UK Games Expo 2026 Preview

Five days. That is how long it is until I get in the car and drive to Birmingham. Six days until the doors open at the NEC and UK Games Expo 2026 officially begins.

I have been going to this show for years. I have never been an exhibitor as yet though. I have worked Big Exhibitions for work so I know what it feels like to stand on the other side of a demo table, powered by Hotel breakfast and caffiene at nine in the morning and watch several thousand people arrive. Games Expo It is one of the best weekends in the board gaming calendar, and this year the list of games I want to get my hands on is longer than it has ever been.

Here is everything I am looking forward to. Sorted by hall, because the floor plan rewards planning and I have done mine. Here’s my UK Games Expo 2026 Preview

Hall 2

Bella Vista – Hachette Boardgames (Stand 2-416)

I already own Canal Houses and Castle Combo. Both are on the shelf. Both get played. When a publisher has already earned two spots in a collection, you do not walk past a new release. You stop and you look.

Bella Vista is designed by Bruno Cathala and it is a city-building game where players claim zoning cards and construct three-dimensional cardboard buildings on a shared layout. Height bonuses, grouping bonuses, contract cards to complete. The buildings apparently look properly impressive on the table.

The Canal Houses test is the real thing I am hoping it passes. First time we played that, someone who had never heard of Hachette sat down, looked at the table twenty minutes in, and immediately asked where to buy it. Whether Bella Vista does the same, I do not know yet. That is what demos are for. It looks amazing though.

Stand 2-416 | hachetteboardgames.co.uk

Questiny (Stand 2-385)

This one has been appearing on every preview list I have read for months. At some point, when something keeps showing up across every round-up you look at, you have to stop noticing and actually find out why.

Questiny is a cooperative dungeon crawler, which matters more to me than I want to admit. I have a lot of affection for the genre and almost no appetite for the prep that running one from behind a screen requires. A game that delivers the experience without anyone doing homework is an easy yes for a demo.

There is also the nostalgia angle. I grew up on Fighting Fantasy books and early Dungeons and Dragons. That specific feeling of building a character, delving into corridors, and reacting to what the dungeon throws at you carries a warmth I find genuinely hard to resist. Whether Questiny delivers on that feeling with mechanics that hold up is exactly what I am going to find out. The demo queue has reportedly been three-deep at every preview event. I will join it anyway.

Stand 2-385 | questinyboardgame.com

Calupum: Shadowed by the Wolf — Board Game Box (Stand 2-302)

The name comes from the Latin cave lupum, meaning beware of the wolf, and that tells you almost everything you need to know about the premise. You are protecting your flock of sheep from wolves on a modular board full of hedges, trees, and tunnels. Keep your animals out of the wolves’ sightlines. Lose a sheep to a wolf’s gaze and it loses a health point.

There are two built-in modes. A simpler winter mode works well as an introduction or a quicker game. The summer mode adds Bobtail the sheepdog, the shepherdess, dog cards, and objective cards for more tactical depth. That kind of scalability in a single box is not always easy to pull off.

I get asked about family games a lot and this is firmly on the family game radar. The visual style is striking in a way that stands out on a convention floor. Whether the mechanics support the aesthetic is the question I am going there to answer. Sometimes the best discovery at Expo is the one you were not planning to make.

Stand 2-302 | boardgamebox.life

Whisperwood — Cardboard Alchemy (Stand 2-593)

You are a druid. The forest is corrupted. You are using elemental magic to restore it, pulling energy tokens from a bag each round to restore air, water, and earth, partner with wildlife, inscribe runes, and awaken Guardians.

Bag building (where you add tokens to a personal bag and draw from it each turn) is a mechanic I enjoy when it is done well. What appeals here is that the theme and mechanic feel genuinely connected rather than draped over each other. Two to four players, ages eight and up.

Check them out at cardboardalchemy.com or follow @cardboardalchemy on Instagram.

Stand 2-593 | cardboardalchemy.com

Park Life: Hedgehog Edition — Charming Games Collective (Stand 2-364)

Full disclosure: Tasha loves hedgehogs. This was always going on the list.

Park Life: Hedgehog Edition is a cosy trick-taking game with set collecting. Trick taking is one of those mechanics that sounds old-fashioned right up until you play a modern version of it and realise why designers keep coming back to it. The combination with set collecting gives it a bit more to think about without becoming heavy.

This is one of several Park Life editions, each featuring different animals with the same core mechanism. Also at the Charming Games stand: Use Up All Your Sick Days and Mythic Baths, both of which are on my radar while I am there.

Stand 2-364 | charming.games

Fetching Feathers — Unfringed (Stand 2-628)

If Chris Priscott released a game about watching paint dry, I would probably at least give it a try. Zuuli is on our shelf. Molehill Meadows is on our shelf. Both get played far more regularly than plenty of games that arrived at the same time. When a designer has two games you genuinely enjoy, a new release is not something you ignore.

Fetching Feathers is a card game for 2 to 5 players about attracting birds to seasonal sanctuaries. Over three seasons you are drafting location cards and building a bird collection, with each location’s food availability shifting as the seasons rotate. Complete combos of birds for bonus points. The rules are simple. The decisions get interesting quickly.

The game was available as a prototype at Expo 2025 and I genuinely regret missing it. This year it is the full release. No sprinting required.

Also at the same stand: D.O.T., a compact two-player abstract duelling game. I know almost nothing about how it plays, which is exactly the right amount to know before walking up and asking for a demo.

Stand 2-628 | unfringed.co/fetchingfeathers | @unfringedthings on Instagram

Hall 3

Smallfolk — Roc Nest Games (Stand 3-205)

Most games that go near mythology reach for the same shelf: Norse gods, Greek heroes, the usual suspects. Smallfolk goes somewhere more interesting. Greek, Japanese, Arabic, and Celtic folklore, drawing on stories that do not always make it into the mainstream. The theme alone is enough to get my attention.

It is a tableau builder (where you build a personal collection of cards in front of you that generate points and bonuses) for 1 to 4 players. Each round, players travel a central board collecting illustrated story cards. The twist is that cards have emotions. To score them, you need to match the right icons in your tableau to make them happy. Get the combinations right and the bonuses stack. Get it wrong and the tableau feels passive.

The artwork is genuinely beautiful. The sort of thing you want sitting on the table before anyone has read the rules. I will be at this stand.

Stand 3-205 | smallfolk.backerkit.com | @rocnestgames on Instagram

Orloj and Gaudi — Kosmos (Stand 3A-130)

Two games on one stand, both on my list.

Orloj had people talking all through Essen 2025, and now the English edition from Devir is out. It is a worker placement euro for 1 to 4 players built around Prague’s famous Astronomical Clock. You are a master builder competing to add the legendary calendar to the clock face, assembling zodiac spheres, calendar months, and Apostle figures. The clever bit is that workers are placed on the clock face itself and you rotate the mechanism to configure your turn. Three mastery tracks to advance. An efficient combo system that rewards planning. The artwork looks like stained glass come to life.

Gaudi is a different kind of game entirely. It is based on the hexagonal tile that Antoni Gaudí designed in 1904 to pave the floor of Casa Batlló in Barcelona. Players take turns placing up to three hexagonal tiles adjacent to those already played, matching patterns and shapes to score. Two to six players, thirty to forty-five minutes, ages eight and up. It started life sold through museums and design-adjacent shops before coming into general distribution. That origin story is part of what makes it interesting. Some games are built to be games. This one started as something else entirely.

Stand 3A-130 | devirgames.com | @devirgames on Instagram

Cat Earth — Outset Media / Frog Hall Games (Stand 3A-318)

If the Earth were flat, cats would absolutely knock things off the edge. I cannot believe it took this long for someone to make this game.

Cat Earth is a two to four player game for ages eight and up. Giant mischievous cats roam a flat world while players use movement cards to send them bounding across the board, toppling rivals’ houses into the abyss. Last player with houses standing wins. It plays in about thirty minutes. The box is the play surface. I do not know who approved this but I want to shake their hand.

This is not a game of deep strategic weight. It is going to be chaotic and funny and it will almost certainly result in someone making a very indignant noise when their last house disappears into the void. That is exactly what I want from a thirty-minute game at a convention.

Stand 3A-318 | outsetmedia.com | froghallgames.com | @outsetmediagames on Instagram

Night at the Zoo — Albi (Stand 3-774)

A hidden movement game set in a zoo after dark, trying to spot animals before they disappear back into the shadows. The idea alone has me sold.

This looks exactly like the sort of game I want to introduce to people who think they do not like board games. Accessible, atmospheric, and genuinely clever. Hidden movement (where one or more players move secretly and others try to locate or catch them) is one of the most fun mechanics when it is designed well, and a zoo at night is about as good a setting for it as I can imagine.

Stand 3-774 | Albi

Foxglove Farm and Bookshelf — Alley Cat Games (Stand 3-902)

I have a soft spot for Alley Cat Games. They make games that feel considered rather than rushed, and Foxglove Farm has been on my radar since it was announced.

It is the sequel to Timber Town, set in the same world. Players build a growing tableau made up of building tiles connected by trail tiles, producing and processing goods into points across four rounds. Timber Town was a good game. Everything I have seen suggests Foxglove Farm builds on it properly. Available for pre-order at the stand, which is the kind of decision I will almost certainly make and then justify on the train home.

Also at the same stand: Bookshelf, which is the latest addition to Alley Cat’s tin game line. It is a cooperative dexterity stacking game where players work together to balance miniature books on a growing tower of cards. Each card tells you which books to place and where. The cat moves up a shelf each time a new one is added. Do not let it fall. Teach it in two minutes, play it anywhere.

Stand 3-902 | alleycatgames.com | @alleycatgames on Instagram

Mariners — Owen Davey Games (Stand 3-962)

Owen Davey’s debut board game Fame and Fable was one of our top games of 2025, so a new release from him is something I was always going to look at. Mariners is his new sci-fi adventure. You are exploring strange new worlds with resource management and deck building at the heart of it.

That combination already sounds like a good time, but honestly, Owen Davey’s artwork is reason enough to stop at the stand. Fame and Fable is also available to demo at Expo if you have not played it yet, and it is going into retail later this year. Do not walk past this one.

Stand 3-962 | Owen Davey Games

Pondscape — Pink Troubadour (Stand 3A-474)

A card-drafting tableau builder about filling a pond with real frog species. Yes.

You are filling a 3 by 5 grid pond by drafting frog and habitat cards from a shared display each round. Take one card, optionally move a shared jumping frog, then place a card from your hand face-up or face-down. Face-up cards contribute frogs, habitats, and scoring conditions. Face-down cards become water and trigger immediate effects. Groups of the same frog score more when their conditions are met.

It is a quiet spatial puzzle with real depth underneath it. One to four players, ages eight and up, thirty minutes. Also at the Pink Troubadour stand: Forestry and Pilgrims, both worth a look while you are there.

Stand 3A-474 | pinktroubadour.eu

Railway Porters — Saashi and Saashi (Stand 3-761)

There are some stands at Expo I visit every single year without needing a reason. Saashi and Saashi is one of them. They tend to sell out, so do not leave it late.

This year they are launching Railway Porters. You are a railway porter in the golden age of rail, loading luggage dice onto station boards. Each of the five rounds uses one of six different board sides, each with its own scoring system. The Head Porter rolls two chunky dice to determine which colours are in play, then everyone rolls their own dice and decides how far to push their luck before banking their points.

The clever twist is what happens when someone drops out early: their remaining dice get distributed to the players still in the round. Suddenly someone else’s decision becomes your problem. Small, beautiful, fast, and sharper than it looks. Same formula, new mechanism. I am already planning to go back twice.

Stand 3-761 | saashiandsaashi.com

Personal Demons — Tettix Games (Stand 3A-574)

I keep seeing this one on other people’s lists. At some point you have to stop noticing that and actually find out why.

Personal Demons is a 1 to 4 player spatial puzzler and tableau builder from Tettix Games. The premise is that you are summoning your inner demons in a therapy ritual, drafting demon cards and placing them in a circle. Seals you score early will later flip to cracked versions, gumming up your tableau and forcing you to work around the mess you made at the start. We played a demo copy at a local games night a few weeks ago and I came away genuinely impressed. I was expecting something weird and fiddly. It was neither. The decisions are clean. The chaos is fun rather than frustrating.

The artwork is done entirely by hand in ink by designer Judson Cowan and it shows. There is nothing else at Expo that looks like this.

Stand 3A-574 | tettixgames.com | @tettixgames on Instagram

The Dawn of Pangaea (Stand 3-313)

The world is ancient, unformed, and utterly wild. You are one of the First Spirits of Pangaea, and it is your job to shape it.

The Dawn of Pangaea is a strategy game for 1 to 4 players where you plant seeds, grow forests, and perform rituals to earn victory points and ascend the Sacred Mountain. The clever part is the growth mechanic: when you move your Spirit to a water space, every adjacent seed grows into a tree, including your opponents’. You cannot grow your forest without sometimes helping others grow theirs. The tension comes from deciding when to push expansion, when to dismantle what you have built to complete a ritual, and how to use Ancient Guardians like the Bear and the Turtle to break the rules when you need to.

An elegant system wrapped in genuinely beautiful components. The way the board fills up over the course of a game is exactly the kind of visual payoff I love at a convention table.

Stand 3-313

8 Dragons — Wonderbow Games (Stand 3-T37)

Any game where you play as a dragon is at least 40% more interesting by default. 8 Dragons is here to test that theory.

You are a mighty Dragon soaring across two kingdoms, forming Swarms with Wyrmlings that attach as you fly. When you activate a wondrous location, every Wyrmling in your Swarm benefits. The Wyrmlings can come from any player, which means the interactions are built into the core rather than bolted on as an afterthought. The bit that has my attention is how the downtime problem is handled. Because you are often involved during other players’ turns, the game plays largely simultaneously. More dragon time. That is the correct design decision.

The Kickstarter launches on 9th June. UK Games Expo is the first chance to see it in person. Worth getting eyes on before the campaign goes live.

Stand 3-T37 | 8dragonsgame.com | Wonderbow Games

Hall 4

War of the Toads — AAAR Games (Stand 4-151)

Samurai toads. That is it. That is the pitch.

War of the Toads is an 18-card head-to-head game where each round both players put two toads into battle: one face-up, one face-down. The higher value wins each pair, but the face-down cards flip and trigger effects that can change everything at the last moment. Eighteen cards. Two players. Absolute chaos. This is exactly the kind of game I want to discover at Expo. Small box, sharp design, and a premise that makes you want to play it immediately.

Stand 4-151 | AAAR Games

Drillers — Czech Games Edition (Stand 4-502)

Czech Games Edition is one of those publishers where I will stop and look at whatever they are showing. Drillers is a very good reason to stop.

It is a deck-building game for 1 to 4 players where you pilot mechs into an abandoned mine, excavating minerals and upgrading your deck as you descend. Every card is multi-use. Fuel runs low as you go deeper. Decisions get tighter. Selling minerals on the surface and using drones for logistics adds a resource management layer that gives the whole thing real strategic weight. A meaty euro with a theme that actually feels different.

Stand 4-502 | czechgames.com | @czech_games_edition on Instagram

Meadowvale — Brass Fox Games (Stand 4-854)

There is a type of game that sits at the intersection of pretty and clever, where the table looks beautiful and the decisions underneath are actually worth thinking about. Meadowvale looks like one of those.

It is a strategic tile placement game for 1 to 4 players where you shape terrain and guide wildlife across a shared living landscape. What I find genuinely interesting is the ecological logic. Owls strike from line of sight. Rabbits cluster for safety. Badgers forage along hedgerows. The animals follow actual behavioural rules, which is the sort of detail that makes a game feel considered rather than just dressed up.

The nature theme in tabletop games is getting crowded. Wingspan did a lot of work to establish it and there are plenty of games borrowing from that goodwill without quite matching the substance. Whether Meadowvale earns its place in that conversation is what I am going to find out on the demo table. By most accounts I have read, it is one of the most widely anticipated games at the show. I will be there early.

Stand 4-854 | brassfoxgames.com | playmeadowvale.com

Catvale — FUdice (Stand 4-586)

Rival cats building things and having a scrap in a gorgeous watercolour world. I do not need much more than that.

Catvale is a sandbox adventure-euro where players are competing cats scoring points through cosy construction and battling. It is heading to Kickstarter soon and UK Games Expo is the first chance to see it in person before the campaign launches. That kind of early preview access at a convention is always worth taking up. If it looks as good in person as it does on paper, I will want to know well before the campaign goes live.

Stand 4-586 | FUdice

Aridnyk — Boardova (Stand 4-275)

Before this game crossed my radar, I knew very little about Hutsul folklore. The Hutsuls are Ukrainian highlanders from the Carpathian mountains, and Aridnyk draws directly from their legends.

You are a shepherd travelling through the mountains with your flock, searching for the best pastures and encountering magical spirits along the way. The player with the largest flock at the end wins. Competitive, cooperative, solo, and family modes are all built in, which is a lot of flexibility in one box. The folk-art aesthetic is striking in a way that stands out on a convention floor full of fantasy art and clean euro design. A game that looks like it comes from somewhere specific is a thing I find genuinely refreshing.

Stand 4-275 | Boardova

Craft Stalls, Custom Makers, and Everything In Between

The games are the headline, but the craft stalls are one of the things I genuinely look forward to every year. The board gaming hobby attracts an extraordinary number of creative people and a convention like this is where they bring their work.

There is something that happens at Expo that does not really happen anywhere else. You will turn a corner and find someone selling hand-painted meeples, someone doing custom board game art prints, someone making resin dice in colours that do not exist in any retail product. The quality is genuinely impressive and it is the kind of thing you cannot find anywhere else.

This year I am specifically on the lookout for a few things. First, new T-shirts. The board gaming T-shirt market has quietly become very good and I always come home with at least one. Second, and slightly more specific: I am hoping to find someone who can make custom cufflinks. I am getting married this year and I want something that says something about who I actually am rather than just the default options. If anyone at the show is doing custom metalwork or personalised accessories, I am very interested. If you know someone who will be there, drop me a message.

There is a reason this hobby keeps producing makers and artists. It is a community that takes the things it loves seriously enough to want to own beautiful versions of them. The craft stalls at Expo are proof of that every year.

Open Gaming: The Part I Always Underestimate

Every year I arrive at Expo with a list, a plan, and good intentions. Every year, the open gaming hall takes a significant portion of my time and I never regret it.

Open gaming is exactly what it sounds like: a large hall of tables where you can sit down and play whatever you have brought, or pick up a copy from the games library and give it a go. No pressure, no queues, no agenda. Just games.

Some of my favourite Expo moments have happened in open gaming. The time a complete stranger sat down with us and we ended up playing three games in a row. The first time I played Azul, right there at a borrowed copy on a convention table, which is exactly how it should happen.

If you are thinking about doing some solo gaming while you are there, I have written about that separately.

The open gaming hall is worth at least an afternoon of your time. Build it into the plan.

Five Days and Counting

The list is long. The floor is large. Birmingham is waiting.

I will be posting updates across the weekend. If you are going, come and say hello. If you spot me at a stand looking at a game you love, tell me what you think of it. That is the other thing Expo is good for.

See you on the floor, or in Open Gaming.

Read my Full UK Games Expo Tips Guide