Tag: videogames

Tokyo Game Show 2026: 30 Years of Games, Cosplay and Immersion

Tokyo Game Show 2026 celebrated 30 years with five packed days at Makuhari Messe. From incredible cosplay and Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 to MOZA Racing and my unexpected discovery of Azeron, these were my highlights from TGS 2026.

Tokyo Game Show 2026 celebrated its 30th anniversary with its biggest and longest edition yet, and it was absolutely worth attending.

I don’t do many video game conventions, or really many events that aren’t somehow related to cars. My company mostly works in the automotive world.

But TGS is different.

It’s one of those events that I never want to miss, and every year I do my best to be there.

This year, Tokyo Game Show was bigger than ever, running for five days instead of the usual four. And from the moment I arrived on Thursday, one thing was immediately obvious: there were a lot more people than I expected.

A lot.

TGS Feels Like a Collection of Small Worlds

The first thing that always strikes me about Tokyo Game Show is just how curated it feels compared with many other events.

When you visit the booths, they aren’t simply stands with a few screens, posters and demo stations.

Many of them feel like small worlds where the characters actually live. They’re more welcoming, interesting and engaging.

They make you want to stick around, look at things, talk to people and figure out what is happening inside.

Even attending professionally, it’s difficult to simply walk past some of these booths.

Thursday was already extremely crowded. At certain points, Thursday morning actually felt busier than Friday would have.

If I hadn’t known I was attending a business day, I would have assumed it was a normal public day.

Saturday made me understand just how wrong I was. The crowd, despite the rain and the approaching typhoon, was insane. The same halls where I was shooting pictures and videos the day before, thinking it was too crammed, became close to impossible to walk. 

Yet, the energy remained vibrant and joyful. Saturday was my last day as I won’t be attending Sunday (and there was an update – due to Typhoon 25, TGS have decided to cancel the scheduled last day of the event, Monday September 21).

In any case, let’s move on with my impressions on this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

TGS Understands Cosplay

Some of the best cosplayers I’ve seen anywhere are at TGS.

They look amazing and act amazing. It isn’t simply a person wearing a good costume.

Their expressions, movements, poses and behavior are part of the character, and the booth itself becomes part of the performance.

But what makes the biggest difference is the environment surrounding them.

This is something I think TGS understands considerably better than many cosplay-focused events.

One criticism I have made repeatedly in my articles is that cosplayers often bring an enormous amount of entertainment and visual value to an event, yet somehow get treated like an afterthought.

They’re pushed into a corner, given very little room, and expected to create a show out of nothing.

TGS does almost the exact opposite. Here, cosplayers are integrated into the booths themselves. Exhibitors create these little micro-worlds where the characters actually have somewhere to exist.

Obviously, this is marketing. There’s money involved and the cosplayers are part of the presentation, but the end result is that they actually get the space to shine.

The costumes are impressive, but what I like even more is the immersion it creates for the people watching them. For a few seconds, you’re not just looking at somebody dressed as a character; you’re looking into that character’s world.

The Games That Caught My Attention

There were several titles that immediately caught my attention.

Danganronpa 2×2 was obviously one of them. The first one of the now-franchise was shocking and revolutionary. If you have not yet played it, do it. The second one will have to somehow surprise also the old players who know the game and who are now definitely on the look out for surprises. I’m curious to see what they come up with.

Then there is Grand Theft Auto VI, a game that feels like we have collectively been waiting for since the beginning of recorded history.

And then, of course, there is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.

Call of Duty is always a mixed bag for me. I’m very attached to the franchise. I used to play it a lot.

But everything moves incredibly fast, and I don’t mean in game, but in marketing. A new title appears, you start playing, unlocking weapons, understanding the meta, experimenting with everything and trying to actually complete the game. Then suddenly another one is coming.

If you spend an enormous number of hours gaming every day, maybe that’s fine, but if you’re like me, somebody who is a completionist but absolutely does not have the amount of free time that a professional gamer has, it becomes complicated.

Monster Hunter creates a completely different problem. I went into that franchise really wanting to like it. I really, really wanted to like it, but for whatever reason, I could just never properly get into it.

Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance looked good. The presentation looked good, the gameplay looked good, and I imagine that if you’re already invested in Monster Hunter, there will probably be plenty there for you.

For me personally? Meh.

Dragon’s Dogma Still Has My Loyalty

On the opposite side of the spectrum is Dragon’s Dogma II: Dark Arisen.

Dragon’s Dogma, for me, is one of those franchises that has accumulated a massive amount of goodwill. That doesn’t mean every part of it has been perfect.

Dark Arisen itself was never the best game I have ever played, but the franchise as a whole has earned enough credit with me that it can disappoint me several more times before I finally decide that we’re done.

Total War Meets Warhammer 40,000

Then we get to one of the games I was most interested in playing at the entire show:

Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000.

Two of my favorite franchises finally colliding.

Obviously I had to play it. The half-hour demo disappeared incredibly quickly. It mixes very familiar Total War elements with completely new mechanics.

There are certain aspects that feel related to Total War: Warhammer, particularly when it comes to units having individual abilities, but 40K immediately felt denser.

A lot of units seemed to have multiple abilities available from the beginning, and the battlefield itself felt completely different from what I’m accustomed to.

Now, granted, this was literally my first time playing it. Initially, everything felt fairly chaotic. There were a lot of colors, effects, units and information blending together on screen, and I found myself wishing some elements were visually separated a little more clearly. But that could very easily be because I simply didn’t know what I was looking at yet. I’m also extremely sound-oriented when I play games, and during the demo I couldn’t really hear much of the game itself.

For me, that meant trying to understand almost everything visually.

From that first half hour, I definitely think there is going to be a steeper learning curve but I also think Warhammer 40,000 fans are going to find a lot to love, and Total War players are going to have a ridiculous amount of new material to learn.

The number of factions alone creates huge potential.

If Creative Assembly gets this right, I think it could have the kind of impact on Total War that the original fantasy Warhammer crossover had when it first arrived.

And Then There Was Palworld

Of course, while walking through an event like TGS, occasionally you encounter the booth that simply refuses to let you take pictures, for whatever reason. This time, it was Palworld.

On Thursday, this honestly annoyed me.

There were cosplayers posing around the booth, but people weren’t being allowed to photograph them. This was during business hours, and there appeared to be something like 30 staff members surrounding the area, with a surprising number of them seemingly dedicated to making sure nobody took pictures. That included media.

I didn’t particularly understand the logic, especially at an event where so much effort is being put into building spectacular environments that people naturally want to photograph and share.

That said, I went back to the Palworld booth on Friday morning, and it was visually phenomenal. The booth was extremely well curated. The lighting was great, the environment looked fantastic and the cosplayers were absolutely on point.

It was an amazing booth. I just don’t particularly enjoy the way I’ve personally experienced their approach to media access, especially because I’ve encountered similar issues around Palworld at Comiket before.

Friday: Time for the Hardware

By Friday, I started spending more time with hardware rather than only games.

One of the first things I tried was the full MOZA Racing motion simulator.

And it was honestly kinda awesome.

It was the whole experience: Seat. Rig. Movement. Everything.

I was more than just slightly concerned about whether my weight would be a problem. I didn’t particularly want to climb into an expensive motion simulator and discover, in front of everyone, that I had found its structural limit.

Apparently, however, the setup can handle somewhere around 350 kilograms. I’m heavy, but I’m not that heavy.

To make things better, I got to drive a Lamborghini Huracán GT3. That made the experience a little more personal because my friends at The Spirit of FFF Racing have been campaigning a Huracán GT3 EVO2 in this year’s Japan Cup. And with the Huracán reaching the end of its racing life, it was kind of nice getting to drive one, even if only virtually.

The simulator itself was genuinely impressive. On my second run, I started pushing considerably harder. The simulator challenges you even physically to hold the car on its track.

Azeron Might Be My Biggest Surprise of TGS

The biggest highlight for me on Friday, however, and something I don’t think is going to be topped very easily, was Azeron.

Saying that this product fascinated me, is an understatement.

Azeron has created a gaming keypad that is difficult to properly describe until you put your hand inside one. You could call it an alternative to a keyboard, but you really wouldn’t do it justice. The amount of customization is ridiculous.

Virtually every movement of your fingers can become an input. Everything you touch, clicks. Everything that clicks is a key. Every key is fully customizable.

Presses. Flicks. Different directions. Different fingers. Multiple layers of commands. The result is a device that allows you to interact with a game in a way I had genuinely never experienced before.

Physically, it fits your hand like a glove. The size can be adjusted, but it goes much further than that. The individual finger mechanisms themselves can be repositioned, allowing the entire device to effectively form itself around your hand. Once properly adjusted, your fingers naturally rest where the controls are.

I spoke at length with the guys at Azeron, and I want to publish that full interview separately because the story behind the product is almost as interesting as the device itself.

As they explained it to me, the entire thing began because the creator was frustrated with using a conventional keyboard for gaming.

Azeron’s basic philosophy makes a lot of sense: Keyboards weren’t actually designed for video games.

The original prototype was apparently made from wood. Later came 3D printing, experimentation, prototypes and eventually the device I was able to try at TGS.

What I find particularly interesting is that, according to the story they told me, there wasn’t initially some enormous business plan behind it. It was a gamer trying to solve his own problem. Then things moved very differently.

That personal solution eventually became a real product, and potentially one that could fundamentally change the way some people interact with games.

I want one for a proper test.

Actually, I want one badly enough that after trying it, I immediately started thinking about all the people I wanted to show it to.

For shooters, I can immediately understand the appeal.

For MMOs? That’s where I think this could become a literal game changer.

I want to test it properly before making any definitive claims, but Azeron was easily one of the most interesting things I discovered at Tokyo Game Show.

And it absolutely deserves an article of its own.

TGS After Hours

Another completely new part of Tokyo Game Show for me this year was experiencing what happens after the doors close. For the first time, I attended some of the parties surrounding TGS.

I went to the Red Bull party.

I went to the TGS party.

I was also planning on going to the Twitch party, but by the time I was ready to head over, it was already too late. Apparently, that one only ran from around 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. Still, seeing this side of TGS added another dimension to the experience.

And Finally, Saturday

I’m going back on Saturday, but I’m not going to force another day of written coverage unless something genuinely spectacular happens.

Instead, Saturday has one purpose.

Cosplay.

I know you guys like cosplay, and after what I saw during the business days, I want to see what TGS looks like once the public arrives in full force.

So rather than ending this article with another thousand words, I’m going to let the pictures do the talking.

Thank you all for reading.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Tokyo Game Show 2026 through my eyes.

There’s a lot more coming.

EVO Japan 2026: My First EVO Was a Guinness World Record

EVO Japan 2026: Inside the Record-Breaking Fighting Game Tournament at Tokyo Big Sight

Tokyo Big Sight, May 1–3, 2026 — EVO Japan was bigger than ever, and for one game in particular, it became historic.

This was my first EVO. Not just my first EVO Japan. My first EVO, period.

I remember when EVO started becoming a thing. I was young, (although, clearly, not as young as a lot of the people who now compete in this massive fighting game tournament) and it always seemed like one of those cool, niche gaming events that only the truly dedicated followed closely.

What I never expected was that EVO would become one of the most important events in the entire fighting game industry.

And I definitely never expected that one day, my first EVO would be in Japan, at Tokyo Big Sight, as media, during an edition that would include the largest single-game fighting tournament ever recorded.

Life is funny sometimes.

EVO Japan 2026 was held from May 1 to May 3 at Tokyo Big Sight, using East Halls 1–3, and this year’s edition was the largest in EVO Japan history, with 12 main titles and a record-high total prize pool of 30 million yen.

But let’s be clear: I didn’t write this article for people who already know every player, every matchup, every frame trap, every patch note, and every tournament storyline.

If you are that person, you already know what EVO is.

I wrote this more for the curious visitor. The casual gamer. The person who likes games but maybe does not live inside the FGC (fighting game community). I also wrote it from the perspective of someone who organizes events for a living, because I could not help but look at EVO Japan not only as a fan, but also as a production.

And from both perspectives, EVO Japan 2026 was fascinating.

Walking Into EVO Japan

As you enter the big hall of Tokyo Big Sight, the first impression is not chaos, but scale.

The room is large, dark, and strangely open. Blue light washes over the hall. Rows and rows of gaming stations stretch across the floor. Monitors, consoles, controllers, arcade sticks, cables, cameras, players, staff, commentators, and spectators all form one gigantic competitive machine.

EVO is built for fighting games first.

Not shopping. Not casual wandering. Not random stage shows. Not general entertainment.

Fighting games.

The layout tells you immediately what matters here: the screens, the matches, the players, and the brackets.

In the center of the hall, a large main stage dominates the space, surrounded by smaller stages and production areas. It feels closer to a sporting event than a typical gaming convention. There is a seriousness to the way everything is organized. People are here to compete, and people are here to watch people compete.

That part was extremely impressive.

A Tournament That Made History

The biggest headline from EVO Japan 2026 was Street Fighter 6.

The Street Fighter 6 tournament reached 7,168 entrants, officially setting a Guinness World Record for the largest tournament for a single fighting video game. The previous record was 7,083 entrants, also held by Street Fighter 6 at EVO 2023 in Las Vegas.

That number is hard to fully understand until you see the event in person.

Seven thousand one hundred sixty-eight people entered one game.

Not one event.

One game.

From those thousands of players, only eight reached the final stage. And in the end, Japan’s Yamaguchi won Street Fighter 6 using Mai, defeating Punk from the United States, who played Cammy. Higuchi finished third with Guile, and Hope from Taiwan finished fourth with A.K.I.

For a first-time EVO attendee, that is a pretty insane piece of history to walk into.

The 2026 Main Games

EVO Japan 2026 had 12 main titles, mixing current heavy hitters with older, cult-classic fighting games. The lineup included Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear -Strive-, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, The King of Fighters XV, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, 2XKO, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes, Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage, Hokuto no Ken, and Vampire Savior.

That mix was one of the most interesting parts of the event.

You had modern giants like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8, new titles like 2XKO and Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, and older cult games like Hokuto no Ken and Vampire Savior, which gave the event a stronger sense of history.

That matters because EVO is not only about what is new.

It is also about what survived.

Some games are not just products. They are communities. People keep playing them for years, sometimes decades, because the systems are deep enough, broken enough, beautiful enough, or strange enough to keep people coming back.

That is part of the magic of fighting games.

Who Won EVO Japan 2026?

For those who want the quick results without diving through every bracket, here are the main winners:

Street Fighter 6 was won by Yamaguchi from Japan, using Mai. Tekken 8 was won by iKARi from South Korea, using Kazuya, defeating last year’s champion Knee in the final. 2XKO was won by Hikari from the United States, using Akali and Ahri. Guilty Gear -Strive- was won by Tyurara from Japan, using Sin and Ky. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves was won by Xiaohai from China, using Billy Kane.

Other winners included Oushuu-Hittou for Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes, Yutta for Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Kasausagi for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, M’ for The King of Fighters XV, Virgo for Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. World Stage, K.I. for Hokuto no Ken, and Kaji for Vampire Savior.

  • iKari’s victory over KNEE and show or extreme respect

The full results matter, but for a casual visitor, the bigger takeaway is simpler: EVO is international.

Japan was strongly represented, of course, but the winners and top players came from Japan, the United States, South Korea, China, Taiwan, France, Pakistan, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, and more. Even if you do not know the names, you can feel the global weight of the event.

The Production Was Extremely Serious

One of the most impressive parts of EVO Japan was the production.

There were cameras everywhere. Matches were being broadcast from multiple angles. The main stage had the feeling of a proper sports broadcast, and behind the scenes, there were full production teams coordinating what looked like a very complex operation.

From the perspective of someone who organizes events, this was probably the strongest part of EVO Japan.

The event understands what it is trying to be for the audience watching from home.

That is important. EVO is not just an event in a hall. It is a broadcast product. It is a livestream. It is a global competition that many people will experience through Twitch, YouTube, clips, highlights, reactions, and social media.

On finals day, the seating areas made the room feel even more like a sporting event. People gathered around the stage not just to “see gameplay,” but to witness a moment.

The crowd reacts differently when something is happening live in front of them. You can watch a match at home, but you cannot fully reproduce the feeling of hearing hundreds or thousands of people gasp at the same time.

That is where EVO shines.

The Floor Needed More Entertainment

That said, as much as I enjoyed EVO Japan, I also felt something was missing.

The tournament side was extremely well done.

The floor entertainment was weaker.

This is not to say EVO Japan was boring. If you love fighting games, you are in the right place. If you are competing, supporting friends, following specific players, or watching finals, the event gives you exactly what you came for.

But if you are more of a casual gamer, or if you came with friends and are not deeply invested in the brackets, there were moments where the event could feel underwhelming.

EVO Japan 2026 did have booths, playable demos, merchandise, activities, and exhibitions. For example, 4Gamer reported booths from SNK, 2XKO Japan, exA-Arcadia, VRoad, and the EVO Museum, with playable titles, photo areas, cosplay opportunities, and fighting-game-related displays.

But emotionally, the event still felt very tournament-first.

And I understand that argument. EVO is a tournament. It should be focused on the matches.

But even the Super Bowl has a halftime show. Sometimes the entertainment around the competition is what pulls in new people who later become real fans.

From a purely cold, cynical, business perspective, more floor entertainment means more engagement, more content, more reasons to stay, more reasons to bring casual friends, and more chances for people to discover games they were not already following.

The hard-core audience is already there.

The next growth layer is everyone else.

The Cosplayers Deserved More Space

One of the best parts of the event floor was the cosplay.

Fighting game characters are perfect for cosplay: exaggerated silhouettes, strong colors, iconic poses, impossible muscles, ridiculous weapons, and outfits that make absolutely no sense in real life but look amazing on camera.

At EVO Japan, cosplayers moved through the hall, gathering for photos with each other and with visitors. Some were funny, some were cool, some were sexy, and some were incredibly detailed.

Among them, you could also spot Kaho Shibuya, who helped bring attention to the EVO Museum and the culture around the event.

But I felt the cosplayers could have been given a better stage, or at least a more intentional space.

This is not just because they deserve respect for the time, money, and effort they put into their costumes (although they do).

It is also because cosplay is a show.

It adds color. It adds movement. It adds content. It gives photographers something to shoot. It gives visitors something to remember. It turns the event from a tournament into a culture.

EVO Japan already has the competitive heart.

Cosplay helps give it a face.

The EVO Museum

One of the sections I was most interested in was the EVO Museum.

The museum gave the event a much-needed sense of history. It reminded visitors that fighting games did not begin with modern esports, LED walls, sponsor booths, or social media clips. They began in arcades, on CRT screens, with heavy controllers, endless local rivalries, and people standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for their turn.

At EVO Japan 2026, the museum included historical arcade controllers, fighting game art, figures, and displays connected to major fighting game titles. LevelUp Logy reported that the space displayed past arcade sticks and controllers, major fighting-game artwork, and figures, with many international fans stopping by.

4Gamer also reported that the EVO Museum featured historical PlayStation arcade controllers, fighting game character displays, a HORI controller timeline, figures, and even an area where visitors could experience “Moment #37,” the legendary Daigo parry moment from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, using different arcade controllers.

This was exactly the kind of thing EVO Japan needed more of.

For the experienced fan, the museum is nostalgia.

For the new visitor, it is context.

For someone like me, who grew up with games and remembers when being a “nerd” was not something celebrated, it was strangely emotional.

There was a time when playing games too much was seen as something embarrassing. Now, the history of those games is being displayed in a museum inside one of the biggest fighting game events in the world.

That is a pretty beautiful change.

The Vibe Outside EVO

One thing I did not expect was how much was happening around EVO, not just inside EVO.

Tokyo Big Sight was full of people playing games outside the main tournament structure. If you like card games, you would have been happy. People had taken over tables, playing, trading, talking, and competing in their own way.

That kind of thing matters.

The best events create gravity. People do not only attend the official program. They gather around it. They create their own side quests. They meet old friends. They make new ones. They bring their own games, their own decks, their own communities.

That is when an event becomes bigger than its schedule.

EVO Japan had that feeling.

Maybe the floor itself could have used more entertainment, but the people brought energy with them.

And sometimes that is more important.

EVO Is Worth Attending

Would I recommend attending EVO Japan?

Yes.

Especially if you like fighting games, gaming culture, esports production, cosplay, or just want to see what a true competitive gaming community looks like in person.

It is probably the closest you can get to a major sporting event without being trapped in a stadium with 40,000 people. It has the stakes, the drama, the national pride, the crowd reactions, the heroes, the upsets, and the heartbreak.

But it is also more accessible, more niche, and somehow more personal.

Your day at EVO passes quickly if you let yourself move around. Watch a match. Shoot some photos. Visit the museum. Check the booths. Talk to cosplayers. Watch a finals crowd react. Step outside and see people playing card games. Come back in and see someone you have never heard of defeat someone the whole room knows.

That is EVO.

It is not just about the game on screen.

It is about the people who care enough to show up.

Final Thoughts

EVO Japan 2026 was not perfect.

As an event organizer, I think it could do more for casual visitors. More floor entertainment, a stronger cosplay area, more interactive experiences, more lifestyle elements, and more reasons for non-hardcore visitors to stay longer would make the event even stronger.

But as a first EVO?

It was special.

I attended my first EVO in Japan, as media, during the largest EVO Japan ever, while Street Fighter 6 broke the Guinness World Record for the largest single fighting game tournament.

Not bad for a first time.

And honestly, it made me want to go again.