Strolling through Gamescom, you’ll quickly notice that the most expansive, eye‑catching booths belong to household names—Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a sizeable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is dominated by a company most attendees probably haven’t heard of: 4Divinity. "By any measure, it’s massive," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint.
The firm is presenting six titles in the closed B2B zone, five of them in the trailer showcase, and four on the public floor across two separate stands, the larger of which spans roughly 800 square metres. The ambition extends beyond sheer size; Doust emphasizes that the company hired one of the top booth‑construction firms at the show and spared no expense. One of the highlighted experiences, the ‘80s‑style pop‑culture RPG Showa American Story, features a recreated Hollywood Hills set that the game re‑imagines as Neo‑Yokohama Hills, a world 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 through to start playing. It’s all about immersion," Doust explains. When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact figure, noting only that the investment runs into the millions of dollars. "The scale of our presence alone shows how seriously we’re treating the Western market—something not every Chinese‑based publisher is prepared to do," he adds.
The reason this name may be unfamiliar is that 4Divinity is part of a larger Singapore‑based conglomerate, GCL Global Holdings, which also owns an imitation‑diamond jewellery business. GCL’s origins lie in physical game distribution through Epicsoft, a company with nearly two decades of history. While physical media remain a component of the group’s revenue—"as long as Sony continues to produce discs, we’ll keep the business alive"—the leadership acknowledges the sector’s decline and the need to pivot toward digital. 4Divinity was founded in 2022 initially as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia.
Doust points out that finding a Western title that resonates strongly in China is rare; the company succeeded with Atomic Heart, which performed exceptionally well in the Chinese market, and later with Stalker 2. However, those successes were outliers rather than a sustainable growth model for a Nasdaq‑listed entity.
Consequently, the firm shifted its focus to global publishing of Chinese‑developed games. By the time Doust joined in late 2024, the portfolio already included a few indie projects and the ambitious Showa American Story. Since then the slate has expanded to eight titles slated for release over the next two years, marking a rapid growth phase.
The common thread among these games is their single‑player focus, 15‑20 hour playtimes, and mid‑tier pricing. This wasn’t a pre‑planned formula but rather an emerging strategy aimed at the “squeezed middle” of the market—a segment also being targeted by U.S. studio ProbablyMonsters.
Doust believes this is exactly what many gamers currently desire: a concise, narrative‑driven experience that doesn’t demand the hundreds of hours required by live‑service titles. He estimates that most of these games cost between $5 million and $20 million to develop, meaning a publisher needs to sell roughly a million copies just to break even, a challenging target given modern discoverability hurdles.
4Divinity’s approach also diverges in its emphasis on new intellectual property. Every title shown at Gamescom is a fresh IP, both for Chinese and Western audiences.
Larger publishers tend to avoid betting on untested IPs, especially in the high‑cost AAA arena where risk aversion has turned development into a franchise‑driven business. By contrast, 4Divinity is willing to gamble on multiple new concepts 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 the publisher in Taiwan.
Because Game Science, the Chinese developer, lacked the infrastructure to handle global logistics, 4Divinity filled the gap from its Singapore base. The success of Wukong highlighted a broader opportunity: since China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese studios that had been working abroad have returned home, creating a wave of console‑ready projects.
Wukong reportedly cost about 300 million yuan (≈ $44.6 million) to develop and sold 30 million copies, delivering a substantial profit margin. Doust notes that development costs in China are generally lower and Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive.
This combination shapes 4Divinity’s regional strategy and informs its belief that Western demand for affordable, high‑quality single‑player experiences remains strong despite major publishers pulling back from that niche. He describes the current market as a “massive drought of supply” that 4Divinity aims to fill. His overarching mission is to bridge Western appetite for fresh experiences with Chinese studios’ ability to produce them cost‑effectively. "When I started working with Jacky Choo, the GCL chairman, I asked whether we could find thematic common ground between East and West.
Themes like loyalty, revenge, and defiance are universal, so we can market the same game with different cultural lenses," Doust explains. He believes few have executed this cross‑cultural marketing successfully.
Even without a concerted effort, games can cross borders, but 4Divinity wants to do it deliberately. Doust calls the traditional approach a "do‑nothing" business: you market a game in China, a ripple reaches the West, and the sales split ends up roughly 80 % China, 20 % elsewhere—as was the case with Wukong (20 million copies in China, 3‑4 million abroad). The publisher hopes to shift that balance to a 60 %/40 % split, which would dramatically increase total unit sales and could potentially make a title one of the best‑selling games of all time when measured against its modest development budget.
The company is pursuing this two‑way flow, likening it to a modern Silk Road. Its only non‑Chinese‑origin title at present is Guns of Eschaton, created by Eschatology Entertainment, a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee.
The marketing launch for that game began in China, with an early showcase at Bilibili World in Shanghai—an approach no Western publisher typically takes at such an early stage. The campaign generated enough buzz that China became the second‑largest wishlist market after the United States.
The massive Gamescom presence mirrors this dual‑market strategy. 4Divinity’s titles will appear in Cologne shortly after a ChinaJoy debut in Shanghai, allowing the company to generate simultaneous momentum in both regions rather than chasing a post‑China success in the West. While individual game campaigns continue, Gamescom offers a single, high‑impact platform to introduce the entire portfolio and the publisher itself to a Western audience that has seen little of their work. In Doust’s words, "If we’re using Gamescom as a portfolio showcase, why not go big?" The scale of the booth, the immersive recreations, and the commitment of millions of dollars all signal that 4Divinity is serious about establishing itself as a bridge between Chinese development talent and global gamers, aiming to deliver fresh, affordable experiences that resonate across cultural boundaries.