Once again Gen Con did not disappoint in 2026, and Meeple Mountain scoured the halls in full force with a whopping six members of our team swooping down on Indianapolis for the convention. As always, attendance hit all-new highs in terms of con-goers and vendors as gamers from all over the world joined the festivities. With several new additions including a D&D Tower, drone show, and the ever-present construction downtown as the convention center expands to accommodate, there was plenty to be excited about.
Here are our thoughts on Gen Con 2026!
Crawl Con in Full Effect
With the recent crowdfunding efforts by Renegade Games for their new Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG and Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable it was already preordained that Gen Con would be beset upon by the full force of DCC fandom. Couple that with the appointment of author Matt Dinniman and voice of the series Jeff Hayes as Media Guests of Honor to the convention, and you have all the necessary ingredients for a DCC takeover.
Sure enough, heart-patterned boxers and tortoiseshell Persian cats were all over the place, especially when the cosplayers put on their Saturday best for the annual contest. Saturday also happened to be the day when 2,000 crawlers—as members of the DCC fandom are called—assembled for a photo at Victory Field. I’ve never seen such a heavy concentration of a single media work on display as I did over this past weekend. And every Carl received a hearty “Glurp, glurp!” from me.
With the rise in popularity of the books, DCC is becoming incredibly mainstream, much like the meteoric rise of a certain boy wizard book back in the early 2000s. But it’s not all roses for everybody. Some people bemoan the everpresent cosplayers running around in their boxers or complain about how the books aren’t real literature (something I heard one attendee say). Even the use of the DCC acronym rubbed some Gen Con attendees the wrong way for the way that it overwrote the usage of DCC for the longstanding Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game.
Every fandom isn’t for us, but of all the places we could be, Gen Con should be a safe haven for all kinds of nerdy interests. And despite the vocal minority, the enthusiasm for DCC by the majority of con-goers was infectious. As a fan, it’s really cool to witness firsthand Carl ascend to stardom.
A Smorgasbord of Games
Generally speaking, it always feels like there is a game of the convention that everyone is trying to get. The hot item. The cream of the crop. Last year I’d consider that game to be Lightning Train or maybe even 12 Rivers. Before that we had Gnome Hollow and Rock Hard 1977, with Lorcana releasing the year prior. There is always that game that has the crowds buzzing and powerwalking (no running!) through the vendor hall to secure a copy.
This year it didn’t feel like any one game stole the show.
There were certainly games that came up in conversation. Hell of a Deal, the Texas Hold’em boss battler was churning through copies and funneling their fresh buyers directly into a secondary line to get their copies signed by the designer, if desired. Smirk & Dagger sold out of that one, got in some extra copies, and sold out of those as well.
You also have Entropy, a heavy game about creating planets and guiding microbes to evolution. As one of my group’s most anticipated Gen Con games, I really only saw copies in a handful of shopping bags as I walked the vendor floor, but found out after the fact that it sold out on day one. It’s hard to keep a hype train rolling over four days if there aren’t any copies left.
The other closest title that might be a contender was Drillers, but I’m not sure how much of the talk was generated by stock running out versus how well-received the game is. It’s a game about players exploring a potentially valuable mine hoping to find spoils leftover after it was abandoned. The production is gorgeous—certainly enough to draw in the crowds—and without having tried it personally, the gameplay seems to follow suit.
On the BoardGameGeek Gen Con preview page, Drillers sits at the 15th highest game in terms of anticipated hotness with Entropy taking the top spot. That particular preview page is the top source when attendees are trying to find out what game will be the premier ticket item of the year, but I wonder how much of that hype is manufactured. If your game can get a bunch of early “Thumbs”, that increases the likelihood of getting more thumbs before the show starts because people tend to sort the list by games that have the most of them.
As the industry continues to feel the trickle effects of increased tariffs and the uncertainty that comes along with it, the number of high-cost, overproduced games is down. This paves the way for lots of smaller, card-based games to share the limelight that otherwise might be dominated by a handful of titles. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation that goes against my prior experiences at the show.
In the Unlikely Event
I normally don’t schedule myself to attend a bunch of events at Gen Con, preferring to keep my schedule open to either meet with publishers or just crush as many games as I can get my hands on. This year I managed an unprecedented 37 plays of 27 unique games between demos and after hours gaming.
Part of this was due to a much better use of the Board Game Library out on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium. Every year my group books the Friday morning slot at the library and we have historically not shown up right at the starting time of 8AM. Add in a much-needed lunch break and we tend to only get a paltry two games to the table before our window closes at 4PM. This year I did some research ahead of time, cross referencing my ‘Want to Play’ list to the digital database for the library and created a list of 6-7 titles that we could play. We managed to get 4 of them played, a phenomenal improvement especially since I could finally check off Cosmic Encounter and Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion.
Additionally, we picked up tickets to the BoardGameGeek Hot Games room for the first time. The room is touted for having the hottest releases of the convention, offering a way to try those titles in case they aren’t being fully demoed or if you couldn’t get a ticket to one of the publisher’s events to try them out. Overall we found this to be a subpar value simply due to the fact that we didn’t see any of our most hyped games on the shelves for checkout. It’s possible that, with limited copies, other groups had games like Entropy, but because of that we felt like we didn’t get our money’s worth. Plus, someone in our group wanted to squeeze in a game of Go! Go! Go Kart which doesn’t even have an entry on BGG. How can it be in the BGG Hot Games Room without an entry?! At least I was able to score a victory in Excalibur.
I also had a spontaneous event to see comedian Jared Logan do an hour of standup at one of the ballrooms in the Westin. He’s a fantastic game master currently with the Glass Cannon Network, and when I saw that there were spots available the morning of the event I decided to take the plunge. It was one of my highlights of the convention. Despite one annoying heckler (at Gen Con?) who Jared handled very well, the show also had some crowd participation worked into it that ended up giving Jared a chance to show off his improvisational chops.
With so many events available at Gen Con, just because you don’t get into the handful of Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG sessions doesn’t mean your convention is a bust. There’s plenty to see. Not all of it will necessarily be your new favorite thing, but signing up for something at least gives it the chance that it might be.
Literal Whirlwind of a Time
I can’t remember the last time that it rained during Gen Con. Like, really rained more than just a sprinkle. Granted, most of the time I’m inside and the Skywalks can all but guarantee that you don’t need to venture out in the big, wide world except to go on a food expedition.
It’s time to reset the clock.
Shortly after 5PM on Saturday, a tornado formed in the Indianapolis area, bringing heavy rain along for the ride. Attendees who were in the halls were asked to calmly evacuate to designated areas while the storm raged. The tornado dissipated after a couple minutes, but the rain actually managed to do some damage, literally leaking through the roof of the convention center and causing flooding downtown, particularly in the Omni Hotel. The food truck vendors packed up early but that didn’t stop damages to items left behind for the final day of the Block Party.
I missed out on my commemorative Gen Con tornado miniature, but it’s a good reminder that the rest of the world doesn’t stop during Gen Con weekend.
That’s a wrap from us here at Meeple Mountain in terms of Gen Con 2026 coverage, but we can’t wait to see you next year when Gen Con turns 60 in 2027!
