We are headed to Origins 2026!

In a little under a week from now, GamingTrend will be at Origins Game Fair 2026! Origins is one of the premier tabletop conventions in North America. Five days of gaming, tournaments, seminars, workshops, and interacting with our favorite publishers.

Attending conventions and being completely immersed in the hobby is hard to beat. What gets us most excited, though, is seeing the new 2026 releases and sneak peeks at what is coming next year. You can find a full list of previews over on BGG,but here are some of our favorites:

Excursions

A “reimplementation” of Galactic Cruise that shares a lot of the same mechanisms and setting, but plays faster. Galactic Cruise was a hit at GamingTrend, and I am excited to see what Kinson Keys can do to continue to innovate on the strong foundation they created with Galactic Cruise. Crunchy Euros in space? Yes please.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/468800/excursions

Moytura

This is a 2-player game from Bitewing Games that explores competing factions in ancient Ireland battling over control of the country. It’s not a stuffy wargame, though. Ancient deities and mythological creatures are at your disposal, and it features a really interesting mechanism where three additional clans controlled by the game serve as an additional opponent. With 7 maps to choose from and variable clan combinations, it looks like it has a ton of replayability. Plus a solo and coop variant if that’s more your speed.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/447252/moytura

Drillers

Honestly, this one just has amazing table presence. Players will be exploring an abandoned mine with awesome-looking mechs. A bit of push your luck, bag building, area control, and exploration. This game has it all. Drillers is coming from hitmaker CGE and looks stunning.

ttps://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/465669/drillers

Crits & Tricks

Who doesn’t love a cool trick-taking game lately? Some people might be getting tired of these by now, but I am not one of them. Crits & Tricks looks pretty wild. You draft quests, roll dice, hire mercenaries, and did I mention that cards don’t have numbers on them? Outsmart your friends to get the most loot! This one sounds amazing.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/436907/crits-and-tricks

These are just a few of the amazing games coming out in the next year. Hopefully, over the course of 5 days, we get to try them all and maybe get surprised by a few others as well. Are you going to Origins? Let us know what games you are most looking forward to and what reviews you’d like to see on GamingTrend!

—Mark Julian