No matter how outrageously busy the halls of the Koelnmesse get during Gamescom, there is one spot you can always count on for a little peace. If you enter the building from the south side and take a hard left away from the sprawling masses of people racing towards the Titanfall 2 booth, you’ll find an entire hall that’s decidedly less hectic.
This is the International hall, and it’s my favorite section of the show.
While by no means empty, you can calmly tour its many stands without being redirected by the hordes of gamers, or coming to a standstill. Developers and business executives happily stand by the sides of their booths and chat with passersby, while people can stop and almost immediately get their hands on a demo, and free food and drink if handed out for the starving. Stopping just short of children playing in the streets, it’s a small paradise that provides respite and wonder, where you can joke about those dealing with the swarms in the consumer halls but also spare a moment to recognize how lucky you are not to be there.
You’ll also more than likely run into a VR headset or two.
Each booth in the international hall is dedicated to a different country, which developers then populate with their experiences. More often than not, at least one VR game will be on display, which makes for too many to even try to attempt to cover, but it always proves to be a fascinating walk when you have a few minutes between seeing ‘massive Oculus game A’ and ‘humongous PS VR game B’.
This year, for example, I spotted plenty of experimental pieces for the HTC Vive. Over on what I believe was the Swedish booth (I could be wrong) I saw one player use the kit’s position-tracked controllers to grab rocks and move them out of the way of energy beams needing to link up, as if they were a mad god rearranging the universe for their own purpose.
Over on the Spanish booth people were pulling on a pair of gloves to bring themselves deeper into VR worlds, while Italy was home to the uniquely disturbing The Town of Light. The Korean, Chinese, and Philippine booths all had Gear VR headsets to draw in the crowds too. You could even find some of our more anticipated VR experiences there; Rockfish was showcasing the promising Everspace in VR, for example.
I even spotted a HoloLens on one booth, often attached to people that had their jaws dropping towards the floor.
Arguably the most impressive booth, however, was one located near – but I don’t think actually a part of – the Chile booth. The seat of a digger had been installed and people could sit in it to have a VR experience when they controlled the behemoth. From what I could see, people were constantly leaving the booth with smiles on their faces.
It goes to show you just how much of a hit VR is around the world already. Developers from all corners of the globe are approaching this tech with a keen kind of eagerness that will be familiar to anyone working in this industry. What’s great about it is that VR is clearly accessible across the planet, which may well have not been the case if this revolution kicked off a decade or so earlier.
In a sense, it’s a shame the Gamescom masses aren’t allowed to see some of these experiences themselves. Indie games aren’t typically a big draw at conventions but VR is, and this would be a great opportunity for some developers to showcase their products.
Sadly, this year I was only running through this booth to other appointments; I didn’t have the time to stop and try some of these experiences for myself. I’m going to make note of it for future years, though, and make sure I get some time to dive deep into this fascinating collection of VR oddities.
