In the early hours of August 26, the curtain came down on Opening Night Live at Gamescom 2026.
This year’s showcase drew sharply different reactions from players and media in China and overseas. Some foreign media outlets noted similarities across many of the games shown, particularly in their atmosphere, gameplay loops, and visual styles. Dark fantasy titles and hardcore shooters appeared in clusters, while some of the strongest audience reactions went to returning franchises and sequels to established IP.
For Chinese players, the show offered a different story.
A few years ago, a Chinese-developed game landing a prominent slot at a major international showcase could itself be notable. This year, Chinese games were present throughout the program.
By one count, 14 of the more than 50 games featured during Opening Night Live were developed or published by Chinese companies, the highest number in the event’s history. Chinese titles ranged from Mihoyo’s newly unveiled Nodusfall, which opened the show, to Ananta, which featured prominently in Gamescom’s promotional materials, and single-player titles including Tides of Annihilation and Showa American Story.
The exposure extended beyond China’s largest game companies. Smaller and midsize studios also appeared on the international stage, with titles such as Aniimo and Genigods: Nezha featured in the Opening Night Live pre-show.
Chinese cultural references are also becoming more central to the games themselves. Developers are increasingly drawing on Chinese mythology, history, and aesthetics as core creative material rather than as surface decoration. Black Myth: Wukong was a prominent example, and several Chinese titles shown at Gamescom this year pointed in a similar direction.
Mihoyo mixes mythology with social play
The first game unveiled during Opening Night Live was Nodusfall, Mihoyo’s mythology-inspired 3D title. The appearance of the Hoyoverse name, which Mihoyo uses internationally, drew cheers from the audience.
Nodusfall centers on cooperative multiplayer combat. Players take the role of “Weavers” entering a world in which divine authority has fallen and social order has collapsed. They recruit companions, fight enemies, collect fragments of divine power, and seek to restore order.
The promotional video moves rapidly through mythological imagery drawn from several cultures. It includes an ancient flood, the Chinese myth of ten suns appearing in the sky at once, creatures such as Qiongqi and the nine-tailed fox from the ancient Chinese text “Classic of Mountains and Seas,” and the dragon from the German epic “Nibelungenlied.”
Rather than building the game around a single mythology, Mihoyo appears to be combining traditions from several cultures within one fantasy world.
Nodusfall also looks notably different from Mihoyo’s previous work. Liu Wei, the Mihoyo co-founder better known as Da Wei, wrote on WeChat that it was a game that felt “very unlike Mihoyo.”
The other title Mihoyo brought to the show was Petit Planet, which has already completed two rounds of testing and is scheduled for release in the winter.
The first half of its promotional video focused on solo activities such as farming, fishing, and gathering seafood along the coast. The second emphasized multiplayer features, including interactions with artificial intelligence-controlled non-player characters, QR-code-based social functions, and group phototaking in public spaces.
Together, the two games show Mihoyo experimenting in different directions: Nodusfall with cooperative action and cross-cultural mythology, and Petit Planet with social interaction and life simulation.
NetEase expands its global slate
NetEase showcased three games at this year’s Gamescom.
Sea of Remnants is a seafaring roguelite extraction game that combines several gameplay systems. It launched on PC and mobile platforms around July. Its Gamescom appearance, accompanied by a new promotional video, appeared aimed primarily at expanding its reach among overseas players.
The bigger announcement was Ananta.
The game is scheduled for a global launch on January 15, 2027, with simultaneous releases on PC, PS5, and mobile platforms.
Ananta is an anime-style game set in an urban environment. It is often compared with Perfect World’s Neverness to Everness, as both are prominent recent attempts to introduce new themes and gameplay ideas into the category.
For now, however, their approaches differ.
Ananta continues to follow an open-world model built around a wide range of gameplay systems within a single game. Neverness to Everness places greater emphasis on a coherent atmosphere paired with city-based gameplay.
Earlier demonstrations of Ananta had already shown mechanics inspired by several familiar genres, presented with a deliberately absurd, meme-heavy tone.
The latest trailer extends that approach to the setting. Its map appears to combine elements of Hangzhou and Shanghai into a single fictional city.
It includes recognizable Shanghai landmarks such as the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Bund, alongside Hangzhou locations including West Lake, Leifeng Pagoda, and Longjing Village.
NetEase also brought Once Human to overseas consoles alongside a new trailer, expanding the survival game to PS5 and Xbox.
Tencent plays every side of the game
Tencent brought six games and related projects to Gamescom this year, spanning several genres and business models.
Its lineup included games developed and published in-house, projects based on established overseas IP, and titles released through its international publishing brand Level Infinite. Together, they illustrate the different approaches Tencent is using to expand its presence in the global games market.
Among them was Tides of Annihilation, a fantasy action and adventure game developed by Chengdu-based Eclipse Glow Games. The studio unveiled a new story teaser at Gamescom.
Tides of Annihilation had previously appeared at exhibitions and hands-on events for Chinese players. Gamescom marked the first opportunity for overseas players to try it in person.
Because the game draws on the legends of King Arthur and other Western fantasy traditions, its reception among European and US players could offer an early indication of its overseas appeal.
Tides of Annihilation was also nominated for “Best PlayStation Game” at this year’s Gamescom Awards, alongside titles including Dragon’s Dogma 2, Metro 2039, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword.
For an unreleased Chinese single-player action game, the nomination provides another measure of the attention it is receiving outside China.
Monster Hunter Outlanders, developed by Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group under license from Capcom, unveiled its latest original monster, Ruger Aidal, an elder dragon.
The officially licensed Monster Hunter mobile game is continuing its established approach: introducing original creatures and other content while operating within the broader framework of the franchise.
Four other games were presented through Level Infinite and came from established overseas studios, reflecting Tencent’s international investment and publishing strategy.
Control Resonant, developed by Finland’s Remedy Entertainment, is a sequel in the series scheduled for release on September 24.
Exterminauts is a three-player cooperative shooter from Behaviour Interactive, the developer of Dead by Daylight. It made its debut during this year’s showcase.
Elsewhere, Roco Kingdom: World released a short promotional video during the show before announcing plans for overseas testing on social media.
Zoopunk is being developed by Shanghai-based TiGames, the studio behind FIST: Forged In Shadow Torch. It is a new third-person action game set in the same universe as its predecessor.
Smaller studios widen the creative range
Beyond Tencent, NetEase, and Mihoyo, several other Chinese games at Gamescom showed how much broader the industry’s creative range has become.
Happy Elements’ Silver Palace is one example. It remains an anime-style game, but its art direction, setting, and gameplay give it a distinct identity within a crowded category.
Before release, Silver Palace also received a nomination for “Best Mobile Game” at this year’s Gamescom Awards.
The development paths of two other Chinese exhibitors, Nekcom Games and Haotang, illustrate another part of that shift.
Nekcom has been operating for 15 years while continuing to pursue relatively unconventional projects.
At Gamescom this year, it brought Showa American Story, a game set in an alternate version of the US colonized by Japan. Unlike at earlier appearances, players at this year’s event could try a broader selection of levels.
Nekcom Games founder Luo Xiangyu previously worked at Ubisoft Shanghai and an EA studio. His company has also completed several financing rounds.
Its trajectory reflects a combination that has become more visible in China’s game industry: developers with experience at large studios building smaller teams with external capital behind them.
Haotang, the developer of The Defiant, is in a different position.
Its team numbers only in the dozens. It does not have the backing of a major overseas game company or an established single-player IP.
Instead, the studio is building around a subject rarely explored in recent Chinese-made first-person shooters: China’s resistance against Japan during the second World War.
The game emphasizes national duty and anti-war themes, ideas more commonly explored in Chinese games set in earlier historical periods.
The Defiant is still in development, but it arrives at a time when the commercial success and visibility of Chinese-developed single-player games have raised expectations for what smaller domestic studios can produce.
Taken together, the opening showcase and the broader Chinese presence at Gamescom suggest that Chinese games are no longer notable simply for appearing in greater numbers.
The next challenge is harder: maintaining a steady pipeline of releases while continuing to differentiate them creatively.
China’s largest game companies can support production at industrial scale. Smaller studios such as Nekcom and Haotang are testing whether more experimental projects can also find space on the global stage.
As mainstream genres become increasingly crowded, that mix of scale and experimentation may determine how much further China’s game industry can expand overseas.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Er Ji, Guo Pu, and Liu Shiwu for 36Kr.