Toy Fair was back in London on the 20th of January for another year of amazing Boardgames, Collectibles and Trading Cards Games. As you may know, the Toy Fair is an annual event organized by the British Toy & Hobby Association (BTHA) and it is the UK's largest dedicated toy, game and hobby trade exhibition. The BTHA was first established in 1944 to represent the interest of British toy manufacturers and to raise the standard of practice in the industry. The First Toy Fair launched in 1954 in Brighton and represents a great moment to showcase the best product the industry has to offer and to take a peak into new lines that will be launched through the year.
I was extremely happy to be able to join the Fair right on the first day. This year it was the 72nd anniversary of this event and there were more than 200 exhibiting companies including new start-ups and some of the biggest toy companies in the world. Visiting the Toy Fair offered an great opportunity to be closer to the toy industry, and “to touch, feel and experiment with the products of the future” as the organizers mentioned. It is also an opportunity to learn more about the Toy market in UK and to see first hand the products that won the “Hero Toy Award” of this year.
If you are curious to learn more about London Toy Fair and to see which products won the 2026 awards, I recommend visiting the website of the event (https://www.toyfair.co.uk/). I personally enjoyed the time(and numerous steps) I spent at the Fair and I wanted to share some of the most interesting games I saw there. The list below is obviously just a very peak into the infinite number of great products I saw as there were too many to fit in just one content. In order to make this easy, I would like to focus on Boardgames first, leaving the Collectibles and Trading Card Games for a different content (that you can obviously see on Zatu). Let's get started!
FIRST STOP: Zatu stand
As soon as I entered the London Toy Fair, I had to visit Zatu's stand, obviously. The stand was not only huge but it was also managed by the Distribution team, the part of Zatu that takes care not only of the fulfilment of crowdfunded games but also to store "high-potential, high-demand titles. And to champion underrepresented publishers who deserve to be on shelves nationwide” as you can read in their catalogue.
I had a really good time talking to the team there and I was amazed by seeing a final copy of Tomb Raider: The Crypt of Chronos. I supported the play-testing of this beautiful game from Iconiq Studios and seeing it in person was quite unexpected. The game is expected to be distributed later in the year once production completes thus seeing it at the Fair felt a lot like having access to a preview copy. If you haven't already backed it when the Kickstarter campaign was live, I would strongly recommend to keep an eye on this game as the quality of the final product is really good. Zatu also holds all the Iconiq Catalogue including some other awesome and quick games like “They Live: The Card Game” or “Stokerverse” and one of our family all time favourite, “1%”.
Among the tons of games on display on the day, my attention was caught by the augmented reality book developed by Peasoup. These are a series of interactive children's storybooks where kids can choose their own path through an engaging story. Each chapter includes a number of tasks or decisions that allow the kids to shape their story as they please. Moreover, kids can scan the images on the pages to become the hero of the story, test their skills and unlock tasks and surprises. The collection includes currently four titles (“Deadbeard's Curse”, “The Gloom Dragon”, “Outtatown” and “The wonder Sword”) and it will soon grow with the addition of boardgames based on these books and more amazing products. If you have a kid, keep an eye on these products as they are available right now on Zatu!
SECOND STOP: Hachette!
The second stand I wanted to visit at the Fair was the one hosted by the amazing Hachette Boardgames UK team. I not only love (almost) all the games distributed by Hachette but I always feel at home when I come to say “hi” to the team. If you had the pleasure to see them at UKGE, Tabletop Scotland, HandyCon or at the Canterbury Gaming Convention (just to name a few), you know they are the most welcoming people you can ever imagine. In addition, they have a great passion for Boardgames and they are always happy to talk about them and to share their passion with everyone.
I think I ended up staying at Hachette's stand for almost two hours but it felt really quick when I had to leave. I cannot list here all the great games I saw or checked out but I want to recommend a few new ones that just arrived/are coming to the shelves this year starting with “Captain Flip”. This game “can be explained in less time than a cannonball shot” and it provides tons of fun with four different boards and subtle tactics. Most important, there will be an expansion coming later this year, “Isla Bomba”, that will add new boards and new treasure maps.
Another interesting expansion I spotted at the stand was “Pantheon” for the multi-award winner game “Akropolis”. This expansion adds a cooperative game mode to Akropolis and builds on top of the base game and the previous expansion “Athena”. Later in the year Hachette will bring us also “Odysseus”, a new stand-alone game in the Akropolis series.
If you are a fan of Greek Mythology and you love expansions and upgrade kits you should also check out “Cyclades: Legendary Edition”. This game is definitely meatier than the ones mentioned so far and it offers an improved gameplay and a very neat aesthetic uplift with respect to the original version of the game.
Among the new games coming later this year, I spotted a very interesting “Alice: Through the Looking-glass” . This new competitive flip&write is obviously set in the Queen of Hearts' Maze but it adds a twist of similar type of games as the sheet used by the players is double sided. Players can in fact turn their sheet every time they hit a mirror on the map allowing them to fill areas on both sides to score additional points. Once the game over, the sheet can be folded in the middle to combine all points for the final scoring. This game feels right upon my alley and I cannot wait to try it!
NEXT STOP: Asmodee and Coiledspring
The next stop on my list was at Asmodee. Asmodee is always a very busy stand at any event considering their range includes Boardgames as well as many famous Trading Card Games and gaming accessories. This year they had on display a wide selection of Pokemon, Gundam, Disney Lorcana, One Piece, and Riftbound, among tons of other TCGs. I will cover some of them in a separate content but let me just say it was very good that none of those products were up for sale as I doubt my bank account would have been pleased otherwise....
Among the games on display my eye caught the immense range of Carcassonne and Exploding Kittens. Both of these games do not need any introduction with the first one being part of the story of Boardgames and the second one being a major success among friends and families. My son is massively in love with Exploding Kittens actually and we own pretty much every game of the series other than the most recent Boardgame version, “Exploding Kittens: The Board Game”. This last one offers a different take on the original card game with Players navigating a 3D pop-up board, and using action cards to sabotage the opponents. Interestingly, later in 2026 my collection will fall even farther behind as two new games for the series will release. The products on display at the London Toy Fair were not finalized thus I was not able to take pictures but keep an eye out for them as they will offer plenty of fun!
Another game that will soon have an expansion will be Flip 7, a game that I am sure everyone has played or at least heard about. My gaming group loved it when it came out in 2025 in particular as it is very suitable for large group of Players and it provides so much fun to everyone. The new version will come “with Vengeance and no-one's safe” and it will introduce new action cards, thirteen 13's, no second chances, and negative score modifiers.
In terms of new games, the most notable one I spotted on this stand was Hummingbirds. The game vaguely reminds me of the boardgame “Kites, time to fly” as it also featured coloured hourglasses and a frantic gameplay but Hummingbirds is a completely different game and it is very competitive. The idea behind the game is to use your magnetic birds to claim flowers that hide sand timers, and reveal those timers to check for nectar. If the sand timer has run out, the Player collect a nectar token of the same colour otherwise they need to give back a token of the same colour. As you can imagine each timer has a different duration and longer timers provide higher reward. However, the challenge would be to find the right timing to claim your flowers while avoiding that the game will end too early.
Many steps after.....
As I mentioned before, the day I spent at the London Toy fair has been an amazing experience. The management of the event has been spot-on as usual and everyone I met was incredibly welcoming. Overall, I saw too many great games to look for in 2026 I can't list in this content and I cannot wait for them to arrive on the shops and to be able to play them. Make sure you keep an eye out on Zatu Blog and the Website to find out when new games will release, and to check what the team thinks of them after bringing them to the table!
