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UK Games Expo 2026 has been and gone, and I’m still processing it. Four days, more games than my shelf technically has room for, blisters, a Viking village, and one slightly emotional moment when I realised the accommodation was already booked for next year before we’d even left the NEC. Let’s do this properly.
Thursday: A New Trick
This was the first year I collected my tickets on the Thursday, and it’s a change I’ll be sticking with. Getting that out of the way meant Friday could start clean. No queuing, no faff, straight in.Well some queueing for the halls but defimnitely less queuing.
We decided not to stay for open gaming Thursday evening. Instead, we hopped on a train into Birmingham for food and drinks. If you’re visiting the NEC and you haven’t been to Gas Street Basin in Birmingham, put it on your list. I come to Birmingham several times a year for work exhibitions (I’m there again on Wednesday for work) and always make a point of getting down there when the weather allows. It’s one of those spots that just feels right in the sunshine. Canal boats, decent food, good pubs. Thursday evening was lovely.
I did leave my sunglasses in a pub. Not expensive ones. I never buy expensive sunglasses precisely because I have an established track record of doing exactly this but has made me pragmatic about eyewear.
Friday: Shopping, Solos, and Some Very Good Birds
Friday was busier than I remembered from previous years, which I suspect is just Expo continuing to grow. We got there early, which is the right call, and spent most of the day working through the halls. We covered just over half the total floor space on Friday, which felt about right. Enough to get a sense of what was out there without collapsing.
After the shopping, I joined some of the UK Expo Solos group for open gaming. We played two games I want to mention briefly here.
Fetching Feathers
I’d just bought Fetching Feathers at the Expo and had been looking forward to it for a while. A full review is coming very shortly. The short version: it’s a card drafting game (think Sushi Go in spirit) where you’re building a sanctuary of birds across changing seasons, scoring at the end of each round as the environment shifts. You’re picking and passing cards each turn, deciding which birds and habitats earn their place in your growing flock. It’s light enough to teach at the table but has a satisfying puzzle to it once you start thinking about how your birds interact. The seasonal mechanic gives it a rhythm that genuinely surprised me. I’m very glad I finally got my hands on it.
The Druids of Edora
I was taught The Druids of Edora at the table and came in completely blind. It’s a Stefan Feld game (the designer behind Castles of Burgundy) published by Ravensburger’s Alea imprint. You’re a druid clan wandering a modular forest, placing dice to take actions: collecting herbs, erecting standing stones, performing rituals, all in service of accumulating prestige points. The clever part is that all your dice are rolled once at the start of the game. Every decision from that point is about making the most of what you’ve got. Classic Feld point salad, and there’s clearly a lot going on, but my first impression was that it rewards the replays. I want to go back to it with a better grip on the scoring.
By evening we were both pretty tired. We headed back to drop off the bags and walked to a local pub for food and a couple of games between the two of us.
D.O.T
I’d picked up D.O.T at the Expo earlier that day knowing nothing about it beyond the name. It’s a two-player duelling game by Chris Priscott of Unfringed, the same designer behind Fetching Feathers. Each player has an identical deck of cards covered in coloured dots, and the goal is to create the lowest or highest difference between the dots on your played cards and those in the shared centre, depending on the round. It sounds abstract on paper and it absolutely is, but it has a neat compactness to it. Quick to play, genuinely tricky to get right, and apparently something I’m going to be thinking about for a while.
Cafe Baras
Cafe Baras had been sitting on my shelf of shame for a while and I’d brought it from home specifically to play at some point over the weekend. It’s a card game from Kids Table Board Games, designed by Roberta Taylor. You’re a capybara running a coffee shop, competing to build the best cafe by playing multi-use cards as either menu items and decor or as customer orders, trying to win enough regulars to trigger the end game. It’s gentle, it’s fast, the art is absolutely charming, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. A good low-stakes pub game.
Saturday: Busy, Brilliant, and One Viking
Saturday was very busy. The kind of busy where you have to decide whether to queue for a particular trade stand or write it off and come back Sunday. We got to the NEC early again (sitting with a coffee before the halls opened is honestly one of my favourite parts of Expo) and finished covering the remaining halls.
I picked up fewer games than on Friday simply because it was too crowded to get near some of the stands I wanted. I did manage to grab Colt Express and Terraforming Mars from the Tabletop Rescue stand. I’ve played both before but never owned my own copies, so that felt like good value rather than impulse buying, which I’m choosing to believe.
After lunch we drifted past the 1,000 pound draw (we didn’t win, sadly), caught up with more of the Solos group, and then did something I hadn’t done before: visited the Viking Village outside the NEC. That was properly fun. Much more than I expected, and something I’d actively seek out again.
Two games I’m keeping a close eye on ahead of their Kickstarter launches. First up is Avian Realms, designed by Colin Wilkes. It’s a strategic card battling game for two players set in a post-apocalyptic world and built around real bird species. The artwork looks absolutely stunning, and the combination of that setting with real-world birds is a genuinely interesting hook. Can’t wait to see how it plays. The other is Draggos, a strategic drafting card game that also comes with a simpler version designed for younger players. I love seeing games that scale like that, and the artwork is seriously impressive. Both are ones to watch.
I had every intention of getting to the Bastion Market as well. Reader, I did not make it to the Bastion Market. The feet had made their decision and the feet won. We went for food away from the NEC instead. No regrets.
Sunday: Quieter, Windmills, and the Long Drive Home
Sunday was noticeably quieter than the other days, which made it ideal for finishing off the shopping at a more leisurely pace. I picked up a few games I’d been hunting for and found some decent end-of-Expo deals. A good morning for it.
After an early lunch, we headed over to meet someone for a pre-arranged game of Windmill Valley with more of the Solos group. Windmill Valley is a medium-weight euro by Dani Garcia (who also designed Barcelona) set in the tulip fields of the Netherlands. You’re a tulip farmer building an engine by rotating action wheels, planting tulips, building windmills across a shared board, and fulfilling contracts. The clever bit is the floodgate mechanism: you can adjust the water level to speed up or slow down your wheels, which changes which actions are available to you each turn. It’s accessible enough not to be intimidating but has enough decisions to feel satisfying. Good Sunday afternoon game.
After that, we headed home to Sheffield.
A First-Timer’s View: Tasha
Tasha was visiting UK Games Expo for the first time in 2026. Here’s her take in her own words.
“I was honestly worried before we went. I had no idea how big it would be, and crowds can be a lot. But it was really well managed and much more open than I’d imagined. There was so much variety, not just games but things to see and do everywhere you looked. I loved the little touches like collecting stamps at different vendors and picking up badges as you go, it gave you a reason to explore. And having volunteers walking around with flags so you could actually find things made a real difference. The Viking Village outside was genuinely one of the highlights for me, completely unexpected and brilliant. I’ll absolutely be going back.”
Final Thoughts
UK Games Expo 2026 was a good one. Busier and bigger than previous years in a way that occasionally made things harder, but that also means the hobby is in a healthy place and Expo’s reputation keeps growing. The Viking Village is great. The Solos group remains one of the best things about the whole weekend. The Bastion Market will happen next year, I promise.
We’ve already booked accommodation for 2027. If you were on the fence about going, consider this your sign. Bring on UK Games Expo 2027.