Anime Expo 2026 wrapped up this past weekend in Los Angeles, running July 2 through 5 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Now in its 35th year, AX is consistently the largest Japanese pop culture convention in North America, drawing around 410,000 turnstile attendees in 2025 and selling out again this year. While the event skews toward anime, manga, and cosplay, the gaming floor has grown into a legitimate destination for game announcements and hands-on demos, and 2026 was no exception.
The biggest gaming story out of Anime Expo this year is Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game from Paramount Games, which had 16 playable demo stations on the floor and confirmed its July 23 launch across Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles, and Nintendo Switch. The fighter features a roster including Aang, Korra, Zuko, Katara, Toph, Azula, Sokka, Kyoshi, and more, with an original story mode co-written by Tim Hedrick and outlined by series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino. Pre-orders are live now and include a Samurai Appa support skin, gold color variants for six characters, and a vote on a Year One pass character.
Capcom used AX’s Gaming Lounge, powered by 75 MSI Crosshair 18 laptops, to put several upcoming titles in front of players. Onimusha: Way of the Sword and Pragmata were both playable on the floor, giving attendees rare hands-on time with two of Capcom’s more anticipated upcoming releases. Street Fighter VI and Avatar Legends ran free-to-enter tournaments daily throughout the event.
On the announcement side, Aksys Games held its annual AX panel and came loaded. The localizer confirmed Another Eden Begins, a new time-traveling RPG from Masato Kato with music by Yasunori Mitsuda, coming to Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 in 2027. Also announced were Cthulhu Mythos Adventures for Holiday 2026, vertical shoot ’em up Bounty Sisters for Fall 2026, and puzzle adventure UNDERGROUNDED for Fall 2026. Two more titles, Illusion of Itehari and Olympia Soiree: Catharsis, round out the Spring 2027 Nintendo Switch slate.
For a convention that does not bill itself primarily as a gaming show, AX 2026 delivered a genuinely solid weekend for players, with a mix of imminent launches, playable previews, and Switch announcements that will keep the backlog well stocked into 2027.
