22 to 25 October, fifteen years of the show, Game of Roles at the Dome de Paris, and 300 square metres for French studios.
Alexandrosse
Fifteen years. The first Paris Games Week was held in 2010, and the one arriving in a fortnight is the fifteenth.
It runs 22 to 25 October at Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, under the banner Playground.
Here is what is confirmed, what is worth the trip, and what we would like to hear announced without really believing it.
The big names are in: Nintendo, PlayStation, Activision, Bandai Namco Entertainment France, Capcom, Microids and Ubisoft.
What we already know about the stands, game by game.
Activision brings the multiplayer mode of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, playable on site. A pleasing detail for anyone who enjoys calendars: the game launches on 23 October, which is to say during the show. So you will be able to play it in a hall while half of France downloads it.
Bandai Namco is showing Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3, Gundam Rogue Orbit, and Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve.
On that last one we already have a view: our preview is here, and the point that interests us most is the online lobby, a first in the series' history. If you are going to the show, that is exactly the sort of thing to test in real conditions rather than read about on a store page.
Ubisoft arrives with a line-up that says a great deal about the era: Rayman Legends Retold, Heroes of Might & Magic III Remake due in 2027, Rainbow Six Siege, Just Dance, The Crew Motorfest and Riders Republic.
Count the remakes and the live services. Out of seven offerings, there is a reworking of a 2013 game, a remake of a 1999 game, and four titles that have been running for years.
Heroes III, though, deserves a pause. It is one of the most played games of all time in its category, still today, with a community that never let go. Remaking Heroes III is simultaneously the most obvious and the most dangerous idea in Ubisoft's catalogue, because that community knows every pixel and every balance decision.
The show is setting aside a Pavillon Game France of three hundred square metres, with more than thirty French games and studios, supported by the CNC, Capital Games and the SNJV.
That is, honestly, the part of the show where you discover something.
The big publishers' stands exist to let you touch hardware you will see anyway in six weeks. The French pavilion is thirty projects you have heard nothing about, twenty-five of which will not ship for two years, and two or three of which will become the games everybody talks about in 2028.
If you only have one hour at this show, spend it there. It is the only place where you can talk to the person writing the code.
And here is this edition's genuine novelty: three evening shows at the Dome de Paris, from 22 to 24 October, all at 8pm. Ticketing is separate from the show itself and must be booked apart.
Thursday 22: CURIEUX.exe. The Orchestre Curieux, conducted by Daniel Sicard, with ZeratoR, PV Nova and Marianne. A symphonic ensemble crossing the classical repertoire with gaming culture. 45 euros.
Friday 23: Game of Roles. 35 euros. More on this below, because it is the evening we would travel for.
Saturday 24: secret programming. 45 euros, with the content to be announced in the coming weeks. Selling a forty-five euro ticket without saying what is inside it means either a very big name or very great confidence. We shall see.
If you do not know it: Game of Roles is a tabletop role-playing show broadcast live on Twitch since 2018, and it is one of the most important things to have happened to French-language roleplaying in twenty years.
The principle is simple and that is what makes it formidable: a game master, some players, some dice, and nothing else. No set, no editing, no safety net. What happens at the table is what you see.
On 23 October at the Dome, FibreTigre takes the game master's chair, with an adventure written specially for the room, and MisterMV among the players.
And the announced format is exactly right: part of the scenario is prepared in advance, but the choices made on stage and the situations that arise can make the adventure evolve live. Dice rolls, twists, and improvisation. All of it streamed simultaneously on Twitch.
Why we think it is the week's event.
Because tabletop roleplaying has become a spectacle again, and nobody saw it coming. For thirty years, roleplaying was a private living-room activity, incomprehensible from outside, and impossible to show. Then some people put a camera on a table and discovered there is nothing more watchable than a group of friends making a bad decision together.
And because a dice roll live in front of several thousand people is one of the rare things, in a show that is scripted end to end, that nobody controls. That is real tension, inside a building full of demos calibrated to the second.
Thirty-five euros to watch a game master improvise in front of a full house is cheaper than a game, and you will not know in advance how it ends.
Fine, here is the wish list. It commits nobody but us.
A date for Heroes III Remake. 2027 is a year, not a date. And the community needs to know very early what changes in the balancing, because that is what the project will be judged on, not the textures.
Something concrete from the French pavilion. Thirty studios is good. Thirty studios of which three leave with a publisher would be better. The CNC and the SNJV are there, the publishers are too: there is an edition where something other than stands could be announced.
An actual Nintendo game on site. Nintendo is announced, and Nintendo rarely does things by halves when it turns up. We are waiting to see what is behind the door.
And Saturday's mystery evening. Forty-five euros blind calls for a handsome surprise. An orchestra, an international guest, an announcement: we will take any of it.
What we are not expecting is a big American-style conference. That is not this show's format and it has never been its appeal. Paris Games Week exists so you can try things with a pad in your hands and queue next to people who love the same silly things you do.
22 to 25 October, Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, 1 place de la Porte de Versailles in the 15th arrondissement.
The Dome de Paris evenings have their own ticketing, separate from show admission. If you are aiming for Game of Roles, do not assume your show ticket covers it.
The show also announces an app with challenges, collectible badges and rewards during your visit, plus an off-site programme across Paris and the Ile-de-France in the preceding weeks.
Going? We are looking for people for a shared queue and a report from the French pavilion. Find us on the InsertCoins Discord.
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