In ye olden days prior to Covid, Hasbro had an off-site, multi-floor exhibit during Toy Fair NY to display all of its upcoming products, so it was a surprise in 2026 to find Hasbro having a booth on the exhibitor floor just like everyone else. I mean, the booth was completely walled in and accessible only by appointment, so that was the same as in ye olden days, but still — different!
What wasn't different, though, was the focus on licensed products that match what's already available on shelves, such as this display of holiday-themed games:
The Game of Life: Elf, Candy Land: Elf on a Shelf, Clue: Home Alone, both Monopoly: The Nightmare Before Christmas and Monopoly Deal: The Nightmare Before Christmas?! The Grinch appears in both Operation and (another) Monopoly Deal because why not?
The only unbranded titles here are three versions of Jenga Mini, which feature small plastic tiles in various colors, with the pastel version being released for Easter, the purple and orange one for Halloween, and the red, white, and green one for Christmas. "Do they have any rule changes or twists?" I asked hopefully. No, they do not.
When KPop Demon Hunters became an unexpected hit on Netflix, multiple articles popped up to explain why so few licensed products were available. (Answer: Its hit status was unexpected.)
Having surveyed both Spielwarenmesse and Toy Fair, I will comfort anyone worried about a lack of such products that you will soon find them everywhere you look, whether you want them or not. Here's a third new version of Monopoly Deal, for example, and the umpteenth version of Monopoly.
For variety(?), you could instead turn to Monopoly Deal: No Mercy, which follows in the footsteps of UNO and Flip 7 by having a "mean" version of a game that can already be somewhat mean when played normally. Anyone who thinks that "take that" doesn't belong in a game design hasn't played games with "normal" people, if you know what I mean.
Ye olde game Crossfire will return in a new edition in July 2026, with the goal being to shoot all of the ball bearings into places where they can't be recovered so that you need to buy yet another edition of the game.
I had not heard of Tonies prior to visiting the Hasbro booth, but Tonies is apparently a (sort of) interactive electronic play device for young children, with you placing a "sleeve" on top of the device to give it the parameters of the story, activity, or game the children will be involved with. Hasbro has created Monopoly, Guess Who?, and The Game of Life modules for use with Tonieplay.
I find it odd that Tonie touts itself as "a screen-free gaming experience" when it's...an electronic device gaming experience. I mean, true, no screen is present, but as I understand the situation, the "screen" itself is not the bogeyman; neglect of your children in the care of an electronic babysitter is. (I have issues with that argument as well, but I just wanted to point out the absurdity here. You might as well tout an "arsenic-free gaming experience".)
As far I can tell, SERVD has been around since 2023, and it's one of those designs that's called a "card game", but would be more accurately described as a "card-based activity".
SERVD comes in different editions — Couples, Friends, Summer Daze, Newborn Parents, and Kids vs Parents — but the principle is the same: You split the cards among participants, and whenever the situation seems right, you serve a card to someone to make them do something, whether that's to pay you compliments, do an activity they don't want to do, organize a day trip, etc. That person now has that particular card, so they might serve it to you in the future, and the cycle continues ever thus.
Hasbro has now added SERVD to its catalog, and we should anticipate Monopoly Deal: SERVD hitting the market in 2027.
As noted in a February 11, 2026 post, revenue from sales of Magic: The Gathering was up 59% in 2025 compared to the previous year, so you should expect much more Magic for as long as that gravy train keeps pouring. Pictured here are the four display cases within the Hasbro booth, with no individual cards being shown or available.
Magic players must learn how to do a French tuck if they want to accessorize their games with the proper clothing.
Dungeons & Dragons: Welcome to the Hellfire Club will include characters played by the characters on the Stranger Things television show that can now be played by you, with those characters participating in adventures supposedly created by the ST characters.
I imagine that the cost of building my own six-foot-tall sculpture of a hand out of OKTO Sensory Art material would be prohibitively expensive, so I'll have to be satisfied with this image, which reminds me of the animated teddy bear in Akira.
