KUALA LUMPUR: A strange parallel has emerged, with two sides of the gaming industry swapping places in terms of relevance and fanfare.
This week during Gamescom 2026’s Open Night Live show, there were plenty of action role-playing games, team-based shooters, battle royales, monster collectors and simulations. A majority came from Chinese and Korean publishers and developers such as HoYoverse, Tencent, Krafton, Pearl Abyss, NetEase and NCSoft.
Western-made games were few and far between in the major presentation.
While a vocal minority have voiced complaints about this, the majority of the gaming world have already accepted the increasingly prevalent trend of triple-A free-to-play games occupying the consumer space.
It can be argued that HoYoverse started the takeover during the 2020 pandemic with Genshin Impact. But one cannot deny that game companies in the East have successfully adapted the formula for different games.
These companies are also trying out a “cosmetics only” microtransaction model and doing away with character gacha banners for future titles.
Time will tell whether this grand experiment works, but the recent action role-playing game Where Winds Meet is already finding success with the model.
On the flip side, Western developers are sticking to the same model of charging up front for big-budget triple-A games. These titles are relying on reputation alone to get ahead of Chinese and Korean competition.
Rockstar’s magnum opus, Grand Theft Auto VI, is charging extra for digital games, allowing people to preview the game through a movie subscription service six hours before it goes online for free, while giving the media first dibs on the game and potentially securing favourable coverage, given that companies like Rockstar can wield indirect influence.
It is much the same with PlayStation, a Japanese game publisher that has behaved more like a Western company this generation, with an undisclosed stranglehold over the Southeast Asian games media.
Rockstar also recently had its game leaked, though it is handling the situation by using every trick in the book – cashing in favours from companies and higher-ups who have worked with it because of its clout and reputation. This is, of course, purely a business decision involving an illegally procured copy of a recent build from a hacker group.
But from another perspective, if Rockstar and its partners were not so blatant with their corporate greed, the leak might not have happened and people might have been more opposed to it, compared with the overwhelming support this criminal act has received.
Chinese companies have experienced leaks too. HoYoverse is no stranger to this with story-heavy titles such as Genshin Impact. But they are dealt with discreetly, its community is generally against them, and the leaks are driven more by curiosity about upcoming characters, often without additional context.
So, two sides of the games industry have faced the same kinds of problems. The major difference is public opinion and sentiment. The court of public opinion would rather support an F2P game made with a triple-A budget than an overpriced retail title exclusive to a console that charges additional rent without offering other incentives or bonuses.
Our guess? GTA 6 will sell millions, but largely on reputation alone. Players’ hearts will eventually return to the dozens of F2P games they can play without an upfront cost or the same level of commitment – and on less expensive machines.
Short Beats
Konami plans to make its Silent Hill series an annual release and is working on many “unannounced” projects.
The remastered version of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt will be out in September, and all its upgrades and expansions are free if you owned the original 2016 title.
The remastered version of The Wolf Among Us will be out for PC and consoles on Oct 29, featuring a black-and-white noir mode.
A new Rock Band-style game from original Guitar Hero developer RedOctane, called Stage Tour, will be out on Dec 10. It will come with 45 songs and plastic instruments.
Op-Ed
We talked about the recent 2XKO active development shutdown, due in December 2026, and touched on what went wrong – apart from the fact that its developers took 10 years to make a tag fighting game with half its features left out.
Games Of The Week
Blood Dungeon is an indie 2D action platformer and bullet heaven survival mash-up game from Messhof, the creator of the Nidhogg series.
Star Wars: Zero Company is a turn-based strategy title set in the Star Wars universe. Billed as “XCOM meets Star Wars”, this strategy game has you commanding a deadly squad of the galaxy’s toughest commandos, droids, bounty hunters and rejected Jedi.
Brigadine: Abyss is a turn-based fantasy strategy title from developer Adglobe.
Captain Tsubasa 2: World Fighters is a sports role-playing game based on the hit anime football series.
Blasterbug: Last Bug Standing! is a multiplayer arcade action title for up to eight players. The game is free to play on PC, though its additional characters require payment.
1666: Amsterdam is a third-person action adventure where you play a witch who hunts demons at night and conducts investigations by day.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 is a third-person shooter set in the sci-fi Aliens universe, where you play as part of a team of bug hunters fighting the xenomorph swarm.
Apidya Special is a remake of a classic 90s 2D shoot-’em-up featuring insects and all sorts of flying monstrosities.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 is the second instalment in the collection, featuring Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (HD Collection version), and Metal Gear: Ghost Babel.
Recommended Viewing
Rockstar has officially published an extended look at Grand Theft Auto VI, its upcoming open-world game. You can judge for yourself whether the game is worth the 10-plus-year wait – and the lives of its overworked developers, who had to sacrifice important milestones in life.
