Gamescom preview – why you should watch Opening Night Live and visit Cologne

Gamescom is the biggest game show on Earth (Credits: Koelnmesse GmbHOliver Wachenfeld)

The biggest video game event in the world is returning to Cologne this week, as Gamescom prepares to host reveals for games like Final Fantasy 7 Revelation and the new The Witcher 3 DLC.

This week, Cologne will be in the spotlight as Gamescom, the biggest videogames show on the modern calendar, takes place there. Here’s how to keep an eye on the action.

This week, every gamer’s eyes will be firmly fixed on the picturesque German city of Cologne. That’s because 2026’s instalment of Gamescom – the biggest video games show in the world, following the post-pandemic demise of Los Angeles’ E3 Show – is taking place. If you’re keen to find out what shape the next 12 months will take for the games industry, Gamescom 2026 should give you a good idea.

Luckily, you don’t have to be in Cologne to do so – although if you are, tickets to attend the show are still available. Gamescom 2026 will be fully open for business from Wednesday 26 August to Sunday 30 August, but its traditional curtain-raiser is the Opening Night Live (ONL) show – compèred, as it has been for the past seven years, by The Games Awards’ Geoff Keighley. That will take place on Tuesday 25 August at 7pm BST, after a half-hour preamble starting at 6.30pm BST.

ONL can be streamed via YouTube and Twitch and while, in a show pre-briefing, Keighley kept his powder pretty dry regarding what it will contain, he highlighted the presence of Microsoft’s Gears Of War: E-Day, Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Revelation (complete with an appearance from director Naoki Hamaguchi), The Witcher 3’s new expansion Songs Of The Past, and a live performance of the much-loved music from Mewgenics.

With two notable exceptions – Rockstar Games will not be at Gamescom 2026 and neither will Sony – pretty much all of the industry’s big names will be hyping their upcoming games at the show. Nintendo, Microsoft, EA, Square Enix, Sega, Bandai Namco, and Capcom will all have stands.

No annual instalment of Gamescom would be complete without some kind of record being claimed, and Gamescom Director Tim Endres highlighted one before the show has even begun: Gamescom 2026 will be the first iteration of the show to boast more than 1,600 exhibitors.

It will also be the first Gamescom in which all the available space has been sold out, meaning there is literally no room for late entrants to join the show. To give a sense of the daunting physical scale of the show, Endres said it will cover: ‘Over 233,000 square metres, about the size of 33 football fields.’ As ever, for attendees, comfortable and durable footwear will be a prerequisite.

The best aspect of Gamescom has always been chancing upon unexpected bangers of games found on obscure, unfancied companies’ stands. But, of course, the headliners are the bigger games that everyone’s already looking forward to, including Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, the last and, with its new open world, most ambitious instalment of the Final Fantasy 7 remake project, which will be playable for the first time.

There’s also remake Tomb Raider: Legacy Of Atlantis, a new Rebellion title, and various efforts from fast-rising publisher Saber Interactive, including the extremely mature-rated Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, Turok: Origins, and Stuntman: Hollywood. We also have high hopes for Ontos, from the makers of Amnesia, and what we’re promised is a Wicker Man-influenced slice of British weirdness entitled Ritual Tides.

What new games will be at Gamescom 2026?

Endres was keen to talk up Gamescom’s ‘hybrid approach’, mixing the physical show with an online presence, plus themed online threads including the Awesome Indie Show, in collaboration with games website IGN (aiming, said Endres, to: ‘Tell some of the human stories behind these games’), and the video-centric Gamescom Studio.

For the first time, Gamescom will also collaborate with gaming charity Games Done Quick, to stream many of the latter’s trademark speedruns with mad restrictions, such as blindfolded participants and players sharing single gamepads.

At the pre-briefing Felix Falk, Managing Director of game, the German games industry’s trade body, was keen to highlight a focus on indie publishers and developers at this year’s show; Endres added that there will be 420 indie exhibitors, ‘Up 16% on last year’s show.’

Exactly what will be shown at ONL, and Gamescom itself, is currently a mystery and hopefully it’ll stay that way, since a reveal is already better without a month full of leaks to precede it. ONL tends to have fewer big name announcements than Keighley’s other events, but you can still expect a few new games and brand new trailers for already announced games in what remains one of the biggest events in the gaming calendar.

Unlike E3, Gamescom has always been open to the public (Credits: Koelnmesse GmbHHarald Fleissner)

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