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Last week I was able to attend this year London Toy Fair, an amazing (and very busy) event organized by the British Toy & Hobby Association . This annual event showcases thousands of products to a large audience making it the UK’s largest dedicated toy, game and hobby trade show. This year there were more than 250 exhibitors including, as you can imagine, some boardgame designers and publishers. Among them, there were five in particular that caught my eye as quite interesting products to buy in 2025 and I wanted to share them with you (in no particular order):
1) The first game I am really looking forward in 2025 is Disney Villainous Unstoppable. Produced by Ravensburger, this boardgame will be based on the popular Villainous franchise as the name suggests. However, Unstoppable will not be an expansion for the standard game but a completely new type of game. We will still see some popular Villains from known Disney movies and some familiar components, but the strategic elements in the new game have been changed to make them easier to grasp for younger players.
First, there are no character specific boards but instead three is a central board AND a character board that slots into any of the side of the main board. Both boards show a path with multiple action icons (similar to those we have for Villainous) and a character token can travel through both boards following the path. In order to move their token, players will play a card from their hand for their movement value BUT in order to activate the icon where they land they will also need to play a second card from their hand showing the same icon. As the number of cards in hand is limited, players will need to strategize which card to play in order to move by considering which card they have to accomplish an action. Actions may also cost Power tokens as they do in the classic Villainous. During their turn, Characters will be able to move in and out from their board and onto the shared board to widen the actions they can take. In addition, some spaces may be improved to allow multiple action to be taken at the same spot.
The aim of the game for all players will be still be to complete their chosen Villain evil plot and the best part is that is of them will be composed by four parts. For example, Scar will need to recruit four Hyenas, Ursula will need to turn four habitants of the sea into Poor Unfortunate Souls etc etc. This design will surely make easier to try different characters without the learning curve you may have in the classic game while all other strategic elements will provide a good level of challenge for all players. It is not clear yet if we will have more expansions for this game in the future, but I will be surely interested to try this game once it releases.
2) The second game that is definitely on my list for 2025 is “Gwent: The Legendary Card Game”. All fan of the The Witcher and of Gerald's adventures will immediately recognize this bordgame is based on “Gwent”, a minigame included in the 2015 hit “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” that was subsequently also released as a standalone videogame (“Gwent: The Witcher Card Game”). Now the Canadian publisher No Loading Games has partnered with CD Projekt RED to release a physical boardgame based on the Gwent card game that will be distributed by Hachette in Q3 2025. I had the pleasure to meet the Hachette team at the fair and to admire what will likely be a massive hit among the fans of The White Wolf.
In Gwent, two players take the role of commanders of card-made armies that clash on a battlefield. The game starts with each player building their own decks using cards from the original factions of the game (Northern Realms, Scoia'tael, Monsters, Skellige, and Nilfgaard). Each of these will feature a unique set of cards and abilities and, most important, they will all be fully available in the core game. Once their deck ready, players will take turns deploying their units onto a battlefield featuring multiple rows. The army with the highest Strength points will win although the tides of the battle will constantly be influenced by weather cards as well as by the special abilities of some of the players units. The goal of the game is to win two out of three rounds although players will only be able to draw 10 cards from their deck to use across all 3 rounds. The challenge of Gwent relies on how well players can mange their resources, anticipate the opponent strategy and even bluff to get an advantage using the deck they prepared.
One of the best part of the new boardgame published by Hachette is the fact that it will include all cards from the original video game. Being a Collectible Card Game (CCG),Gwent will not require any additional purchase and all players will have access to the same cards. Truth said, there will some cards with alternate artwork available to discover by purchasing additional booster packs but they will only add to the cosmetic aspects of the game. I quite like this design as it will really promote the deck building and strategic aspects of the game, more than the luck of pulling the best cards from the packs. It seems that Hachette will also promote local tournaments and other opportunities for players to meet and win prizes but we will learn more when the game releases later this year.
3) At the Hachette stand at the fair, I also found that we will soon see a brand-new card game for children and families from the hilariously comic strip “Bunny vs Monkey”. This new game, named “50 Heroes”, allows the players to gather weird heroes you may have seen in all Bunny vs Monkey books and band together to face the Great Evil lurking within the Enchanted Forest. The game is designed to be a fast paced family-friendly game with all players pushing their luck in order to recruit the best heroes before the Villain card is drawn. Once this happens, either one player succeed in defeating the Villain and wins the game or all players lose.
The premises of the game and the art I saw on the cards look really nice. I know for sure my son and his friends will love playing this game when it releases in May considering how much they love the comic. They will likely appreciate this game even more when they will find the rulebook is designed as a mini-comic book to provide both the rules and the backstory of this adventure in the same style of the comics. Will there also be some weird jokes and funny moments? Most certainly.
4) Along with all these nice boardgames for adults and kids I saw at the London Toy fair, I could have not missed the opportunity to review two new chapters in the escape-room series EXIT: The Game. The first one linked to the classic boardgame “Catan” and it will be published by Thames & Kosmos as part of Catan's 30th anniversary celebrations. As in the original game, “Exit: The Game - Adventures on Catan”, will still requires players to trade for resources in order to build out an island and discover more resources. However, it seems players will need to face numerous challenges and riddles in order to succeed as you can expect in all games of this series. I always find the different version of Exit: The Game to be quite enjoyable and well designed and I am really looking forward to see what the gameplay for this new one will be like.
And if you haven't had enough brain teasers after playing this EXIT game, you could also pre-order the next EXIT Calendar Advent “The Intergalactic Race”! The next level in the series of calendars created in 2022 by Thames & Kosmos will feature a race around the globe that I think will very much resemble the rush Santa has to experience every year. I don't want to spoil the fun for me or anyone else therefore if you want to know more about the story and how you can win this amazing race, you will just have to wait the 1st of December.
5) The last game that caught my eye is “Australis” from Thames & Kosmos. “Colourful” is definitely the first word that came to mind when my eyes landed on the beautifully painted ocean board and at the nice wooden components. However, I learnt from the kind staff at the fair that there is much more strategy to this game that meets the eyes at a first Glance. The game is based on the East Australian Current, a sort of high-speed underwater highway where “sea turtles swim amidst beautiful flora and fauna”. Yes, that's the one you may remember from the Disney Movie “Finding Nemo” and also, yes you got to play as one of those turtles. The game is a mixture of different mechanics including dice management, area control and engine building. Each turn, players roll a number of dice of different colours to determine both the order for the round and the actions available to all players. Once the turn order decided, players will pick one dice at the time to perform the associated action of gain a bonus. Dice will allow players to move their turtle, getting food, obtain cards or placing their token on coral beds. At the end of each round, player gain victory points for coral bed presence, the number of fish their turtle ate, and its position along the current. There is also a very peculiar “dice showdown” at the end of each round that was quite an unexpected but very fun element in this game.
The main aim of the game is obviously to collect the highest amount of points by the end of the game as you may expect in a Euro style game. However, I think Australis ranks on the light end of the Euro games making it a very nice game to have if you like the mechanics but you don't want to engage in long and super heavy game. The beautiful artwork also contribute in making this game a nice one to have when spending time with your family and friends.
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