LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was the biggest announcement of Gamescom 2025

It is the biggest video game show on the planet. But which games and which companies came out on top during Gamescom 2025? Find out in this week's episode of the game business show.
Always when there are some global climate changes, some crisises, wars, and so on, horror is going stronger. This is the history of horror usually. Uh so right now the the the times are a little bit darker and horror is trying to prepare us for something which is unexpected. [Music] And now for a sponsored message from Keyword Studios. Passionate fandoms are the bedrock of a successful video game franchise and our friends at Keyword Studios have a mission to cultivate that fandom. Keyword Studios' marketing services bring together expertise in research, strategy, creative production, social media, PR, and community management to help you build your audience and connect with your fans. These marketing services

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Thank you very much, Chris. Yeah, great to see you.
How was your Gamescom? I I obviously saw you right at the start.
My games uh was pretty exhausting, you know, as you imagined. Didn't have much free time, interesting conversations

with kind of business folks, and you know, overall came back with kind of different emotions. One is that, you know, obviously it's it's so great to see so much great content, interesting games and the energy of kind of consumers at the show and everything. And then the other side is that there's still quite a lot of trepidation on it, I think, on the business side.
Yeah.
But overall, Gamescom is probably my favorite show because you get this kind of really heady mix of business and obviously the consumer side of things.
So, they call it a 360 show. Um, and it kind of is, isn't it? Well, it is. It does everything, right? you've got this big digital component, which we'll talk about. Um, and it has this big consumer component, and it has this big business component. Whereas E3, as much as I love it, was always tried to sort of be all those things at the same time. Um, and this one can actually go, oh, you just want a business thing, we've got an answer for that. Oh, you just want a consumer. You just want to show your games, you've got an answer for that. Or you just want to announce your games, we've got an answer for that.
Yeah. Every deliverance, I mean, I would say it's it's very it's obviously

heavily weighted towards PC and console. Yeah. So, if you're into that, you know, that's the thing. I mean it's less less weighted certainly on the consumer end from from the perspective of mobile.
Yeah. We I ran into Neil Long the editor of mobile game adopters at the same event I had the Xbox reception.
Yeah.
And I said surprised to see you here and well there's no mobile games.
You went around the stands, didn't you?
I did. I had to look on the Wednesday when there's not loads of people there.
Yeah.
I did cue.
Did you?
To play Silk Song.
Oh, did you? and I ran out of time, so I had to give up. Yeah, I did watch um some hands-on people playing it on YouTube afterwards because obviously that was one of the sort of the big draws.
Yeah. And that's going to be probably our big topic uh uh for the for the show. Um they're going to go through some of the big games at Gamescom. That's sort of what we're doing here.
Yeah.
Uh before I get But you you the trepidation that you got
the trepidation is probably slightly but it's just you know realization that there's still quite a lot of work to do.

The situation is not all great. There's obviously a lot of positivity and energy that comes out of shows like this and there's a lot of marketing folks there. So obviously you would expect that. But then on the kind of more commercial side, the strategy side and all that and decision- making side when it comes to sort of internal investments and stuff, there's still,
you know, quite a lot of work to be done, I think, uh, in in respect of thinking about how to get returns on on investments and stuff. And that plays into everything you know that we get to see further down the line you know in terms of the risk takingaking the innovation. We want to see loads of innovation obviously in the content and there was you know quite a lot of innovation on show but obviously there is also a lot of kind of franchise repeat installments of games and
remasters remakes. Yeah.
Yeah. Safe bets. Um, so you come away with positivity, but also a real, you know, reality check of of the kind of

commercial side of things.
Well, I was worried about, and actually, if you listen to the show, I know that you picked up on this as well at Gamescom, is it it seems to be like, oh, we need to be making $50 doubleA single player story games is the is the vibe I'm getting. And I I know I'm always a bit that is that is that might be more viable for some certain companies, but I'm sort of this industry always does make the same mistakes in that we go, oh, everyone's having success in multiplayer games, so let's all make multiplayer games. And everyone goes and makes multiplayer game. And it turns out there wasn't room for 100 multiplayer games. So then they go, oh, we need to make single player story games. They all go scurrying back to making single player story games. And the same problem is in it. They whether it's MOBAs or MMOs or 3D platformers or 2D platformers or everyone starts making these little
I think it's um you know it's not easy to have success in any area of the games market. So competitive and we've got you know it's not just competitive from other games companies. It's competitive

from the whole environment of people spending time doing other stuff and competing with games and stuff. has become games has become so sort of mainstream that it it it is impacted by these kind of more attention economy type things. Um but I do um yeah I do I do feel there's this sort of idea that if if you know you make a sort of mid-pric double A game that you're going to be successful. It's it's not as easy as that. Obviously
I think you need to make the games that you make. Um and it's just making sure you do it. It's we've had live service successes and live service failures. We've had single player successes, single player failures. We've had odd games breaking out. We'll talk about Holl in a minute. That's game's done something that that that genre's never done before really. And you can achieve these successes and have these moments just doing the things that you do. You don't have to chase a a trend. We had um Glenn Scoffield on Oh, this is the bit I was going to say again. Glenn Scoffield was really good interview by the way. If

anyone hasn't listened to that should should listen to it. He talked about the fact that why are we all giving up on AAA? you know, this is a really important sector of the industry. I actually agree with him where I actually it's not a hypocrisy, but I I felt was not quite so true, was he he made the Kalista Protocol, which he I think cost $160 million to make. It's a horror game. And look, what is the cap of a horror game? What what do horror games tend to do saleswise? Well, it's not Resident Evil's the outlier, right? Resident Evil is not what horror games tend to do. That is an an is that is top of the market AAA decades of building up that franchise. what horror games tend to do, if you look at like Alan Wake, it's around two million, you know, right? So you s they think two million $60 um $160 million budget that doesn't add up, right? So it's just it's more about knowing your audience, knowing your market.
Yeah. Sort of mapping it to what the realist realistic returns will be. The horror space is very competitive.
Well, we well we we have later on we have an interview with Blubber team about the uh the rise of horror. Um uh

but before we go to that, I'll give you some data to talk about because Game Discover put out some wish list figures in one of their latest newsletters and they shared some extra information with me. I also have some data, some fan census on the games that generated the most media coverage. I actually wasn't entirely sure by the numbers because they were lower than I thought they'd be. Um so I got I checked the numbers with Press Engine for who track video game articles and the numbers are different, but actually the rankings is the same.
I'm interested to hear what those those were. Obviously there there's probably some standout titles.
The number one obvious standout title is was the one that you got in the queue for was Hollow Night um Silk Song.
And behind me you're seeing some brand new Silk Song gameplay.
Fan Census says there was 14 1,423 press articles made about the game. That's more than any other 1,400 YouTube videos. Uh Press Engine actually has the number of articles up at nearly uh 1,900. Um so it's quite a difference, but they're both the clear number one. both well ahead of Call of Duty Black

Ops 7 in terms of coverage. Um Simon Carlos at Game Discover said uh you know um they that game has 4.1 million wish lists now. That's almost that's that's like a million more than its nearest rival. Um it actually added around 250,000 to 300,000 wish lists over the course of Gamescom. Right. So you know that's it was a big big jump up. Um he actually shares some extra datas like um 23.5% of those wish lists come from Asia, 19% China in particular, 20% from North America, 18% from Western Europe. Um he says that that's a pretty standard split. Um and actually China tends to underwish list compared to the West. If for China it might end up being a 25% 30% market for Hollite. Um there's a the number this game's clearly going to be big. Um uh and you know we've already as a result of that since they ann they announced release date at Gamescom of September 4th and we've immediately seen Demon School, Eterna, Lucis, Baby Steps, Mega Bonk, Little Witch in the Woods, Clover Pit, a bunch

of demos and things as well have all delayed because of this game. Um GTA style running away from Hollite.
Do we know what the price point is going to be?
Well, that's a good question, right? because this the original Hollow Light's price point was $15 and was regularly on sale for less than 10, like $7.50 I think was the price of it.
It's interesting that um you know there's been some delays, you know, even potentially at a lower price point.
Well, I asked a number of publishers and stuff about the delays. Not everyone managed to get back to me. Um this is James Shaw who works at Secret Mode says like there are always bigger fish. Um someone will move, you'll move, and then the big fish moves to you. Focus on the time and day of the week, not the date. that is far more important and also something you can actually control. Release when your customers are ready and not when you are. And Simon Carus says a similar thing unless you feel your buyers majorly overlap with Silk songs or you believe you're going to go viral with the same streamers. Uh he's seen private research indicating that player accounts for already launched rival games are only affected if the game was in the same very specific sum Jonah as that big launch. But look,

everyone sort of said maybe Silkong's different. Maybe you know people have been calling it the GTA for indies type situation. I mean seeing that the platform is so diversified and it's so globalized that I think it's probably less impacted by those kind of you know effects.
Yeah.
It comes back to that kind of you know play time the available play time and stuff. If people a lot of people are play playing that a lot then it might impact
Yeah. I I think it might be a bit over top but then the hype is really high. So the original Hollow Knight has done 15 million units. Like to put that into context, Hollow Knight's in the Metroid Vania subgenre. Metroid as a franchise has only sold about 25 million units. Castlevania as a franchise is about the same. So Hollow Night is if the Silk Song even repeats nearly what the original Hollow Night did, it will be the biggest Metro Vania franchise after just two games. Um uh I looked into your numbers, peers. Um, your data doesn't go back to when Polite launched. I think it launched back in 2017,
but um, it sort of you it added 3

million players between June 2024 and June 2025. So, there's lots of people jumped in recently
probably on the back of the announcement, the new one.
Yeah, it's active users peaked in April 2025. Um, I suspect when the August air comes in, we might get another peak because people are interested in this game.
So, there's an active audience of it, but a lot of it sales came later.
A great word of mouth and everything. Um I guess in in terms of the popularity
I have to say I went around the queues on Friday and me and our producer Richard went to try to get some shots of the cues and actually although the whole night queue was you know full I actually didn't see the the mania that people saw I thought it was busy on the Wednesday I think.
Well I think the problem was and I had this with being in the queue the queue was not the longest they did not have many things set up so the queueing the queuing time was ridiculous. So I think probably people maybe joined the cues and then dropped out when they realized it was going to take a really long time.
Yeah.
I mean the biggest cues I saw uh were probably for

uh this is on the Wednesday obviously before the um you know before the uh consumers got in but probably for um Silent Hill and also for Resident Evil.
That's interesting. In the press rankings, Resident Evil was number three in terms of press coverage behind Call of Duty. Um, that's that's um according to fan census. And I just get the one up um from um uh uh um it was also it also had a big it had a relatively big jump in wish lists as well. It was number five in terms of wish list improvements.
Yeah. And it was number three on on Press Engine as well. So he did receive quite a bit of of you know Resident Evil did certainly quite a chunk of coverage. Um but um and the other game but you know Call of Duty did as well obviously I don't think that's a surprise. Um um both of those games, both Resident Evil and Call of Duty, followed the old E3 model of like being revealed in some capacity at what would have been E3 is

now called Summer GameFest and then getting their sort of public display uh or deeper display anyway at Gamescom, which is the old model.
Um the other game that did really well, you know, I maybe I don't know why I'm surprised by this is Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight. It did very well,
but it got amazing reveal, didn't it? And it's and it was the uh the kind of teaser and the whole kind of um reveal of it
very well done. Yeah. Jonathan Smith was brilliant I felt on you know his sort of children's TV presenter energy.
Um great energy.
Yeah. I'm hoping to have him on the show. I do like Jonathan. Um game it actually had it generated 400,000 wish lists over the week according to Game Discover which actually is the most wish list any game got. So, and obviously Hollow Night's been on been available at Wishes for a long time.
New the news have kind of um revealed, wasn't there?
Um it was the fifth most covered game in terms of articles at the show ahead of the new Black Myth. Um that's going to fan centers open press engine says it

was actually the number four most covered game. I mean, Lego Batman's a big game. Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which was the previous game from the developer TT Games, um was one of the bestselling games of 2022, but it was did huge numbers, but even so, because it's more of a familyfriendly game, and normally events like this tend to skew more hardcore, I I was really impressed with that. I thought that was a great I thought Wars must be pretty pleased with how that um went.
Yeah, it's probably not one that would have been predicted before the show, definitely. But I just think, yeah, the impact. Um, but it's it's a consumer show as well, so you know, you got to think there's a lot of kids that go there, a lot of families that go there.
Lego LEGO had a decent stand, didn't they? They have a big stand there.
Yeah, Lego LEGO really pushing into games. Obviously, they're investing in their own games now and expanded the license away from just TT and they've got their their video game video game Lego sets which are B, you know, when I go to Lego stores now, it seems to be 50% of that store is made up of Sonic or

Mario or Zelda or Minecraft. And so, they've really sort of embraced that world.
Interesting what that coverage is. I imagine a lot of it was in the States probably certainly from the Western media for Batman. There's a lot of love for Batman, isn't there?
It's true. Yeah, there's been a successful Lego Batman movie. And it's sort of that sort of sub that sort of making fun of Batman's quite has always been quite a good
thing to do. Um, another another big game was actually the game that ended opening night live, Black Myth. Um, the new game in the Black Myth plan. It's not available to wish list, but it wrapped up a lot of press coverage. Press Engine says there were 432 articles. Fan center said it was close to 500, but certainly in the top five. Um, Batman did better than it. Maybe they should have closed with Batman, but but
it's amazing that that that title closed the show as the big kind of announcements and and reveal, you know, a Chinese develop game based on the kind of Chinese folklore and stuff. Pretty

incredible that that's was was strong enough to close the show. The other thing kind of walking around the show that we observed was the number of um booths which were from Asian publishers um a number of Chinese publishers. I think it's similar kind of similar to last year but they are pushing a lot of money into exposure and I think that's in into western markets and I think that's reinforced by you know obviously there the success of some of the titles and blackmith um has kind of re-energized that strategy to an extent.
Yeah. Well certainly it's been a bit it's a bit like every country has it seems to have its game at the moment. Clare obscure was a been the French thing. Um uh but and Blackmth was like, you know, is this SP is this going to lead the way for Chinese developed games in the west. Um but it was a huge hit like loads people were talking about it, you know, and I know how many people were voting for that game at the game awards. I don't know the exact number, but you know, it was a huge amount of people were trying to get that game to win games at the game awards and um big

audience. I think it makes sense to end the show on it. It just, you know, Gamescom is an interesting one. you get slightly different vibe for Gamescom and I'm always a little worried you know obviously my business partner Jeff Keley runs all of these things and I'm always thinking Europe's a little different Europe is a little bit a little bit more they are interested in things like Lego Batman and stuff they're interested in strategy games and there was quite a lot of strategy games shown as well
that's more PC heavy isn't it
Germany as a whole is is is a different audience within Europe as well so there's that element as well
it's I spoke to Microsoft about this before and about the fact they always use used Gamescom for an Age of Empires reveal, right? It's just it's it fits with the but actually the most the the the big surprise from that sort of genre was Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War 4. Um you know uh it was a clear winner of the strategy genre. Um Press Engine had it the number five most written about game of the show whereas it's joint number seven from fan census. Number three in

wish lists behind Batman and Hollite, 230,000 according to Game Discover. Um, the game has a new developer, which I thought was a bit surprising, in King Art, replacing Relic. The reason why I was surprised about that, I know Relic's gone for a big change, and they've, um, they're a smaller company now, and they've been bought themselves out from Sega, but Relic has only just only a couple of weeks ago released the remastered version of the original Dawn of War, and it's gone down pretty well. It's I think 150,000 sales in one day for that game. Um, uh, I spoke to Relic at Gamescom. We do have a piece with them coming up, and they said it's doubled since then. So, a good August for Dawn of War generally. But it was I don't think people were expecting it. I think it sort of caught people by.
Well, I think there's where there's not that expectation. It's a kind of surprise reveal.
Yeah.
Um you know, generates the coverage and then you get that interest and obviously that sparked quite a lot of wish list wish listing.
There's I mean there's a bunch of other games on here that I would talk about. We you know I don't know if there's any that uh particularly caught your eye um peers, but there's there's there's a lot. I mean, I really love the um cuz

I'm an old WoW player, but back many years ago, it's obviously in its 20th year, isn't it? I mean, it's hit the two decade level.
Um, but WoW midnight, I mean, the cinematic for that was again because Blizzard is is experts in this, but yeah, it was amazing. What's interesting about that is obviously it's part of the retail release where it's you know they've they've they've they've got this tragedy with classic and uh the audience is is kind of split now between the game. So it's interesting how they're going to handle that in the future kind of moving forward. Um one of the I guess um challenges they have to manage that audience. Indeed, Jag. We spoke we caught up with Jagex at Gamescom. We will run that piece relatively soon and it was a similar thing. They've got obviously old school Runescape which is widely loved and then they've got their core Runescape product which is not

similar volume.
Yeah.
Sorry. The other game that worth mentioning which I was interested in is Pragmata
in Capcom because obviously that's trying to innovate and do something different. It's a new IP. Um
I played that at Summer Gamef Fest on my one of my favorite games of that off that of Summer Game.
The cheese were pretty big for that. Um it was right next to um Resident Evil.
Yeah,
it looks it looks interesting. Um and the whole sort of innovative play of it looks interesting.
It gives gives me a sort of Vanquish P3 vibes, old school Capcom vibes. What I found really interesting about that game is that what I think about Capcom is they only tend to do one AAA game a thing. It's Monster Hunt, Dragon's Dogma one year, Monster Hunter the next year, Resident Evil the next year. But they have three big games in Onamusha, uh, Pragmata, and obviously Resident Evil's on a a scale bigger than those games. But I think this is a is a really great strategy from Capcom. they've taken this more kind of conservative

approach where they've built up um you know all this goodwill and stuff and obviously have done well financially and then they've invested again into obviously their established franchises and then they've they're taking a risk with Prag Mart to an extent.
I mean it seems like a nice balance of the strategy.
If this is indicative of what's going on behind the scenes, you know, a third of their games are going back into their archive and dishing out an old game. a third of their games are big established franchise and a third of their games is a new IP and a new concept and that yeah it does feel like a good balance. Um yeah, there were other games um uh Bubsby for 4D did surprisingly well from Atari that got a lot of uh a lot of buzz on social media and and and the whole sort of yeah Atari still here and they're still making games but
they're doing they're doing quite well. I mean, it's well, they're still not profitable as a business, but they're growing quite a bit their revenue because of this real laser focus on

doing very good job of classic games and resurrecting classic titles. I think that's quite um I think it's quite good. In fact, my game of the show.
Uh I'm sort of joking, but I'm not. I legitimately am really looking forward was Outlaws.
Yeah.
Which is the um which was the um game Night Diver Remastering, which is based on the Star Wars Jedi engine from the '90s. I never heard of it. I saw it. I actually went to the booth and I checked out the game and I'm like I want this more than anything that I've seen at games. It's more very specific to my interests but um it was um it was a uh yeah that you know that was there that did quite well. Um uh we've talked about um on the show we talked about the new NCFT games um time sakers and Cinder City that they were there and I to see how that
feels a bit those feel a bit more risky I would say. I mean it
yeah but we're going back to what we were saying earlier where we were talking about um you know ultimately there isn't any safe area and what they've done with that one thing I liked about what she said in her interview was that NCF's audience of Guild Wars players and all that sort of stuff they know they play shooters they know the

sort of games they play and they go well how about if we did an NCoft version
of a game our audience is playing and I and I think that's that's how you that's how you rather than you wouldn't you wouldn't expect um Bungie suddenly make a AAA single player action game, right? But at the same time,
um, you might they might be a genre that their Destiny players are interested in that they
I mean, obviously they've investigated that that audience and and seen what they're into and they make I just, you know, it kind of resonates with some of the failures that we've seen um in the last
Well, yeah, you sit there and you think you're making a live service shooter shot game. What are you doing too? Okay,
but and you know and they were very if you check out the interview with Entoft, she's very candid about this like we know that we're taking a big risk here but we think we can innovate. We think we can do something different. We think there's an opportunity for a Koreanmade um shooter in the market and we know our audience likes these games. So good luck.
You know there's a big legacy history of Korean made shooters that done very well. Um
what what I wanted to note um though is

that uh one of the things I wanted to note before wary of the time um Open Night Live dominated the digital performance. I mean this isn't summer game fest. There wasn't an Xbox showcase. There wasn't a PlayStation showcase. Um the only other event was Future Games Show. IGN did some bits. Nintendo did a direct for Kirby.
It was a direct for Kirby.
Yeah. But but it was one big central digital showcase at Gamescom. Um, of course, for full transparency, I mentioned earlier, Opening Night Live is operated by Jeff Cul and his team and Jeff is co-founder of the game business. But if you look at the top 10 most wishlisted games, Lego Batman, Hollow Night, Dawn of War 4, Valer Mortis, Resident Evil Reququum, Road Kings, Hell Let Loose Vietnam, Zero Parades, Denge Attack, Long Gone, those um, nine of them were on Opening Night Live. Um, only one of them wasn't, which was Hell Let Vietnam, which was done by the Future Games Show. Um, so it was a very it's very focused on that opening event. So that it's it's there's not quite so many so much variety. Um,
what do you think? Um,

and possibly I'm interrupting you here, but I'm taking you on a segue. But I I got quite a lot of feedback uh about wish lists at at the event and the wish lists were still an important metric, but they've become a bit more of a van vanity metric and that the conversion of wish lists to paid is obviously becoming a more difficult and challenging. It
it doesn't it doesn't mean what necessarily what what it used to mean. And um if you talk to someone like we had Simon Byron on the show, we talked about um before who talked about like it's almost more important to look at engagement on Discord, but those sort of measurements are more valuable. Um but obviously when we're doing a broad look every game announc me definitely I'm wondering if you know you sort of creating obviously opening like live was um generated a lot of those wish lists. Um I guess there's a there's another step to that which is how of those people that wish list during that session how many will those

will convert will be the the real measure.
Yeah. And and indeed yeah that's where the hard work comes in and and it's worth knowing open live had a really great up 70% or something really strong opening. It was it was a good show actually. I thought it was the best one I've seen of them in terms of taking clout in big games and out. One game that wasn't there but was I thought really took me by surprise peers was Kirby and I because um 47 minute direct they did on Kirby. Um
that's crazy.
Actually how Nintendo tend to approach E3. They do a big deep dive into a specific game and then people can go hands-on for the first time on the show floor. That's what Nintendo did at Gamescom. Kirby's got the November slot. It's got a big big focus. Kirby's not a huge IP in the West. So, when I was looking at Nintendo Slate for the year, I looked at all their games. My natural western bias meant I sort of overlooked it as a significant release. Um, but um, Kirby and the Forgotten Lands, the last big 3D Kirby, which this isn't, this is a spin-off game, but this the last big 3D Kirby. They did 7 and a half million

units. That's half a Luigi's Mansion 3 and 25% of a Super Mario Odyssey to put that into context.
But it's bigger than every Donkey Kong game released since 1994. and it's bigger than every Metroid game ever. In fact, it sold two and a half times the bestselling Metroid title, which was Metroid Dread. Um, so actually in pure numbers terms, as an IP, it's bigger than a lot of the big games that Nintendo have this year. Um, this game game is by Sakurai, you know, the creator of Super Smash Brothers, so it has some development clout behind it. Um, but it's a spin-off. It sales are heavily localized in certain markets and it's a sequel to Kirby's Air Ride which is a pretty poorly received GameCube title albeit albeit one with a small cult following. Um and it just made you my brain was going Nintendo really going hard with Kirby. I know Pokemon Za big game obviously that's coming that's coming up at Christmas. They'll be pushing Mario Kart at Christmas as well but um is the Nintendo really positioning Kirby as their big
Well, I think it's a bit of an experiment isn't it really? I mean, they

obviously decided that this is the franchise which they really want to push. Um, and they've obviously supported Switch to with a with a remaster or an, you know, an improve version the last new content. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, but this is I mean what is a little bit surprising is um is that the experience where you've got Mario Kart and then you've got something which your average kind of punter might think is probably um quite similar to you know so obviously a kind of sports racing experience.
Um you know that that's a little bit surprising that you might be sort of dubbing up. Did you watch the direct? They even make that he makes that comment at the start. You know, he says, "You've got Mario Kart." Even though it is a very, you know, the the appeal of Kirby's Air Riders is quite different to Mario Kart when you actually go hands on with it. It gives me vibes of when Nintendo had Mario Kart

uh 64 and Diddy Kong Racing quite close to each other back in
back in the 90s. You have to go right back to that point.
I remember that. And I love Diddy Kong Racing.
Yeah, it's a cracker. Um it was originally again that game was originally an RC param game but um the story behind that is hilarious because they they had Banjo Kazouie but basically Howard Lincoln from put all this marketing budget on Banjo Kazouie and then Greg Males and the Banjo Kazoui team had to tell him that they were not going to make their ship date right so they had to panic and they just stuck Diddy Kong on RC Proam and um and that's how that game came. Anyway, that was a lovely side story. I do wonder if there's more to come from Nintendo. It is the 40th anniversary of Mario this year. Could they still go big with Metroid? We've not They've not done their reveal for Metroid in terms of the release date yet. Could we see a Mario collection?
It was playable on the show floor.
That's that's been playable since they actually took Nintendo Switch uh 2 on tour. That was
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
So, Kirby was new.
The Pokémon was obviously is I think going to be the biggest title.
Yeah, it works on The reason why I sort

of always discount Pokemon isn't because I I don't I don't think it's going to be big is because it sort of works on a different PR schedule. It's linked to the Pokemon company. You know, Pokemon ZA's sort of hands-on review actually happened the week before one of the Pokemon World Championships. You know, it's it's sort of
there's almost a different track. There's always a it's often a big Pokemon game and then there's a big Nintendo game somewhere else as well. So, um,
it's a bit of an experiment and obviously they're putting a lot of effort into making Kirby into something that hasn't been before and growing as a franchise and
and they've done it. They've done it Luigi's Mansion, they've done it with Fire Emblem, you know, I wouldn't be I just didn't see it coming because as they
um Oh god, I went through the list. I said there's any games I was worried about. It's difficult to say because all these, you know, what were their real expectations? I think one of the games that I was hoping to see I really like the look of and I was hoping to see slightly higher up the charts was The Outer Worlds 2 from Xbox.
Yeah.
Um it was shown during opening night live. They have that big sort of celebritybacked comedy video which quite like Fan Census rated as the 18th most

talked about games in the media. Generated 209 press articles, 79 YouTube videos. Um it did gain 32,000 wish lists but only made it I think number 37 in terms of wish list increase. I
seem to be busy on the Xbox st I have to say
it wasn't busy. Did you say
it wasn't that busy?
No.
I I I what I've mentioned this in the show before, but obviously one of the big things that was opening night live that was revealed was the Fallout TV. So, second series of Fallout TV show.
The second series of Fallout T show is set in the world of Fallout New Vegas. Fallout New Vegas is a game made by Obsidian. Obsidian have made the Outer Worlds, which is a bit like Fallout, a little bit like Fallout New Vegas. So, if I'm in marketing at Xbox, I'm going hang on, the developer of Fallout New Vegas has made a game like Fallout New Vegas, but isn't Fallout New Vegas, and releasing it next to the TV show adaptation? Well, not adaptation, sort of set in the same
Yeah.
location as Fallout New Vegas. I'm like going, why is this not Fallout Vegas?

There's a lot of parallels there. I mean the original game what is it sell over 5 million units in here?
Yeah, it did quite well and I think they want to level this up a little bit and obviously Game Pass is an element of this to people you know with wish listing is that such a thing with on a game like this but um I would be I mean it's still got it's still got a while to launch and they are obviously pushing it very hard and hey this might be doing exactly what they want it to do. There might be very realistic expectations. I just um I just I'm quite excited for it so I want to see it
and I think it looks nice. It is good. Um, you know, I think it's got a good chance of doing better than the original because you've got that established kind of knowledge. I mean, I think with the original, people enjoyed it, but they're they didn't feel much reason to go back and play it again. I think it wasn't didn't have that kind of replayability. If they can inject some of that into Outerorlds 2, too, then I think
Yeah. Also, I think I think I always think that we need to get back to this idea that a a good first game in a franchise can just do it pretty well. It doesn't have to be, you know, I I there used to be a time when the first games

were always like showed promise but were never great. The first Assassin's Creed, you know, as an example, and then it's the second one where they, you know, they fix all the things people didn't like so much and then they
they add in and they and they add in all the bits they couldn't sit in the first time play time around. That's when it sort of sings. So, I'm excited for it. You know, sitting in a great studio. They're really great. Um just um hope it continues to do well. Um I'll make one last note because I'm really conscious of the time. um the media. So, I just thought because I had this list of the top covered games and I had the list of the top uh wishlisted games, I thought I'd see if they if they matched up. No, they don't. So, obviously the Call of Duty, Resident Evil, and Hollow Knights up there. But, um some of the games that did well with Wish List got some of the weakest coverage from the press. Um Zero Parad's parade by ZUM, Road Kings, Ladina, Comedia, Valortis, Den are all in the lower end in terms of the press coverage. all at the bottom of the list, but they're all in the top 10 for wish lists. And if you take Road Kings, I think that's Saber Interactive, they

only had 160 articles in 88 publications, but it delivered 14 134,000 wish lists over the period. Um, obviously a lot of these are new IP, so it's hard for the media to know that these games are the ones that are going to pop off or whatever. Um, and they and and media tend to obviously gravitate towards the big franchises. And there are fewer journalists these days, right? It's just this there's fewer people to be able to write about this stuff. But I guess the concern from a media point of view is that a lot of the games that did very well at Gamescom, at least in terms of wish lists, uh, did very well despite a lack of media engagement in those things. So,
I mean, I think there's other avenues, aren't there? I mean, this is a point about wish lists and and how kind of important they are, but you know, obviously they were covered, a lot of those titles was covered in opening night. Um, and then on top of that, Steam has its own creative page where you can see all the games and obviously go through and wish list ones that you're interested in. Um, and I think, you know, the number of people that using Steam as a kind of information and

game information and discovery portal is really important. Um, and I'm sure that would that would have influenced, you know, some of the wish listing that went on. Um, so there there's not just that coverage obviously. Um, but maybe it's a reflection on,
you know, on the on the flip side is a reflection of the press not actually covering games that are the most interesting to people. We should be writing more about those games that have, you know, have the higher wish list.
Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. I mean, I often see Simon Carlo's emails with like the top the game that did a million copies. I'd never heard of it. It's like it's comes out of nowhere. these sort of repos and schedule ones and and and peaks. Um I do have to move on to our next segment, Pierce. Um but before I do, any any any other closing thoughts on on Gamescom 2025?
Um well, just a few of the other areas which I picked up on, you know, being at the show and stuff. Um the trans media coverage was quite interesting. So

we had big stands for Netflix and Paramount um which was um kind of interesting. It's it's a fits into this idea of being building up more sort of holistic IP trashes and stuff. Um a lot of coverage and you know ASUS had a big um stand there um coverage of the Xbox ROG Ally that's coming out
got hands on with that. It's quite interesting um and more kind of usable platform for for consuming um you know um Xbox based PC content and stuff and access to game pass. They're interesting from that uh perspective.
You you've got quite modest expectations for that that sector of the industry and I played the rog alli it interesting digital foundry who on the show last week talked about this they describe it as basically being a rog a new rogue ally with an Xbox launcher in it. see it like that rather than an Xbox handheld. Um, does it change your

ampair's
estimates on it?
Um, no, not really. I mean, we've built in some sort of increase this this year on the back of there being an Xbox version. Um, but I I totally agree with that analysis is that it's it's basically a ROG ally with with an Xbox launcher which which allows it to be more usable. I mean, I think it will will drive more interest, but it's not it's not a kind of a huge game changer. It's just another access point to the content.
Um, I had a couple of conversations about esports, which is not a popular
Yeah. Um, you know, and there the sort of feedback on in that concept because it is relevant to the German market and PC gaming obviously there's there is quite a lot of interest in in in esports more generally. Um, and I think the sort of consensus is that the West is still going through a kind of rebuilding phase. Um, and kind of trying to get onto more kind of stable

ground in in relation to building something that's commercially viable, which obviously historically it's it's been challenged with, and building a a kind of industry that supports all the the different stakeholders that operate in it. Um, that's that's obviously where they want to try and get to, but it's we're not kind of there yet. Um yeah, I mean that was pretty much it. Um
talk about kind of consolidation in the market. A lot of consolidation talk.
Yeah, we're still we're still I still you know still got some way to go there. I think there is there will be some bright there's some things growing. I met a load of new studios out there actually who are doing some interesting stuff. Some of them even got some managed to find some money. Um but um there was also a lot of um people worrying about what where they'd be in the next 6 months as well. So
good show. I thought overall good show but obviously came back with some kind of a sort of balance of of thoughts from different parts of the industry.
Well, we did a load of interviews out

there and we've already mentioned there was a lot of horror games at Gamescom and we actually did a little interview with Blubber Team. Um and Blubber Team is best known for horror games. Uh there was a lot uh uh their big game that they showed at the event which is actually out next week is Kronos the New Dawn. Um it looks a bit like Dead's Place. It plays a little bit like uh Resident Evil. Um now Blue Team put out a lot of games that you know they're a big development team based out in Poland, but most their games they're okay, right? They've done a lot of seven out of 10 titles, Layer of Fear, Medium, those sort of things. But last year it produced the Silent Hill 2 remake and it was incredible. It really was. It was one of the games of the year. So ahead of Kronos, I actually wanted to chat with the CEO of Blubber team. Uh I'm hope I don't get his name wrong, but Peter Babiano. And we heard about how Sonow 2 has changed things to them. We learned a lot about how they put out games, how they develop games. We discussed the rise of horror and whether or not, you know, it's getting a little bit too saturated. But and then the bit that surprised me was the influence of Nintendo on Blubert Team of all companies. You wouldn't ne associate

with a horror de developer. Anyway, peers to conclude this games come with you episode of the game business show. Uh here is our interview with theater at Pleet Team. Hello and welcome to the show. We're talking just before Kronos is uh due for release, but I wanted to go back a year because Silent Hill 2 was such a critical success for Bloom. It was won over so many people. There was a little bit uncertainty before the game came out, picked up awards, got nominated for big prizes. Um how has that changed things for you? Definitely it was a game changer but I I would lie if I will tell that uh we didn't plan it. So so basically we did know that it's next step for bluear uh we have chosen silent hill 2 because we would like to show that we learned by our mistakes and by whole road which we which we did in the past and we decided to to work on the best possible IP on the gaming market. So yeah, we we are

really happy about reception.
It's it's I think it speaks to the fact that for so many years you've made these and they were good horror games but they weren't necessarily the best horror games. They were good horror games but Konami must have seen something in you that made you think made them think you know what they can they can handle this.
Yeah I think that you know the word iteration is exactly what Bluebert team did for those last years. So it's not like that that we built everything what you saw in Silent Hill 2 suddenly. Uh but we learned by our mistakes and we we were trying to grow uh grow not just in the meaning of how many people we do have in the company but grow because of what we learned and I think that
of course it's a big step but we were really well prepared through through those games which we did in the past.
Has that now raised the expectation bar do you think for you? too much
too much because we we really would like you know to to sit come and create next

game uh and being being uh restful but it doesn't happen. So so the expectation are really high. We do know about it and we are trying much the expectation.
Yeah. You talked about I think in an interview I read you talked about it's blubber team 3.0 we're in now. What does that mean? What's the difference between that and 2.0 0 and 1.0.
Yeah. So 1.0 was the beginning of Blubber when we were looking for our strategy. We were looking in fact how to create games because we weren't really good as you you perhaps remember. But but talking about Blueird Team 2, it was the beginning of strategy of creating horror games.
But those first games were limited because we were trying to tell our stories not through action but environmental storytelling. M so Layers of Field, layers of field 2, the observer, the medium, uh Blair Witch Project, those games were we are very

proud about them. Uh however, they were limited in the possibilities of attracting more people and that's why in 2019 we took the decision that we would like to do the same because horror is our DNA, but we would like to tell our stories not through environmental storytelling, but by typical gameplay mechanics.
Okay. and Kronos. Is that part of that vision?
Exactly. So, so Silent Hill 2 and Kronos, those are two first titles in our new strategy.
I love the fact you're making a Nintendo Switch 2 version. I um not many people are at the moment. Uh why why why did I why did you do that?
I'm trying to make my personal dreams come true as well. So, you know, I am a huge Nintendo fan from the very beginning. I grown with Nintendo consoles, the the the most important horrors like Eternal Darkness.
Eternal Darkness, what a reference.
Of course, Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil 4, uh were available on Nintendo Gamecube. It was like a gold time for

for Nintendo fans. And in some way, we would like to be the one to open the the new story for Nintendo right now.
That was a weird time, wasn't it, with Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil 4, uh Eternal Darkness. Suddenly Nintendo became the home of survival horror.
Exactly. Exactly. We we do hope that we will do this uh similar. We have some plans. We we are not able to to share our vision for the future yet, but definitely Nintendo fans could could uh take a look on GLE team.
Uh your games are getting bigger. They're getting more complex. They're getting more in depth. Um you're working on multiple titles as well. Um how's that impacted your headcount? How's that impacting your budgets?
So, we grown a lot during the pandemia time. Uh we had around 120 130 people before and during the pandemia we grown into 250 and right now uh we are feeling that this is exactly in the moment in

which we should be. We have two teams. They are working on two projects at the same time always. one as you you already knew they are working on Silent Hill one. Yes.
And the second team is working on something which will come after uh Kronos.
Oh, I see. So you've got sort of you got them sort of that makes sense. Um I tell you what I noticed during opening night live where you know at Gamescom we were at Gamescom we watch open night live Kronos was there Resident Evil was there. Silent Hill was there. There's a lot of horror games. Horror horror seems to be a thing. I I we spoke to Blumbhouse Games not so long ago and of course they're they're all about horror and they it seems to be a very competitive space at the moment. Is there really enough room for all of you?
I think that it's even more which could come because I believe that you know competition will make our genre even bigger.
So so I'm expecting that that some new more companies will will decide to to create horror games as well. Why is it

become there was a time like I don't know maybe it was after Resident Evil 6 around that period of time when everyone was sort of pulling away from it all of a sudden and now it seems to have gone the dial has gone almost the other way and everyone is making horror again I think that horror is the answer for something which we don't know so always when there are some global climate changes some crisises wars and so on horror is going stronger this is the history of horror usually uh so Right now the the the times are a little bit darker and horror is trying to prepare us for something which is unexpected. So I believe that the social element have a huge value and that's the reason why we are seeing more and more horrors in in the movie uh in the streaming services and also games.
I find it fascinating. There's somebody told me that the biggest crossover of horror games or one of the biggest crossovers of horror games is cozy games

and and you couldn't imagine two opposite sides of the same coin in a way, but I spoke to Blumbhouse about I've asked this question a few times. Um, and I I've been told in the past it's because you kind of know what you're getting. I mean, you go into those experiences. Do you do you do you find that have you thought too much about that?
Frankly speaking, we had the conversation about it yesterday with with some potential partners. So it's funny that that you are mentioning this right now but uh I would say that yes and that the best case is Luigi Mansion and oh yeah
what Konosan did with with with this title was pretty impressive and I believe that there are a huge possibility to to to repeat
such idea in the future.
So we're going to see a cozy game from blue team in the uh in the PJ. We could make some announcement later. Oh. Oh, I hit up on something. All right. Um, obviously you are growing and launching big games in a really tough challenging time in the video game industry. How are you feeling about the state of the

market at the moment?
You know, we are passing our own way. We are doing things uh which are align with our vision. So, I think that the good thing is that we have the strategy and we are very close to the strategy for last 10 years and uh it's paying off. The good thing is also that we didn't cut any stuff at Bluebird team for last years. This is really important because I believe that if we have teams uh which are making great games and they do understood what is our DNA, what they are doing, it's much easier to create new projects. So I'm I'm really happy and I think that this is another parallel with Nintendo uh because this is the the similar uh spirit of how how we are trying to do things
but budgets are going up. How are you managing that? How are you maintaining?
We are still trying to be reasonable. So, so you know we are not working on more than two projects because we don't want to lose the quality of our projects but at the same time we don't want to

work on just one because even with the best partner with even with the best project
you don't necessarily have to be successful. So I think that this is really important and I'm always telling that you know if you have 250 people in the team you are responsible not just about 250 people but also their families. So, so it's really important for me to have plans which are supporting the the vision and we are not growing too fast. We are growing exactly like I feel we should.
Okay, that's that's good to hear. Where do you want to take where's your goal for blue team? What's your I don't know I say I often say a 10 year vision but it's impossible to have a 10 year vision in video games I find. But what is what is your is there a 4.0 in the horizon? What's your for blue team? Where do you where do you want to take where do you want to end?
This is a good question but ultimate answer is that we don't want to build a company for next five or 10 years.
We would like to create a company for decades. So that's how important for me

is to take the team together for for much longer time but also to create the projects which will be like the next step after step. So we don't want to cut coupons. We would like to to create projects which will be bigger uh which will be more advanced and more interesting for our fans but also for our workers and uh in my opinion uh we built the DNA of the company and those DNA is right now just growing uh and um it's not for zero it's it's basically Blubbert team and we would like to to become the best horror game developer we wouldn't mind if we will be the the biggest on the financial side. Uh it's not our goal to be the biggest compounder on the Polish stock exchange. Our goal is to become the best horror game developer.
Wow. It's quite quite a goal when you've got such incredible competition. Okay. Well, I hope Kronos delivers that for

you. I appreciate you on the brink of launch and it's probably a nervous time. Um but um good luck with it and um but thank you. Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was Peter, the CEO of Blue Team there. Um, and that's all we have time for this week. I want to thank Pierers for joining us. Thank you, Pier. It's a pleasure. It's been a pleasure to have you back.
Thank you very much, Chris. Yeah, great to speak to you again.
Thank you to Press Engine, Fan Censense, Game Discover, Secret Mode, and Blue Team for contributing. Uh, we'll be back next week with an interview with Indiana Jones developer Machine Games. Until then, thank you for tuning in.