Walking 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 occupied by a company most visitors probably haven’t heard of: 4Divinity. "It’s massive by any measure," says Philip Doust, director of 4Divinity’s UK arm, describing the publisher’s Gamescom footprint.
The company is presenting six titles in the closed‑door B2B zone, five of which will also appear in the associated trailer showcases, and four will be displayed on the public floor across two separate stands. The larger of those stands spans roughly 800 square metres. But the scale isn’t limited to square footage; Doust emphasizes that the visual spectacle is equally ambitious.
"We’ve hired one of the top booth builders at Gamescom and spared no expense on the build," he explains. One of the most striking displays is for the 80s‑style pop‑culture RPG *Showa American Story*. The set recreates the Hollywood Hills—renamed 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 realised diner that visitors can walk into to try the game. It’s an immersive experience," Doust adds.
When pressed about the cost, Doust declines to give an exact number, calling it "crass," but confirms that the investment runs into the millions. "The size of our footprint alone shows we’re committing resources at that level. It reflects how seriously we’re taking the western market, something not every Chinese‑owned company does or knows how to do." So why might you not have heard of a firm capable of such spending? 4Divinity is one of several subsidiaries under Singapore‑based GCL Global Holdings, a conglomerate that also owns, among other things, an imitation‑diamond jewellery business.
GCL originally grew out of a physical‑distribution operation called Epicsoft, which has been in business for nearly two decades. While disc‑based distribution remains a part of the group’s revenue—"as long as Sony allows us to produce discs," Doust notes—it is a shrinking segment, prompting the need for a more digital‑focused growth engine. Enter 4Divinity, launched in 2022 as a co‑publisher helping western developers bring games to Southeast Asia.
Doust points out that finding a western title that truly resonates in China is rare. The company succeeded with *Atomic Heart*, which performed strongly in the Chinese market, and later replicated that success with *Stalker 2*.
However, those titles were outliers rather than a sustainable growth path for a Nasdaq‑listed company like GCL. "From a growth perspective we needed a global publishing model," Doust says. The pivot involved signing Chinese‑developed games for worldwide release. By the time Doust joined in late 2024, the roster already included a few indie projects and the ambitious *Showa American Story*.
Since then the portfolio has swelled to eight titles slated for launch over the next two years, marking a rapid expansion phase. All of the games share common traits: they are primarily single‑player experiences lasting 15‑20 hours, priced in the mid‑tier range.
This wasn’t a pre‑planned formula but rather an emerging strategy aimed at the “squeezed middle” of the market—a segment also being explored by US‑based ProbablyMonsters. Doust believes this niche captures current player preferences: "People don’t have time for 200‑hour live‑service games.
The $80 blockbuster is reserved for a handful of titles, but gamers are willing to spend $40‑50 on a polished single‑player adventure." Developing such titles is costly, typically requiring $5‑20 million in production budgets, whether in China or the West. To break even, a game must sell roughly a million copies, a challenging target given today’s discoverability hurdles.
4Divinity’s approach diverges from larger studios in another key way: every title showcased at Gamescom is a brand‑new IP. Even within China, these are fresh concepts, and in the West they are entirely untested.
Larger publishers are increasingly risk‑averse, focusing on established franchises rather than betting on multiple new IPs. Doust notes that the rising cost of AAA development has turned many studios into franchise factories, leaving little room for original, mid‑scale projects—except for a few emerging Chinese developers. The turning point for 4Divinity’s global ambition, according to Doust, was the handling of *Black Myth: Wukong*.
GCL managed the physical PS5 distribution worldwide and acted as publisher in Taiwan. Because Game Science, the Chinese studio behind Wukong, lacked the infrastructure to handle global logistics, 4Divinity stepped in from its Singapore base.
The success of Wukong—selling 30 million copies after a development budget of roughly ¥300 million (about $44.6 million)—demonstrated the commercial potential of Chinese‑made titles on the world stage. Doust explains that after China lifted its console ban in 2016, many Chinese developers who had been working abroad returned home and formed new console and PC studios.
These studios can produce high‑quality games at a fraction of Western development costs, and Chinese gamers are highly price‑sensitive, further shaping 4Divinity’s strategy. The publisher’s mission is to bridge western demand for fresh, affordable experiences with the supply of Chinese developers capable of delivering them.
Doust’s thesis, formed while working with GCL chairman Jacky Choo, is to identify universal themes—loyalty, trust, defiance, revenge—and market the same game with different cultural lenses to resonate in each region. He believes few have executed this cross‑cultural branding effectively.
Even without an aggressive marketing push, games tend to cross borders naturally. Doust calls this the "do‑nothing" model: the title is primarily marketed in China, creating a ripple effect abroad, typically resulting in an 80/20 sales split (80 % in China, 20 % elsewhere). *Wukong* followed that pattern, moving 20 million units in China and 3‑4 million internationally.
Doust hopes to shift the ratio to 60/40 through coordinated cross‑border campaigns, which could dramatically increase total sales and potentially produce one of the best‑selling games of all time relative to its modest budget. To test this two‑way flow, 4Divinity recently launched *Guns Of Eschaton*, a game developed outside China by a Cyprus‑based studio founded by a former Wargaming employee. The first promotional move was to showcase the title at Bilibili World, a massive anime and pop‑culture expo in Shanghai—an early‑stage tactic rarely used by western publishers. The response was strong enough that China became the second‑largest wishlist market for the game, trailing only the United States.
The massive Gamescom presence is essentially a western counterpart to that China‑first strategy. By debuting the games in Cologne shortly after a ChinaJoy appearance in Shanghai, 4Divinity aims to generate simultaneous buzz in both markets rather than playing catch‑up after a title has already taken off in China. For 4Divinity, Gamescom is more than a trade show; it is the western debut party for a company that has yet to make a big splash in that region. Doust acknowledges that while the firm could run individual campaigns for each title, consolidating them into one high‑impact showcase maximizes visibility.
"If this is a portfolio play to introduce our games and ourselves to the West, why not go big?" he concludes.