‘Made in Korea’ turns heads at Gamescom 2025

Major Korean game companies went all out to impress global gaming fans at Gamescom 2025 in Germany this past week, flaunting teaser videos for upcoming titles and offering the chance to play demo versions.

This year’s Gamescom, one of the world’s largest gaming exhibitions, held from Wednesday to Sunday in Cologne, already hit a new high with over 1,500 exhibitors from 72 countries. It expected to draw more than last year's record-high 335,000 visitors, when 1,462 exhibitors from 64 countries participated.

Krafton unveiled a new trailer for its life simulation game inZOI’s first downloadable content, Island Getaway, at Gamescom’s opening night event on Tuesday, featuring Cahaya, a new in-game map inspired by tropical cities of Southeast Asia.

Krafton’s life simulation game, which recorded 1 million cumulative sales within a week of its launch on PC gaming platform Steam in March, is expanding its gaming experiences with Cahaya, as the game developer also released a Mac version of inZOI on Wednesday. Krafton offered demo plays of inZOI’s Cahaya content at its interactive booth throughout Gamescom 2025.

Besides inZOI, Krafton looked to build on its megahit battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds, debuting PUBG: Blindspot, a five-vs.-five team-based top-down tactical shooter.

Pearl Abyss presented a new massive-scale battlefield questline demo experience of Crimson Desert, a much-anticipated open-world action adventure title that was Korea's only entry to make the list of nominees for Gamescom awards. Crimson Desert was up for awards for best visuals, most epic, best Microsoft Xbox game and Best Sony Playstation game. Pearl Abyss said earlier this month that Crimson Desert will launch in the first quarter of next year.

NCSoft made a surprise appearance during Gamescom’s opening event, as it rolled out new trailers for two upcoming titles: Cinder City, a massively multiplayer online tactical shooter, and Time Takers, a third-person team survival hero shooter. Instead of setting up its own exhibition booth, NCSoft teamed up with Nvidia, as Cinder City incorporated the latter’s latest graphic technologies to showcase the game’s demo.

Netmarble unexpectedly revealed its new title, Project Bloomwalker, a cozy crafting adventure game, at Gamescom 2025 on Thursday. Displaying the new title’s first-ever trailer at the Xbox booth, Netmarble showcased the exploration of undiscovered areas, restoration of polluted nature, collecting resources, making items and fighting off invaders in game. Specifics about Project Bloomwalker, including the launch date, are to be announced later.

Earlier at the opening event, Netmarble unleashed a new trailer for The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin, a new open-world action role-playing game based on "The Seven Deadly Sins" manga series, which has sold over 55 million copies worldwide. The company announced that it began taking applicants for the closed beta test of the game on the same day. Netmarble also initiated global preregistration for upcoming new cross-platform monster-taming action RPG Mongil: Star Dive, which is projected for a release later this year.

Kakao Games subsidiary Ocean Drive Studio installed a castlelike exhibition booth designed to fit with its zombie apocalypse survival action game set in 14th century medieval England, as it aims to target the global market.

The Korea Creative Content Agency also set up a Korea Pavilion at the exhibition venue, where it chose 16 smaller, promising Korean game companies to give them the chance to present their games to a global audience.

On top of Korean gaming giants seeking to impress gamers in Cologne, representatives from the country’s top conglomerates — Samsung Electronics, LG Display and Hyundai Motor — displayed their latest technologies and products at the German gaming exhibition.

Samsung Electronics’ all-new large screen Odyssey G7 monitor made its debut. The company also presented its glasses-free Odyssey 3D gaming ecosystem and new partnerships with major Korean game companies Netmarble and Shiftup. Visitors at Samsung’s booth were given opportunities to check out Netmarble’s upcoming title Mongil: Star Dive and Shiftup’s popular action-adventure game Stellar Blade in 3D for the first time.

LG Display offered about 50 of its gaming organic light-emitting diode monitors in collaboration with Krafton for visitors to play inZOI, PUBG: Battlegrounds and PUBG: Blind Spot.

Hyundai Motor participated in Gamescom for the first time, featuring its self-developed Insteroid Retro Arcade game that features its concept car Insteroid trying to score points in a maze while avoiding enemies. Insteroid was inspired by the automaker’s Inster electric city car. The company said it aims to offer a new experience that crosses boundaries between mobility and gaming.