Strolling through Gamescom, you’ll quickly notice that the most eye‑catching booths belong to household names—Capcom, Xbox, Sega, EA, Ubisoft, and the like. This year, however, a sizable portion of Halls 6 and 7 is dominated by a company most visitors probably haven’t heard of: 4Divinity.
"It’s massive by any standard," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK operation, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint. The firm is presenting six titles in the private B2B zone, five of which will appear in the associated trailer showcases, and four will be displayed on the public show floor across two separate stands.
The larger of those stands covers roughly 800 square metres. Doust adds that the scale isn’t limited to square footage; the company has hired one of the top booth‑construction firms at the fair and spared no expense on the design.
One of the showcase areas, dedicated to the 1980s‑inspired RPG *Showa American Story*, features a full‑scale recreation of the Hollywood Hills—re‑imagined as the “Neo‑Yokohama Hills” 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 diner that visitors can walk into to try the game.
It’s an entirely experiential set‑up," Doust explains. When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact number, calling it "crass" to do so, but confirms that the investment runs into the millions of dollars.
"The sheer size of our presence shows the level of commitment we have to the Western market, something not every Chinese‑owned publisher can claim or even understand." 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 a company called Epicsoft, a business that has operated for nearly two decades. While physical distribution remains a component of the group’s revenue—"as long as Sony continues to produce discs, we’ll keep it going"—Doust acknowledges the sector is in decline and that the group needed a digital‑focused growth engine.
Enter 4Divinity, launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring titles to Southeast Asia. Doust cites the success of *Atomic Heart* in China and later *Stalker 2* as proof that a Western game can find a sizable Chinese audience, but those were outliers. For a Nasdaq‑listed company like GCL, a more scalable model was required. "From a growth perspective, we needed global publishing," Doust says, and the company began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release.
At the time Doust joined in late 2024, the portfolio already included a few smaller indie titles and the ambitious *Showa American Story*. Since then the slate has expanded to eight games slated for release over the next two years, marking a rapid growth phase.
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 the strategy of US‑based studio ProbablyMonsters, aiming at gamers who want a complete, story‑driven adventure without the commitment of a 200‑hour live‑service title. Doust points out that developing a game in the $5‑$20 million range—whether in China or the West—requires selling roughly a million copies just to break even, a daunting target given today’s discoverability challenges.
By concentrating on the AA segment, 4Divinity hopes to avoid the high‑risk, franchise‑driven approach of AAA publishers, which have become increasingly risk‑averse and focused on established IPs. Another differentiator is that every game 4Divinity is presenting at Gamescom is a brand‑new IP, especially for Western audiences. Larger publishers are reluctant to gamble on multiple new IPs simultaneously, preferring to lean on proven franchises. Doust notes that rising development costs have turned AAA into a franchise business, leaving little room for fresh concepts unless the developer already has an established brand.
The turning point for 4Divinity’s global ambition, 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 a broader opportunity: after China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese studios that had been developing for Western markets returned home, forming new console and PC studios. These developers can produce high‑quality games at a fraction of Western costs. Tax filings suggest *Wukong* cost around 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million) to develop, yet it sold 30 million copies, delivering a massive profit margin.
Doust explains that lower development costs and price‑sensitive Chinese players shape 4Divinity’s strategy. The company aims to match Western demand for affordable, narrative‑driven experiences with the supply of cost‑effective Chinese titles.
"My thesis when I started working with GCL’s chairman, Jacky Choo, was to find common themes between East and West—loyalty, revenge, defiance—then market the same game with different messaging for each region," he says. He believes few have executed this cross‑cultural approach successfully.
Typically, a Western publisher might see a small ripple effect in China, resulting in an 80/20 sales split favoring the home market. *Wukong* flipped that ratio, selling 20 million copies in China and 3‑4 million elsewhere.
Doust hopes to shift the balance to a 60/40 split for future titles, which would dramatically increase unit sales without inflating development budgets. To illustrate the bidirectional strategy, Doust cites the only non‑Chinese title in the current lineup: *Guns Of Eschaton*, developed by Eschatology Entertainment, a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee. After announcing the game, 4Divinity immediately took it to Bilibili World, a massive anime and pop‑culture expo in Shanghai—an early‑stage marketing move no Western company typically makes. The early exposure propelled China to become the second‑largest wishlist market for the game, behind the United States, confirming the viability of the east‑to‑west pipeline.
The massive Gamescom presence is essentially a Western debut for this cross‑border strategy. 4Divinity’s games will appear in Cologne just weeks after being shown at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, allowing simultaneous momentum in both markets rather than waiting for a Chinese hit to trickle westward.
Doust emphasizes that while the company could run individual campaigns for each title, Gamescom offers a single, high‑impact platform to introduce the entire portfolio and the brand itself to a Western audience. In Doust’s words, "If this is a 4Divinity portfolio play, where we want to introduce the games, and ourselves, to the West, why not go big?" The scale of the booth, the elaborate set pieces, and the multi‑title showcase all reflect a deliberate decision to make a loud statement at Europe’s premier gaming exhibition, signaling that a once‑obscure publisher is now ready to compete on a global stage.