You might not have heard of Katowice. It was, for many years, the industrial heart of Poland, specialising in steel and coal mining, a place where the natural resources were tapped into, smelted, refined and shipped off across Europe. It has a reputation as being a tough, grimy, polluted area, but in 2025, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In the modern day, it’s an economic, educational and industrial centre within the country. Gorgeously green and leafy in the late May sunlight, a culture hub that’s been built on the former site of a coal mine is a clear visual and ideological indication of the city’s changing outlook. Crucially, it showcases the transition that the area is undergoing, from its previous, traditional focus on heavy manufacturing and mining, to new technologies, including gaming.
Education lies at the centre of that step into the future. There are now 12 universities based here, 7 of which offer game industry-specific courses. Their integration into the local and national economy ensures that Katowice is a city that is focused on the future. In particular, the city’s leaders that we’re meeting with are keen to emphasise the area’s knowledge and proficiency in the sciences, and the awards and accolades that Katowice, and the wider Silesian area has accrued, including its most recent inclusion in the Top 10 Large European Cities of the Future 2025.
We’re here for gaming, though. We were able to spend time with the Katowice team from Keywords Studios, a global support and publishing company that’s tapping into the local talent here, and locally-based Anshar Studio, whose burgeoning publishing business sits alongside their well-established development team. There are 50 game dev and esports companies in the Silesian area, with 22 of those based in Katowice itself, making up around 10% of the entire country’s gaming industry.
Lukasz Szewczyk, QA Manager at Keywords Studios, tells us, “We work with the biggest publishers in the world, through to small companies, and we support them through the whole development process; testing, translating, and testing the localisation. There’s actually three Keywords Studios entities in Poland now.” I asked the team whether this is a good time to be in Katowice, and Michal Niechcial, their QA Project Manager, was frank, telling me, “10 years ago, I wouldn’t say it was a desert for Polish game dev here, but it was definitely behind cities like Krakow and Warsaw. Once we came here, a lot of things started to gain momentum, and other local studios like Anshar started to grow as well.” When you see their brand new offices looking out across the entirety of Katowice and the surrounding countryside – there’s a slide from one floor to another, a cinema room, rows of PlayStation 5s in a shared gaming space and even rooms to take a nap in – you can see that business is good.
They’re tapping into local talent here as well, with many students from local universities working at Keyword part-time as QA testers. It’s clearly a great entry point into the industry, and for many gamers it sounds like it’s almost a perfect job. Lukasz laughs, “I wish that everyone knew that working in QA, testing games, is not playing games!” The whole team are very clear, though, that the collaboration between their company and the universities works both ways, with internships and visits ensuring that they’re helping to develop the games industry professionals of the future, while creating the kind of studio environment that’s perfectly in tune with Gen Z.
Katowice’s transformation is an ongoing project. Beginning in the 1990s, with the fall of communism in the region, and the country’s subsequent membership in the EU, Katowice’s transformation has been years in the making, but that is now being reflected in its accolades, first with its certification as a UNESCO City of Music in 2015, and continuing through to 2024’s title as Poland’s City of Science. Alexander Szlachetko calls this “Starting a new part of our story”, and it’s obvious that there’s a real sense of pride with what has been achieved, and what is still to come.
An all-new Gaming Technology hub is being built, once more, on the site of a former mine – Katowice had a lot of mines – and it’s due to open in 2028, with a huge, 4 stage plan to turn the 31 square kilometre area into a modern and forward-thinking zone for the gaming industry. 200 million Euros of initial investment are going into this area, and they’re already fielding interest from local, national and global partners.
Unknown to me, Katowice is also one of the world’s esports landmarks. ESL, the world’s #1 tournament organiser, alongside gaming platform FACEIT, lead the way globally in putting on some of the biggest tournaments and events in the world. Dreamhack is also based here, a gaming lifestyle festival that operates multiple events around the world each year.
ESL itself is based out of EFG Poland, a massive hub here that’s built around gaming, TV and the wider media, with 8000 m2 of office space and five TV studios, that allows companies a complete esport production package, from organisation for events through to management and hosting.
IEM (Intel Extreme Masters) Katowice, one of the world’s biggest, most iconic events – hosted at the instantly recgonisable Spodek arena – has happened here since 2013, making Katowice the capital of esports, and a place that fans from around the world have descended on each year. Aleksander Szlachetko, Managing Director of the ESL FACEIT Group laughs, saying, “The only difference is that the tickets to the arena sell out quicker each year!”.
It’s clear that Katowice, and the larger Silesian area, is of huge importance to Poland’s position within the global gaming market. It’s investing, building and tailoring the area to make it as attractive as possible for companies and startups looking for a progressive and technologically and economically supportive area. That’s further helped by the region’s position as a Special Economic Zone, and one which has been ranked in first place within Europe multiple times in the past decade.
It feels as though Poland is ready to become a true leader in the global gaming industry. Proven successes from the country, such as The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk, Dying Light and Frostpunk, are showcasing the talent and creativity that’s here, while also attracting developers and publishers from around the world. Katowice may not be a name that everybody in the industry knows in this moment, but it feels as though that’s all about to change.
