Chinese gaming companies took center stage at Gamescom 2025 in Cologne, Germany, showcasing blockbuster titles and cutting-edge AI technology.
The world's biggest gaming event ran from Wednesday to Sunday, attracting more than 300,000 visitors eager to try new games, meet their heroes, and glimpse the future of an industry projected to reach nearly 190 billion U.S. dollars this year.
Tencent, China's largest gaming company, reported about 8.3 billion dollars in gaming revenue in the first quarter of 2025, with both its domestic and international businesses growing by roughly 25 percent.
One of the major reveals at Gamescom was "Dune: Awakening" produced by Level Infinite Studios, part of Tencent.
It is an online survival game set on Arrakis, the desert world from Frank Herbert's classic novel. It launched with more than 140,000 players online simultaneously on day one. Developer Funcom has already announced the first expansion, scheduled for release in September.
EA Sports FC is among the world's best-selling franchises, with millions of copies sold each year. Games like this are at the heart of e-sports, a market expected to generate 1.7 billion dollars in 2025 and attract more than 640 million viewers worldwide.
Artificial intelligence was one of the buzzwords at Gamescom, with Chinese studios like Level Infinite, demonstrating how AI can transform game development and gameplay.
"The core benefit of AI is to help accelerate the process, to make it more efficient. AI can help with game development to help artists, make a visual animation to accelerate the process. The third one is that we can also embed AI into the game, to make it more interactive, more immersive, to bring some uniqueness for the players," said Hu Ninghang, technical director of Level Infinite.
Chinese studios are also looking to bring their culture to global audiences.
"We hope to bring Chinese games to a global audience while integrating diversified Chinese elements into our games, like Spring Festival or Duanwu Festival," said Xiao Lu, operations manager of the Beijing-headquartered Hero Games.
On the eve of the fair, Chinese studio Game Science unveiled its latest title, Black Myth: Zhong Kui, during the Opening Night Live showcase. The release drew loud cheers from both the audience in Cologne and viewers following the global livestream.
The developer launched Black Myth: Wukong on Aug. 20 last year, a triple-A game inspired by a classic Chinese novel that has since become a global hit. Its new title, Zhong Kui, is rooted in Chinese folklore and features the legendary ghost-hunting figure.
"The quality of games that coming out of China right now are incredible. As long as that continues in any market, you're going to see success, you're going to see popularity, you're going to people following, you're going to see people here in Cologne playing a game from China and they just love it," said Berkley Egenes, chief marketing and growth officer of the Xsolla, an American financial technology company.
Chinese developers take spotlight at Gamescom 2025 with blockbusters , AI innovations
A video featuring a former member of Unit 731, a notorious Japanese germ-warfare unit during World War II (WWII), was released on Thursday in northeast China's Harbin, revealing details of how the unit used meteorological data to conduct horrific bacterial experiments on human beings.
The video was released by the Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, in which former Unit 731 member Tsuruo Nishijima detailed how the unit used meteorological data to carry out a bacterial dispersal experiment.
The video was recorded in 1997 by Japanese scholar Fuyuko Nishisato and donated to the exhibition hall in 2019, according to the hall, which was built on the former site of the headquarters of Unit 731 in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province.
Jin Shicheng, director of the Department of Publicity, Education and Exhibition of the exhibition hall, said that Nishijima joined Unit 731 in October 1938 and served in the unit's meteorological squad. The squad was not a simple observation section but rather an auxiliary force supporting the unit's field human experiments by measuring wind direction, wind speed, and other conditions to ensure optimal experimental results, according to Jin.
Nishijima confirmed in the footage that "the meteorological squad had to be present at every field experiment." He testified to the "rainfall experiments" conducted by Unit 731, which involved aircraft releasing bacterial agents at extremely low altitudes.
At a field-testing site in Anda City, Heilongjiang, Unit 731 aircraft descended to about 50 meters above the ground. They sprayed bacterial culture liquids onto "maruta" -- human test subjects -- who were tied to wooden stakes. Each experiment involved about 30 people, spaced roughly 5 meters apart. After the experiments, the victims were loaded into sealed trucks and transported back to the unit, where their symptoms and disease progression were recorded over a period of several days.
"Unit 731's bacterial weapons were dropped by aircraft from a height of 50 meters in the open air. Therefore, the meteorological squad needed to observe wind direction and speed, which directly affected the precision and accuracy of the bacterial weapons deployment," said Jin.
Nishijima recounted the harrowing experience of the human test subjects.
"They were fully aware that inhaling the substances would certainly lead to death, so they closed their eyes and held their breath to avoid breathing them in. Their resistance prevented the experiment from proceeding. To compel them to comply, they were forced at gunpoint to open their mouths and lift their heads," said Nishijima.
These experiments, disguised as "scientific research," were in fact systematic tests of biological warfare weapons conducted by the Japanese military. The data generated from these inhumane activities became "research findings" shared among the Japanese army medical school, the medical community, and the military at large.
"At that time, the entire Japanese medical community tacitly approved, encouraged, and even participated in the criminal acts of Unit 731. The unit comprised members from Japan's medical and academic sectors who served the Japanese war of aggression against China. Thus, Unit 731 was not just a military unit but represented an organized and systematic criminal enterprise operating from the top down," said Jin.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center for Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731, and Japan's biological weapons killed more than 300,000 people in China.
Video offers details of Japan's germ-warfare crimes in northeast China
