PlayStation, the company behind God of War Ragnarök and many other highly anticipated titles, has confirmed that it will not be present at Gamescom 2022.

The publishing giant revealed this in an interview with the German publication Games Wirtschaft. Sadly, this means we can’t expect to see big guns like God of War Ragnarök, Forspoken, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and PSVR 2. As Games Wirtschaft notes, this also confirms that PlayStation will not be present at the Opening Night Live stream of Geoff Keighley’s event.

So two of the big three console manufacturers are now certain to miss this year’s Gamescom, with Nintendo also publicly pulling out.

Activision Blizzard, the publisher behind Call of Duty, Overwatch, Warcraft and Diablo, will also be absent. PlayStation’s absence will be particularly painful as we had previously expected a significant presentation on their upcoming titles, such as God of War Ragnarök.

While the list of highly-listed non-presenters continues to grow, there are still 250 exhibitors confirmed, including big names like Bandai Namco, THQ Nordic and Koch Media. It’s expected that Xbox will have some form of presence at the event, but it’s unclear at this stage in what capacity.

Gamescom 2019 will feature a live, in-person exhibition for the first time since its inception, but there will also be an “extensive digital companion programme”, according to event organisers. It’s unclear what the online proceedings will include, but you can expect Gamescom Opening Night Live to return for a third consecutive year to kick off the big in-person event.

The live event will take place in Cologne and will run for three days, from 24 August to 28 August 2022.

Source: Games Wirtschaft