South Korean game companies will appear in succession at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, Germany next month and at Tokyo Game Show (TGS) 2026 in Chiba prefecture, Japan in September. Krafton, Pearl Abyss and NC will attend Gamescom, while Nexon, Netmarble, NC and Smilegate, among others, will take part in Tokyo Game Show.

◆Gamescom 2026: 3 Korean companies lead with new PC and console titles

Gamescom 2026 will be held at Koelnmesse in Cologne from Aug. 26 to 30. Organisers said early registrations by exhibitors this year rose 15 percent from last year, and company participation from more than 40 countries and national pavilions from 23 countries, including South Korea, has been confirmed. At Gamescom 2025, 357,000 visitors from 128 countries attended, and 1,568 companies from 72 countries took part. This year is expected to be the biggest yet, with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier scheduled to deliver a keynote at the Gamescom Congress on Aug. 27 and many senior political and business figures also set to attend.

Among Korean game companies, Krafton is the most active. Krafton will set up a standalone booth in the Hall 9 B2C area at Koelnmesse and showcase five new titles, including an unreleased PUBG Studios game as well as "NO LAW", "Project Zeta", "Age Twister" and "Tarae: Unbound". The unreleased PUBG Studios title is based on the "Battlegrounds" IP and will be unveiled for the first time at Gamescom. Age Twister and Tarae: Unbound will also offer their first hands-on demos for visitors at the event. Krafton will also run IP-based experiential programmes such as participatory missions, stage battles and cosplay photo sessions. Krafton has appeared at Gamescom for three straight years from 2024 through this year after first attending in 2022.

Pearl Abyss will showcase "Crimson Desert" with Samsung Electronics. Samsung's booth will feature 30 demo PCs equipped with the 6K gaming monitor "Odyssey G8 (G80HS)", allowing visitors to experience the game directly. Crimson Desert, released on March 20, surpassed cumulative sales of 6 million copies in 83 days. The collaboration with Samsung Electronics is expected to serve as an opportunity to promote both the graphics performance delivered by Pearl Abyss' new engine, the BlackSpace Engine, and Samsung's gaming display technology.

NC will operate a B2B booth through its North American subsidiary, NC America. Rather than a B2C exhibition, it has placed emphasis on strengthening partnerships, and will present the MMORPG "Aion 2". Whether additional titles such as "Cinder City" and "Guild Wars 3" will be included is reported to be under discussion until the final stage.

Small and indie game companies are also taking part in Gamescom. The Korea Creative Content Agency will set up a joint Korea pavilion in the B2B exhibition hall and support participation by 13 domestic small and indie game companies. New titles to be unveiled at the venue include Everton's FPS "Guns and Dragons" and Emotionwave's "Mu Drum".

◆Tokyo Game Show puts subculture and Japan-bound new titles to the fore

TGS 2026 will be held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba prefecture from Sept. 17 to 21. Marking its 30th anniversary, it will add a day for the first time and run for five days. The Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) said 759 companies from 51 countries will participate, with 3,946 booths in total.

Nexon will present the subculture title "Project RX" and the MMORPG "Mabinogi Mobile". Project RX is a new title from RX Studio under Nexon Games' IO division, which previously operated an exhibition space at "Anime Expo 2026" in the United States. Mabinogi Mobile was developed by Devcat and released in South Korea in 2025. With a Japan launch expected within the year, Nexon plans to broaden points of contact with local users through TGS.

NC was listed among participants under the name of the subculture RPG "Astrae Oratio", which is under development by Dynamis One. Ahead of TGS, NC will also set up a booth at Japan's subculture event "Comic Market" to be held next month on Aug. 15 to 16, and plans to widen its engagement with local users first through steps such as unveiling an artbook.

Netmarble is expected to highlight "Shangri-La Frontier: Seven Strongest Species", a new title based on the "Shangri-La Frontier" IP, while Smilegate is expected to put forward the collectible RPG "Miraesi: The Unseen Future" for a second straight year. Separately, NHN will participate through its Japanese unit NHN Japan, and Com2uS will attend in a B2B format. Mid-sized game companies such as DreamAge, Ironmace and Project Moon, as well as the game-focused AI company Anchornode, also announced plans to take part. Samsung Electronics and Naver Webtoon will also join the B2B hall. The Korea Creative Content Agency will support participation by domestic small and venture game companies through the joint Korea pavilion.

◆Overseas over domestic: revenue mix reshapes game show strategy

Korean game companies are stepping up efforts at the two shows as their revenue increasingly comes from overseas markets. Krafton earned 95.9 percent of total revenue abroad in the first quarter this year, Pearl Abyss earned 94 percent overseas, and Netmarble's overseas revenue share reached 79 percent. With growth clearly limited in the domestic market alone, securing globally successful IP has emerged as a core task for game companies.

Diversifying genres and platforms is also cited as a factor. As regulations on probability-based items coincide with slowing growth for mobile MMORPGs, game companies are expanding platforms to PC and console, and simultaneous global launches via Steam and PlayStation have become common. As a result, it has become difficult to gauge the competitiveness of new titles based only on responses from Korean users, and overseas game shows have emerged as venues to check completeness and marketability, the industry says.

Changes in TGS' standing are also noticeable. After the cancellation of the U.S. E3, fewer venues remain to unveil global new titles at large-scale offline events, lifting the relative status of Gamescom and TGS. Subculture games, in particular, point to TGS as a leading showcase given the characteristics of the Japanese market as their "home". The fact that Nexon, NC and Smilegate announced plans to attend TGS for their subculture titles before G-Star also aligns with this trend.

An industry official said, "With Korean game companies' revenue structures already reshaped around overseas markets, Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show are functioning as stages that both validate the completeness of new titles and expand touchpoints with global publishers and investors." The official added, "The trend of dividing the stage and targeting the West through Gamescom and Asia through Tokyo Game Show according to genre and regional characteristics will continue."