Walking through Gamescom, the massive, eye‑catching booths are usually attached to household names—Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a substantial portion of Halls 6 and 7 will be dominated by a company most visitors probably haven’t heard of: 4Divinity.
"It’s enormous by any standard," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint. The firm will feature six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of those in dedicated trailer showcases, and four on the public showfloor across two separate stands, the larger of which spans roughly 800 square metres. The ambition extends beyond sheer size; the company is also pulling out all the stops on visual spectacle.
"We’re working with one of the top booth builders at Gamescom and haven’t skimped on anything," Doust adds. One of the highlights is a recreation of a Hollywood‑style hillside, rebranded as the "Neo Yokohama Hills" for the 1980s‑inspired RPG *Showa American Story*, set in an alternate timeline where Japan governs the United States. "We built a seven‑metre‑tall Golden Gate Bridge adorned with Japanese lanterns, and a fully stocked diner that visitors can walk into to try the game.
It’s meant to be a fully immersive experience," he explains. When pressed about the cost, Doust refuses to give an exact number, calling it "crass," but confirms that the investment runs into the millions.
"The scale of our footprint alone shows we are committing resources at that level. It signals how seriously we are taking the Western market—a commitment not all Chinese firms are willing or able to make." The reason many have never heard of 4Divinity lies in its corporate lineage. It is one of several gaming entities owned by Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, a conglomerate that also includes an imitation‑diamond jewellery business.
GCL’s roots are in physical distribution through Epicsoft, a company that has been moving discs for nearly two decades. While that segment remains important—"as long as Sony continues to produce discs, we’ll keep it going"—the group acknowledges the decline of physical media and the need to pivot toward digital.
4Divinity was launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia. Doust notes that finding a Western title that performs well in China is a tall order. The company succeeded with *Atomic Heart*, which saw strong sales in China, and later with *Stalker 2*.
However, those successes were outliers rather than a sustainable growth model for a Nasdaq‑listed company. "From a growth perspective we needed a truly global publishing strategy," Doust says. Consequently, 4Divinity began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. By the time Doust joined in late 2024, the pipeline already included a few indie projects and the ambitious *Showa American Story*.
Today the portfolio has expanded to eight titles slated for launch within the next two years, marking a period of rapid expansion. All of the games share common characteristics: they are primarily single‑player experiences lasting 15‑20 hours, priced in the mid‑tier range. This focus was not pre‑planned but emerged as a coherent strategy aimed at the "squeezed middle" of the market—a space also being explored by U.S. studio ProbablyMonsters.
Doust believes this is where player demand currently lies. "People don’t want to invest 200 hours in a live‑service game, and they’re not willing to spend $80 on a AAA title. A $40‑$50 single‑player experience hits the sweet spot." Developing such games is costly, with budgets ranging from $5 million to $20 million, regardless of whether the studio is in China or the West. Doust points out that a title must sell roughly a million copies just to break even, a daunting target given today’s discoverability challenges.
4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its emphasis on new IP. Every title at Gamescom will be a fresh property, many of which are debut releases in the West.
Larger publishers tend to avoid betting on untested IP, especially in an era where AAA development has become franchise‑driven and risk‑averse. In contrast, 4Divinity is willing to showcase multiple brand‑new games simultaneously. The turning point for the company, according to Doust, was the handling of *Black Myth: Wukong*.
GCL managed the game’s physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as publisher in Taiwan, leveraging its Singapore base to bridge the gap for the Chinese developer Game Science. The success of *Wukong* highlighted the untapped potential of Chinese studios that, since the 2016 lifting of the console ban, have been creating console‑ready titles for both domestic and international audiences. Financially, *Wukong* was produced for roughly 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million) and sold 30 million copies, delivering a massive profit margin.
Doust notes that development costs in China are significantly lower and that Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive, which shapes 4Divinity’s pricing and marketing tactics. His broader mission is to connect Western appetite for affordable, high‑quality single‑player experiences with the supply of Chinese developers capable of delivering them at lower cost.
"My thesis, when I started working with Jacky Choo, was to find common thematic threads—loyalty, revenge, defiance—that resonate across cultures and market the same game with different messaging for each region," Doust explains. Even without an aggressive cross‑border push, games tend to travel organically.
Doust describes this as the "do‑nothing" model: the publisher markets primarily in China, and a ripple effect generates sales abroad, typically an 80/20 split. *Wukong* sold about 20 million copies in China and three to four million elsewhere, illustrating that pattern.
4Divinity aims to shift that ratio toward a 60/40 split, believing that a more balanced distribution would dramatically increase unit sales. "If we could apply that model to a game the size of *Wukong*, we might be looking at the best‑selling game of all time relative to its development budget," he muses. The company is also experimenting with reverse promotion—bringing Western titles to China first.
Its sole non‑Chinese game, *Guns Of Eschaton*, was launched at Bilibili World in Shanghai, an early move that generated enough buzz to make China the second‑largest wishlist market after the United States. Thus, the massive Gamescom presence mirrors this dual‑market strategy. By debuting its slate in Cologne shortly after a ChinaJoy showcase, 4Divinity hopes to generate simultaneous momentum in both regions rather than chasing a Chinese hit and then scrambling to catch up in the West. Gamescom serves as the Western coming‑out party for the publisher.
While individual game campaigns continue, the trade show allows 4Divinity to consolidate its messaging and make a loud introduction to a market where it has previously been relatively quiet. As Doust puts it, "If this is a portfolio play to introduce our games and ourselves to the West, why not go big?"