Toronto Games Week 2026 Recap
It's been a little over a month since Toronto Games Week 2026, and I wanted to actually write something about it because it was SUCH a rewarding event to take part in it as their social media manager, an event organizer, and attendee!
This year, I was given more freedom and responsibility in terms of my position at Toronto Games Week! Which meant that I did a lot more branding and design for the event! Some things I'm particularly proud of are designing and creating the pamphlet for the event, and pioneering the Media Pass program. I also put a greater focus on creating video content for the event this year, which greatly paid off. I had such a good time chatting with event organizers, game developers, and attendees!
This year, there were around SIXTY total events, so it was basically impossible to visit all of them. Let's talk about some of the ones I did attend!
Some Events I Attended
Giant Video Games Opening Party
One really special thing this year is that Lady Arcaders was able to participate in the Giant Video Games opening party organized by the City of Toronto with our own "Learn how to Speedrun with Lady Arcaders" e-sports booth. Very cool seeing people coming up to talk to us, being like "I could never" and then try it out and beat a game in under 5 minutes. I hope we get the opportunity to participate in the future!
The G.R.I.D.
I got to chat with a few game developers at The G.R.I.D.! Shoutouts to lazlo for being my camera person! This is such a cool event if you've a game dev, it's very cool to see a bunch of games in different stages of development.
Freeplay
Barcades are always a fun time! I mention this one specifically because it was $10 admission for the event, but they had some employees standing outside with a challenge to win free admission, and they told us if we did it, we'd win admission for our whole group of 6 people.
A few other people tried, but I was like, okay, I'll bite. There was a timer and a button, and the challenge was to press the stop button at 3 seconds on the dot. And I did it! I still cannot believe it.
CTRL-ALT-DELICIOUS
We ended up at this event right as it was starting to close down. A group of us wandered over after lunch time (...okay it was a long wander) and got to play a few things before they packed up. There were a lot of cool alternate controller games, but they also had an entire room set up with a physical four player game, where everyone has a different dashboard. It kind of reminded me of Spaceteam, and somehow that's not the only time I'll mention that game in this post.
Night Parkcade
We also got to the Night Parkcade a bit later after bar-hopping around Toronto, but we got to play a cool co-op game called Shapeshifters by the same person who made Spaceteam! Everyone connected on their phones, and the game was projected on a screen in the park. We had to work together to complete tasks as a group of around 20 people. It was difficult, but we succeeded!
Out of Bounds Torontrois
Lady Arcaders also held Out of Bounds Torontrois, our third in-person speedrunning event at Toronto Games Week! We had a lot more people come in from out of town this event, to the point where we were split into several groups doing outside activities! It's generally just been one big group in the past, it's wild to see the growth. It's starting to feel like a real convention now and it's a bit scary.
The event itself went really well, the space was great, and a lot of people just hung out and chatted in between watching speedruns because we had a bit of extra chill space near the back of the venue. We also had a larger set with a segment team this time, and those were very fun to take part in.
Everyone's speedruns were awesome, I was so happy to be able to show off Headlander at an in-person event! I can't wait to see what next year will bring!
The Beautiful Game: A Playable History of Soccer Video Games
The actual Toronto Games Week exhibit was very small, but we had a great time playing some retro soccer games, and then taking the rest of the day to enjoy the museum with our small group, now that OOB3 was over.
Really enjoyed checking out the dinosaur exhibit, but also going through the bat cave, and seeing the exhibit they had on bees! They had a tube that went outdoors and the bees could fly into it and contribute to the honeycomb on display. Really cool stuff.
Closing Party
The venue for the closing party was really sweet, it was a huge space and it had great lighting. Sound at times was difficult to follow, but it was a total vibe.
I was a huge fan of the whole storyline that was unfolding regarding the Bad Vibes Wizard, so shoutouts to Hypergame Storytime and the Dream Game folks for putting it together. And of course, to the Bad Vibes Wizard for being such a great sport.
And finally...
Thanks to everyone who shared photos and videos from the event, there's so many different events to attend now (over 60!) so it's nice to be able to see people having fun from afar!
Toronto Games Week is a really special event. The intersection of arts and gaming is where I belong, and it feels really good to be able to influence, advertise, and take part in events like this. I'm so glad to be involved with it! Can't wait for 2027!