Nintendo Switch 2. Role-playing fans will be in their element at Square Enix, with classics such as ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’, ‘Final Fantasy XIV’ and ‘Dragon Quest VIII Reimagined’. In Hall 7, Sega is presenting ‘Crazy Taxi: World Tour’. This reimagining of the game from the late 1990s is great fun. The soundtrack features The Offspring, amongst others – you can’t get much more 90s than that. Xbox is showcasing two more major titles in Hall 7: ‘Star Wars: Zero Company’ and ‘Forza Horizon 6’. The latter is likely to be particularly worth a look for car enthusiasts.

‘Forza Horizon 6’ transforms Japan into a massive playground for car enthusiasts. Hardly any other racing game currently manages to create such a rich blend of atmosphere, freedom and pure driving fun.

In keeping with this, brands such as Porsche and Ford are once again at the forefront of the sim racing sector this year, creating a real racing atmosphere with their state-of-the-art racing simulators. Mercedes-Benz is also present at the fair, albeit in the streaming section: as the main partner of GameStar FYNG City.

As well as the exhibitors, the fair features a huge programme of around 85 talks with 165 speakers. Also appearing: our favourite nerd, Toan Nguyen. Together with his podcast co-host Dr Anne Latz, he’ll be speaking on Friday at 9 am at Xperion Cologne about the ‘kidult’ trend and why gaming, nostalgia and communities are more important today than ever before.

Incidentally, just how seriously adults now take gaming is also illustrated by a completely different announcement: Ikea and Xbox are entering into what is probably the most unlikely collaboration of the year, bringing gaming culture right into the home. Exactly what this will look like will be revealed at Gamescom.

But don’t worry: we’re here live on the ground and will keep you up to date.

→ gamescom.global

Verena Stuhlinger

Verena Stuhlinger

Editor
Verena once travelled from Swabia to Belfast, where she studied English and something to do with media - and instead of staying for one year, she stayed for six. What did she bring back from there? A (further) questionable dialect, a few words of Irish and a (perhaps unhealthy) amount of black humour. After that, she continued working in publishing as an editor - and is now back in the south. Where she writes about the finer things in life in the online editorial team at ramp. Even though she still has a heart for print. You can also inspire her with good books. And good food anyway.

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