Korea’s Largest Gaming Festival Begins... ‘G-Star 2025’ Opens

[Financial News][Busan = Joo Won-kyu]Celebrating its 21st edition, Korea’s largest game exhibition, ‘G-Star 2025’, is set to open. With the theme ‘Expanding Stories and Narratives’, the event is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of fans over four days. Korean game companies will unveil numerous new titles aimed at the global market through G-Star.
According to the G-Star Organizing Committee, this year’s event will be held from the 13th to the 16th at BEXCO in Haeundae-gu, Busan, featuring 1,273 companies from 44 countries and 3,269 booths. Domestic game companies will be located in the main exhibition hall (BTC) in Exhibition Hall 1, welcoming visitors. This year, NCSoft, Netmarble, Krafton, Webzen, and Gravity have created immersive experience zones.
For the first time, NCSoft is participating as the main sponsor of G-Star, unveiling a large booth with 300 booths and showcasing its highly anticipated MMORPG ‘AION 2’, set for release on the 19th. The company will also reveal information about a new, unannounced MMORPG based on a major global IP. Additionally, its subsidiary BigFire Games is presenting the open-world shooter ‘Cinder City’, while publishing titles such as Mistil Games’ ‘Time Takers’ and Vic Game Studios’ ‘LIMIT ZERO BREAKERS’.
Netmarble will debut its cooperative action game ‘Project EVILBANE’ and the roguelike ‘Solo Leveling: KARMA’ to the public for the first time at G-Star. Other titles include the open-world RPG ‘The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin’ and the action RPG ‘MONGIL: STAR DIVE’. Krafton is also unveiling ‘Palworld Mobile’, developed by its subsidiary PUBG Studios and based on the global hit IP ‘Palworld’ from Japanese developer Pocketpair, with a demo booth available at the event.
In the second exhibition hall of G-Star, global companies such as Warhorse Studios, Sega, Atlus, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Unity, and Blizzard Entertainment are presenting exhibitions and on-site events for their existing fans. The business exhibition hall (BTB) has also enhanced networking infrastructure for participating companies. Major companies like Smilegate Holdings, Samsung Electronics, and Nexus, as well as organizations such as the Busan IT Industry Promotion Agency, Daegu Digital Innovation Promotion Agency (DIP), and Daejeon Information & Culture Industry Promotion Agency, are participating.
The main conference of G-Star, ‘G-CON’, features speakers from not only the gaming industry but also film, comics, and other content sectors, with 16 sessions scheduled. Notable guests include Yuji Horii, the game designer behind Square’s iconic ‘Dragon Quest’ series, Yoko Taro, director of ‘Nier: Automata’, and Byun Sung-hyun, director of the film ‘Good News’. The indie game developer festival ‘Indie Showcase 2.0: Galaxy’ will also be held, with participation from Steam Deck, Unity, and Discord.
Jo Yeonggi, Chairperson of the G-Star Organizing Committee, stated, “G-Star 2025 is more than just an exhibition; it is a stage where developers from around the world share their own stories. This year’s G-Star will demonstrate the language of creation, the depth of storytelling, and the power to transform those stories into experiences.”
Meanwhile, at the Korea Game Awards held at BEXCO, Nexon’s MMORPG ‘Mabinogi Mobile’ took home the grand prize. Released in March, Mabinogi Mobile has achieved cumulative sales of 300 billion KRW in just seven months despite its low monetization model, earning praise for perfectly inheriting the spirit of the original.
wongood@fnnews.com Joo Won-kyu Reporter