With Gamescom opening its doors to over 350,000 guests next week, four days of announcements, game reveals, and previews of the medium’s best and brightest are about to flood the Internet.
As the booths on the show floor are being built, and Opening Night Live’s(ONL) final rehearsals get underway, VGC caught up with ONL host and curator Geoff Keighley, alongside the organizers of Gamescom, for a sneak peek at what’s shaping up to be the convention’s biggest year yet.
What to expect from Opening Night Live 2026
While hands-on demos, free tat and an unavoidable room-temperature sparkling water will be limited to the few making the lengthy pilgrimage to Germany, on Tuesday, August 25, the rest of the world gets to experience the show via a two-hour livestream – Opening Night Live. ONL curator Geoff Keighley and Gamescom co-organizer Felix Falk share what fans can expect from the hugely anticipated livestream.
Geoff Keighley said: “Gears of War: E-Day will be a part of Opening Night Live… We’ll have Final Fantasy VII Revelation with Naoki Hamaguchi-san, the director of the game, joining us live for the first update on that game since we announced it back at Summer Game Fest.
“The Witcher 3 has a new expansion, Songs of the Past, and we will have the first details and look at that. Ananta from NetEase, Metro 2039….Mewgenics is also going to have a live performance of the music of that game for the first time – which is going to be unlike anything we’ve ever done in any of our shows. It’s going to be a fun ONL.”
Felix Falk added: “We want to take the show to the next level and give indie developers – who are really important to us -that are exhibiting at Gamescom even more global visibility. The show will feature announcements, gameplay reveals, and so on, but we will also go deeper: we want to tell some of the human stories behind these games, the people and the teams, and the journeys behind these projects.”
Signs of a healing industry
While it’s undeniably been a rough 12 months for the games industry, you wouldn’t know it by the amount of games found on this year’s Gamescom show floor. Each year, the available space for exhibitors is the size of 33 football fields (233,000 gross square meters), and in 2026, for the first time in the show’s history, all this vast exhibition space is completely booked up. Felix sees this as a welcome sign of a damaged industry beginning to heal.
“The past few years have been tough for the industry… so we are really happy… that we are breaking records with exhibition space,” said Falk. “I think that’s a good indicator that the industry is preparing for new growth. Even during tough times for studios, they are positively looking ahead, searching for the next big thing, and shaping the future of this industry.
“In these times of crisis, fear, and hesitation, this positive, powerful mindset – this kind of excitement for the future – is exactly what we need. The trends and KPIs we see are very positive…I think Gamescom will mark a new step forward for the industry.”
He added: “Gamescom is an important platform not only for the industry, but it also demonstrates the importance of games and the games industry for the economy, culture, and innovation. Our guests include many politicians from all over the world. At the political opening on Wednesday, we have the Vice Chancellor of Germany and, for the first time, a High Representative of the European Commission. We are also happy to have representatives from the World Health Organization, the UN World Food Program, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and Europol.”
How games are chosen for ONL, and which are paid ads
Ever wondered how exactly games get chosen for ONL and the difference between this and Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards? With Aftermath recently reporting that it costs up to $520,000 to put a trailer in Opening Night Live, we asked both Geoff Keighley and Felix Falk about the machinations behind the titles selected gratis and the costly ads.
“The games featured inside ONL are all partners of Gamescom,” Keighley said. “The companies we’re working with are already at Gamescom in some form as an exhibitor, and this is a digital extension of what they’re doing with their booths – So, there’s a link between what’s at ONL and what’s on the show floor. Certain companies that are not at Gamescom are not part of ONL.”
“Inside these shows, there are obviously what are considered editorial placements, and then there are paid placements, much like companies will purchase a booth at Gamescom and buy space to secure a spot inside the show. One of the things that’s important to all of us is that there are games selected for editorial value in the show. There are also a lot of independent games that we feature selected to be inside ONL because we believe in those titles, and want to support them.”
He continued: “As I always say, when you tune into these shows, they are marketing events, just like Gamescom is a marketing event. You can consider everything to be, in many ways, marketing video games, but there are definitely games that we select for editorial consideration across all the shows.”
Falk commented: “The vast majority of everything we do on the digital side is not paid advertisement; it is free for our partners because the core of Gamescom is the excitement and everything you see on-site. Economically, it’s not our primary goal to make money off the digital shows, but rather to give reach to our partners who are at Gamescom.”
Gamescom Scotland, confirmed?
While Gamescom’s home is in Cologne, spin-off shows Gamescom LATAM and Gamescom Asia have seen huge success in recent years. With the influential gaming event now expanding into the world’s most important and influential new hubs, there’s only one region that VGC believes truly deserves its own Gamescom.
“I’d love to open a Gamescom Scotland, but let’s talk about that later!” Falk said. “Honestly, it’s not about opening Gamescom everywhere; the promise of Gamescom as a 360-degree festival is not easy to fulfill. We are really happy to have found the right partners for Gamescom Asia and Gamescom Latam, and we want to grow those.
“The industry doesn’t need a huge quantity of events – it needs the right event that fulfills its needs. Right now, our focus is on growing Asia and Latam rather than opening a new location, but you never know what the future holds.”
