Attending Tokyo Game Show 2026

Tokyo Game Show 2026

I had the pleasure of attending Tokyo Game Show 2026, which also happened to be its 30th anniversary. Despite a typhoon grazing the Tokyo region, the venue was still quite packed.

The event was split across two buildings. The primary building housed Halls 1-8, where the big publishers and developers had their booths and exhibits. Halls 9-11 were in a different building that required walking across skyways to access. That second building housed the main merchandise shops for the publishers and game studios. Both buildings had separate entrances, so you could pick and choose where to start your day.

For the first public day, I chose the merchandise building so I could get my shopping done and out of the way. I arrived around 8:30, and the line for that entrance wasn’t too long. I was able to enter at 9:30. I made a beeline for the Koei Tecmo shop because I had my sights set on a specific item there, then tackled the CAPCOM shop afterward.

One thing I noticed was that both the SEGA/Atlus and Square-Enix shops had the largest, most consistent lines. I believe that was because both publishers were showcasing multiple large games. That said, the merchandise they were selling wasn’t immediately reflective of those games, so I was a bit confused why so many people lined up for those stores. I’ll share a picture below showing all the merch I got on day one, along with a lot of the free flyers and demo goodies.

I visited a few more locations there and met up with some friends who had just arrived. We explored this hall and looked at the various merchandise before heading upstairs to see the indie game section, then crossing the skywalks to the main building housing Halls 1-8.

The indie section was quite nice and had a ton of new games I hadn’t heard of before. One game I especially needed to try was Bad Magpie, which was announced at this year’s XBOX Showcase. As expected, it takes the great elements of Untitled Goose Game (different developer) and changes up the puzzles to make them a bit more hectic. I look forward to its full release.

Once we made our way to the main building, we started from the opposite end of the main attractions and worked our way through.

It was quite the spectacle seeing all the major Japanese publishers and developers show up with displays for the games they were promoting. I won’t be able to highlight all of them, but I’ll try my best to tell you what caught my eye.

For starters, they had a massive section for Sanrio and the Sanrio Party Game. Think Mario Party, but catered more toward the female demographic with Hello Kitty and friends.

CAPCOM showed up in force, but mostly to give players a chance to try games that are already out, such as Street Fighter 6, Onimusha, Resident Evil, and of course Monster Hunter Wilds. Monster Hunter had the bigger presence there for CAPCOM because of their newest expansion being announced.

Konami came out strong with a big push for the new Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse (which I had the pleasure of trying), as well as some other games I wasn’t too familiar with. They also had a small corner for the latest Yu-Gi-Oh! GX game.

Palworld made another enormous splash this year with a grander booth, grander giveaways, and grander displays of everything Palworld-related. It’s been neat to see it expand over the years, and it’s clear that Palworld is here to stay.

SEGA/Atlus had a joint booth showcasing both Stranger Than Heaven and Persona 4 Revival. On the backside, they also had something for Crazy Taxi World Tour.

Bandai Namco focused on both Dragon Ball Xenoverse 4 and their new Gundam Rogue Orbit games. Rogue Orbit even had a mock pilot chamber for people to play a demo inside, but those tickets were extremely limited.

Last but certainly not least, Square-Enix probably had the most impressive booth of them all. There were at least four photo spots with 3D life-size models to pose with, on top of multiple video game demos for their latest announcements and releases, such as Romancing SaGa 3, FF7 Revelation, and next month’s Final Fantasy Resonance. They left a large mark on this year’s show, and I saw a lot of Final Fantasy cosplayers.

On top of these large publishers, several PC peripheral companies were there showcasing the latest keyboard and mouse technology. Another interesting point was seeing various countries with dedicated booths to showcase games being developed there — everything from Russia to Brazil, India, Korea, and Spain, to name a few.

That basically closes out the first day I went. I got the merch I needed and got to look around and see what games were being shown off.

For the second day, I arrived with a different friend, with our sights set on trying both the FF Resonance demo and the Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse demo. Little did we know that a ridiculous number of people had already shown up hours before we did, not including all the “fast pass” holders, so the line was extra long. On top of that, we were being buffeted by a typhoon, so everyone was out with umbrellas, soaked, as we waited for the doors to open at 9:30.

That being said, we struck out on trying any of the Square-Enix demos. All of their tickets ran out, but we were fortunate enough to get the Castlevania one. With that demo ticket secured, I showed my friend around the convention hall to the other booths I mentioned above, then we returned to try the demo. I really liked how they dressed up the Castlevania portion of Konami’s booth. They had some great artwork from the game on display, as well as an atmosphere to match.

The demo was a 20-minute timed experience that let you explore the first two “biomes” in the game. It gave you a great feel for the basics: Rose’s movement, weapon arsenal, boss fights, enemy encounters, and so on.

The only issue I had was not being able to fully hear the game’s sound and music. That was because the headphones weren’t really noise-canceling, plus the sheer wall of noise both in and out of the booth from everything happening in the hall. Despite that, I really enjoyed what I played. At the time of this writing, a public demo of this game is being released soon, so please check it out.

Even with all the negativity around PlayStation, Sony set up a large booth for people to demo a wide variety of games, including Wolverine and GTA VI, I believe. They too ran out of tickets rather quickly. That might also have been because they had another set of FF7 Revelation stations.

One game I must highlight is Star Wars Galactic Racer. I was first curious about it because it was a Star Wars racing game akin to the infamous Podracer game of the ’90s. When I found out that ex-Burnout devs were working on it, I knew I had to get my hands on it. Instead of only podracers, you can now race with three more types of vehicles: the regular landspeeder, speeder bike, and the new skim speeder. The demo lets you choose which one you want for a two-lap race, but the opening sequence has you testing out these three new speeders before the actual race. Gameplay felt great. The vehicles truly felt high-speed, and each one controlled differently. I think they will each serve a different purpose depending on how you want to win races, and all of them have their own weaknesses. The game also has vehicle utilities like weapons that can stun or destroy other speeders around you. Of course, each one comes with its own afterburner mode and a “ramjet” boost that will make you self-destruct if you hold it too long. I believe the game will have a dedicated story mode, but I’m really curious how far customization will go for your player character and vehicle of choice. I really hope it lets people go wild with the designs, because that would make the game more unique for each player. Each time I played the demo, I was rewarded with a mini patch with a random emblem for one of the vehicles in the game. I only got 3/4 patches, but it was still a really nice free gift compared to some of the other booths.

Overall, Tokyo Game Show 2026 was an amazing experience, and I’m glad I took the time to visit.

Here is all the merch I bought.

Here are the items I got for free for trying out demos or just walking past booths. As you can see, I tried out Star Wars Galactic Racer three times and got these small velcro patches for it.

Now to give a quick explanation on these two images, the first image is 2 framed posters, and those were prize lottery items in which you buy 1 chance and you are guaranteed a prize; however, if you are lucky, you can win a grander prize. So on my first day I got the poster on the left, and on the second day the right one. I also got some pin badges, file folders with a design on them, and a small card stock photo too. Of course the second image has a lot of items I purchased too from the Koei Tecmo booth that I mentioned in the beginning.