Strolling through Gamescom, you’ll quickly notice that the most eye‑catching booths belong to household names such as 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 visitors will not recognize: 4Divinity. "By any measure, it’s massive," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK operation, describing the publisher’s presence at the fair.
The company is showcasing six titles in the closed‑door B2B area, five of those in dedicated trailer rooms, and four on the public floor across two separate stands, the larger of which covers roughly 800 square metres. The ambition extends beyond sheer size; Doust adds, "We’ve hired one of the top booth builders at Gamescom and spared no expense on the design and construction." One of the most striking installations belongs to the 80s‑style RPG *Showa American Story*. The set recreates the Hollywood Hills—rebranded as Neo‑Yokohama Hills in the game’s alternate timeline where Japan governs the United States. "We built a seven‑metre‑high Golden Gate Bridge adorned with Japanese lanterns, and a fully stocked diner that visitors can walk through to try the game.
It’s an immersive experience," Doust explains. When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact figure, noting only that "it runs into the millions of dollars." He argues that the scale of the investment signals how seriously 4Divinity is taking the Western market—something he says many Chinese‑owned publishers either overlook or struggle to execute.
The reason the 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 roots lie in a physical‑distribution firm called Epicsoft, a business that has operated for almost two decades. While physical media remain a component of the group’s revenue—"we’ll keep producing discs as long as Sony permits and there’s demand"—Doust acknowledges that the sector is in decline, prompting a shift toward digital‑focused operations.
4Divinity was founded in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping Western developers bring games to Southeast Asia. Doust cites the success of *Atomic Heart* in China and the subsequent launch of *Stalker 2* as early proof points, but he admits those titles were outliers rather than a sustainable growth engine.
As a Nasdaq‑listed entity, GCL needed a more scalable model, and Doust says the answer was “global publishing.” The company began signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release even before he arrived in late 2024. Since then the portfolio has swelled to eight titles slated for release over the next two years.
The current slate shares several common traits: all are primarily single‑player experiences, each offering roughly 15‑20 hours of gameplay and positioned at a mid‑tier price point. Doust notes that this focus on the so‑called “squeezed middle” mirrors a strategy pursued by other independents such as ProbablyMonsters.
He believes gamers today lack the time for sprawling live‑service titles and are willing to spend $40‑$50 on a well‑crafted single‑player adventure, even if $80‑$100 titles are reserved for a handful of blockbuster franchises. Developing such games is costly—typically $5‑$20 million per project—so a title must sell around a million copies just to break even. Discoverability, therefore, becomes a critical hurdle. To address this, 4Divinity is concentrating on the AA segment and on launching brand‑new IPs.
Doust points out that while major publishers are increasingly risk‑averse, preferring to iterate on established franchises, smaller studios—especially in China—are still willing to gamble on fresh concepts. The catalyst for the publisher’s strategic pivot, 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, leveraging its Singapore base to bridge the gap for the Chinese developer Game Science. 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 new wave of console‑ready titles.
Financially, *Wukong* illustrates the cost advantage of Chinese development. A tax filing suggests a budget of roughly 300 million yuan (about $44.6 million), yet the game reportedly sold 30 million copies, delivering a substantial profit margin. Doust notes that lower production costs and price‑sensitive Chinese gamers shape the publisher’s approach, allowing it to test titles in China before expanding to Western markets.
His overarching thesis is to match Western demand for affordable, novel experiences with the supply of Chinese developers who can produce high‑quality games at a fraction of the cost. "We look for universal themes—loyalty, revenge, defiance—that resonate across cultures, then tailor the marketing message for each region," he says.
This cross‑cultural positioning, he believes, is largely untapped. In practice, 4Divinity’s “do‑nothing” model involves minimal marketing effort in China, letting organic word‑of‑mouth drive sales, while the Western side receives a more concerted push.
The result for *Wukong* was an 80/20 split: 20 million units sold in China and roughly three to four million elsewhere. Doust hopes to shift that balance to a 60/40 ratio through coordinated launches, which could dramatically increase overall sales volumes. The company is also experimenting with reverse promotion. Its sole non‑Chinese title, *Guns of Eschaton*—developed by a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee—was first showcased at Bilibili World in Shanghai, an anime and pop‑culture convention rarely visited by Western publishers at such an early stage.
The early exposure helped make China the second‑largest wishlist market for the game after the United States. Thus, the massive Gamescom footprint mirrors this dual‑market strategy. By presenting its lineup in Cologne shortly after a ChinaJoy debut, 4Divinity aims to generate simultaneous buzz in both territories, avoiding the lag that often hampers titles that first become hits in one region before crossing over. Ultimately, Gamescom serves as 4Divinity’s Western coming‑out party.
While the company will continue to run individual campaigns for each title, the trade show offers a single platform to announce the entire portfolio, generate media attention, and signal its ambition to become a recognizable name in the West. As Doust puts it, "If we’re using Gamescom to introduce our games and ourselves to a new audience, why not go big?"