Walking through Gamescom, the massive, eye‑catching booths are usually anchored by household names—Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a sizeable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is occupied by a company most visitors will not recognize: 4Divinity. "It’s enormous by any standard," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom deployment.
The firm is presenting six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of them featured in the associated trailer showcases, and four titles on the public floor across two separate stands. The larger of those stands covers roughly 800 square metres. Doust emphasizes that the company is not only investing in space but also in spectacle. "We’re working with one of the best booth builders at Gamescom and have spared no expense," he adds.
One of the highlights is the recreated set for the 1980s‑style RPG *Showa American Story*. The area mimics a Hollywood‑hills‑in‑Japan scenario, renamed Neo Yokohama Hills, where an alternate timeline sees the United States ruled by Japan. "We built a seven‑metre‑high Golden Gate Bridge adorned with Japanese lanterns, a fully stocked diner you can walk into and start playing, and a host of other immersive touches," Doust explains. The goal is to make the experience as tactile as possible, turning a simple booth into a miniature world.
When pressed about the cost, Doust is vague but clear: "I can’t give exact numbers—it would be crass—but we’re talking millions of dollars of investment. The sheer size of our footprint shows how seriously we’re taking the Western market, something not every Chinese‑owned company is prepared to do." The reason many have never heard of 4Divinity lies in its corporate lineage. The publisher is part of Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, a conglomerate that also owns an imitation‑diamond jewellery business. GCL’s roots are in physical game distribution through a company called Epicsoft, a business that has operated for nearly two decades.
While physical media remains a component—"as long as Sony continues to produce discs, we’ll keep making them"—Doust acknowledges that the market is shrinking. "We recognise it’s a declining segment, so we needed to pivot toward digital," he says. 4Divinity was launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia.
Doust notes the difficulty of finding a Western title that resonates in China, citing *Atomic Heart* and *Stalker 2* as rare successes. Those wins, however, were outliers. "For a Nasdaq‑listed group like GCL, we needed a growth engine that could scale globally," Doust explains.
The answer was to start signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. The shift began before Doust joined in late 2024, with a handful of smaller indie titles and the ambitious *Showa American Story*.
Since then the portfolio has swelled to eight games slated for release over the next two years, marking a rapid expansion period. All of the titles share common traits: they are primarily single‑player experiences lasting 15‑20 hours, priced in the mid‑tier range. This focus on the so‑called "squeezed middle" mirrors strategies employed by other indie‑focused firms such as ProbablyMonsters. "People don’t want to invest 200 hours into a live‑service game," Doust says.
"The $80 AAA titles are reserved for a few blockbuster franchises. But there’s a strong appetite for $40‑$50 single‑player adventures that can be completed in a few weeks." Developing these mid‑tier games is still a substantial financial undertaking.
"Typical budgets range from $5 million to $20 million, whether you’re in China or the West," Doust notes. To break even, a game often needs to sell around a million copies—a challenging target given today’s discoverability hurdles. What truly differentiates 4Divinity is its commitment to new intellectual property.
"Everything you’ll see from us at Gamescom is brand‑new IP," Doust asserts. Larger publishers tend to avoid betting on untested concepts, especially in the high‑cost AAA arena where franchises dominate.
In contrast, 4Divinity is willing to showcase six fresh titles at once, betting on the creative vigor of Chinese developers. The catalyst for this bold pivot was the success of *Black Myth: Wukong*. GCL handled the game’s physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as publisher in Taiwan.
Because the developer, Game Science, is Chinese, navigating the global market required a partner with a strong international foothold—something 4Divinity could provide from its Singapore base. Wukong’s triumph highlighted a broader trend: since China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese studios that had been developing for Western markets have returned home, establishing console‑capable teams.
Doust points out that development costs in China are considerably lower; a tax filing suggests Wukong’s budget was around 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million), yet it sold roughly 30 million copies, delivering a massive profit margin. "Chinese developers can produce high‑quality games at a fraction of Western costs, and Chinese gamers are very price‑sensitive," Doust explains. This economics‑driven reality shapes 4Divinity’s strategy: source affordable, high‑quality titles from China and introduce them to Western audiences hungry for fresh experiences that don’t break the bank. His overarching thesis, formed while working with GCL chairman Jacky Choo, is to find universal themes—loyalty, revenge, defiance—that resonate across cultures.
By packaging the same core narrative with different marketing angles, 4Divinity aims to bridge East and West more effectively than anyone else has done. Even without an aggressive marketing push, games tend to cross borders naturally. Doust describes this as the "do‑nothing" business model: a game is marketed primarily in China, creates a ripple effect abroad, and ends up with an 80/20 sales split (80 % in China, 20 % elsewhere). *Wukong* followed that pattern, selling 20 million copies in China and 3‑4 million internationally.
The goal now is to shift that balance toward a 60/40 split, which would dramatically increase total unit sales. Doust muses that if *Wukong* had achieved such a ratio, it could have become the best‑selling game of all time relative to its modest development budget. To test this theory, 4Divinity is also promoting Western‑made titles in China.
Their sole non‑Chinese game, *Guns of Eschaton*—developed by a Cyprus studio founded by a former Wargaming employee—was first introduced to Chinese audiences at Bilibili World, Shanghai’s massive anime and pop‑culture expo. This early exposure generated enough buzz that China became the game’s second‑largest wishlist market after the United States. The massive Gamescom presence is essentially the Western counterpart of that China‑first approach. By debuting its portfolio in Cologne shortly after a showing at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, 4Divinity aims to create simultaneous momentum in both regions rather than playing catch‑up after a title has already taken off in one market.
Gamescom also serves as the publisher’s public debut in the West. While individual game campaigns continue, the trade show offers a single, high‑impact platform to announce the entire slate. "If this is a 4Divinity portfolio play, why not go big?" Doust concludes, underscoring the company’s ambition to become a bridge between Chinese creativity and global gamers.