The earliest major amusement trade expo of the year, EAG 2025 (Entertainment Attractions & Gaming Expo), has now long come and gone at London’s ExCel venue, so it’s high time we looked at all of the new arcade games that will be hitting the UK and Europe in the coming weeks and months.
As mentioned before in our preview, this year has seen a few changes to the show, with the new Social Immersive Entertainment Expo (SIEX) and London Casino & Gaming Show (done to replace ICE for that industry, which is now being held in Barcelona, Spain) appending both sides of the EAG floor. There were some apparent concerns the latter in particular would overwhelm the event, however from the sounds of things they struck the right balance between the three.
I (Adam/Arcadehero) couldn’t attend again, but AH co-contributor Ted attended the first day, and Kevin Williams (who has additionally covered the show for the LBX Collective) was also naturally around a lot, being an ambassador for the aforementioned SIEX – many of the photos you see below are from them. Where his are superior, a few also come from Toby Na Nakhorn at Freeplaycity, who have posted a great album of what was there on their Facebook page.
Bandai Namco Amusement Europe
Bandai Namco had a big booth located at the heart of the EAG show floor as usual, showing off a few of their recent developments and lots of product from the companies that they exclusively represent in Europe (Raw Thrills, Adrenaline Amusements, JET Games and Andamiro), alongside a few prize redemption pieces from Leon Amusement and Superwing out of China. Note that though their initial EAG preview (and ours) also said they would have TouchMagix’s Minions Bullseye Mania, it didn’t appear in the end – as can sometimes happen, this was held up in transport by some shipping delays.
The main attraction for most video game fans attending the show was of course GoldStorm Pirates, making its first European appearance. Ted finally got to play it the whole way through here and was quick to praise it in our Discord server; to him, it felt like a culmination or “greatest hits” of sorts for mounted gun shooters, with elements from the likes of The Ocean Hunter, Let’s Go Jungle and Island (plus even The Walking Dead at one point) all mixed in together with Deadstorm Pirates as the base.
Taiko No Tatsujin fans will have to wait a bit longer for the game to land in Europe (which shouldn’t be surprising, considering how long it took the game to appear at IAAPA after its initial US tests), but in the meantime, the cute interactive Don Chan kiddie ride is already making its presence felt over there, alongside the similar Wani Wani/Gator Panic equivalent. These weirdly aren’t even available in the States yet, but that isn’t stopping Bandai Namco from showing them off everywhere they go.
After being revealed at last year’s EAG but not shown off proper, Animal Kaiser Plus also made a prominent appearance here, with the same promotional lounge area as last year and now a big bank of four machines. The UK has long been a stronghold for this IP since its earlier days, to the extent that the release of the game last year was even handled in the UK before it came Stateside. It also sounds like it’ll be reaching more locations there soon, with Hollywood Bowl picking it up nationwide:
Electrocoin
Though their glory days of being the main UK source for Taito, SNK and Capcom may be long gone, Electrocoin are still alive and kicking on the arcade scene. In recent years they’ve been most prominent as the main distributor for Konami in Europe, largely selling Dance Dance Revolution A20+ over the past few years to any interested operators there. That’s always been in contrast to the US, where their product has only been available to major chains – though that could change at some point…
Despite there still not being any other Konami games than DDR A20+ at EAG 2025 (not even Contra Burst tested in the US recently), Electrocoin’s usual line-up of Stern pinballs, including the new Dungeons & Dragons, make sure that the rest of their portfolio isn’t completely dedicated to redemption. Note that EAG 2025 was the first amusement-focused trade show appearance for D&D, after it debuted at CES 2025 earlier this month – it should also be shown at Amusement Expo in March soon.
A couple of new kid-focused games from Taiwanese company I-Cing (who we don’t seem to have mentioned on AH before), Race Away and Planet Blaster, did additionally appear on Electrocoin’s booth; although it sounds like they aren’t selling these – InterGame reports these were brought along by Gary Newman of JNC Sales (see their booth below), and they are still seeking a proper distribution deal for them. I-Cing attended IAAPA Europe themselves last year though, so they are definitely doing the rounds.
Harry Levy
Harry Levy had a big booth co-located with several other distributors, including Crown Direct. A lot of what they brought seemed to be either redemption or gambling machines, but they are also selling Ace Amusement’s cheaper GoldStorm competitor Skull Of Shadow into the region. This was on hand in its four player tethered gun upright and two player mounted gun sit-down environmental forms, unlike IAAPA, where the latter did not appear (Ace had the three player version using mounted guns and stools instead).
JNC Sales
Though JNC Sales operate as a used cabinet sales company, they do distribute some new pieces. This seems to have been growing in recent times, as they pick up more lines from different Chinese companies. Here these included Crazy Drone by ZS Cheer, which we mentioned a little while back for looking like a Drone Racing Genesis clone. Turns out it might be trying too hard to be different – apparently its mix of racing and shooting gameplay is too much at once… also in eyebrow-raising similarity, Nitto Game’s Dinosaurs World should look familiar to anyone who knows Dream Raiders and Jurassic Park Arcade.
Sega Amusements
More than anyone else, Sega Amusements seemingly went all in on the new Social Immersive Entertainment Expo component of the show, making for a packed couple of booths. Their main half for EAG mixed in cranes and videmption (Zombies! Ready, Deady, Go!, SEA’s Big Sea Fishing) with titles they distribute for LAI Games (IGS/Wahlap’s Asphalt Moto Blitz, Ace’s Air Strike) and of course the latest original titles they have made with 3MindWave (Apex Rebels, Alpha Ops VR Strike), alongside small spots dedicated to Sega Total Solutions, Sega Prize International, and the Sacoa card system they represent.
Ted has said that although Alpha Ops VR Strike was still missing its third level (and using the same prototype cabinet design glimpsed late last year), all the minor graphical glitches seen on the 75% build at IAAPA were no longer evident, which is good to hear. Hopefully the version they bring to Amusement Expo in March will be even better, with the projected April/May release window for it being closer by then:
Apex Rebels was there again too, now fully complete as at IAAPA last November (albeit not in a four player configuration – space is at a premium, even on a big booth like SAI’s). Ted got to play its second expert level course Motorland Sakura for the first time here, and found its ancient Japanese shrine-inspired twists and turns fun. It’d be great to see a lower cost version standard version of the game land sooner than later, but if one does it might not be for another year or so, judging from past cases (ATV Slam etc).
The other half of SAI’s booth was more dedicated to showcasing ICE’s newest redemption pieces distributed by them (most prominently Neon Bowling), as well as On Target from Leon Amusement, plus specially for SIEX, 501 Fun’s augmented reality darts, and their brand new golfing simulator that didn’t show up at IAAPA. Word on the street is that 501 have a few other non-darts things in development for the competitive socializing side of things, which should be revealed in the coming months.
UDC
UDC rival Electrocoin in the long-standing UK distributor stakes (and are based right by them in London), though what they have picked up has varied over the years. Currently they are the source for nearly every new Ace Amusement game besides Skull Of Shadow and Air Strike over there, which keeps things simple and shows their strong relationship with them now. In fact besides some ELAUT and Playmore pushers, StepManiaX, kiddie rides and new gachapon, their booth was almost entirely dedicated to Ace product.
The company showed off three new Ace titles which were not among those that appeared at IAAPA: Air Combat, Bikers Madness, and Wild West Shootout 2, all previously seen at the Chinese trade shows last year. Ted echoed what Oga-Shi already told us about the first of those from AAA 2024 – though it may look like a new take on After Burner Climax, it actually plays more like the lesser-known Sky Target. Meanwhile Bikers Madness seen on the right here looks like Super Bikes but with two screens.
It’s surprising Wild West Shootout 2 hasn’t appeared in America already, given the relative success of the original, though Ted said he didn’t detect much of a difference between it and the new one shown at EAG 2025 gameplay-wise. Meanwhile, Ace games on the booth that have already made it over to the States included Surf League from last year and Wave Riders X-Treme, both represented by Coastal Amusements. Amusement Source International are also releasing Super Drill this month.
Social Immersive Entertainment Expo & More
Now onto some of the odds and ends of the show, be it from the main EAG portion or the Social Immersive Entertainment Expo portion, which did have a few interesting developments around.
One of the companies appearing as part of SIEX was Hero Zone VR, who we’ve mentioned once or twice in the past. Here, they showed off their free roaming arena and something new from Oculeap that popped up on our radar late last year – Zombie Frenzy. This takes the VR Agent format and throws hordes of zombies at it, though it isn’t quite a total House of the Dead clone, with more static gameplay and some thematic differences according to Ted. He also said the headset/gun controller was harder to manage than the lighter one seen in VRA/Alpha Ops… but the graphics sound satisfactory.
Retro Arcade Specialists UK brought the pinball action for other companies outside of Stern, including Homepin, Pinball Brothers, Barrels of Fun and American Pinball (no Jersey Jack though – they are sold into Europe by Pinball Heaven, who didn’t appear in the end). This photo comes from their Facebook, where they were fairly active throughout the show.
Cosmic Leisure have picked up HY Technology’s whacker toy vendor, which we first saw back at AAA 2024:
Raw Thrills and Play Mechanix had their very own booth of sorts, or at least one dedicated to them appending Bandai Namco’s (which had F&F Arcade, Super Bikes 3 and Big Buck Hunter). This was full of existing games, including Halo, NBA Superstars, Godzilla, Angry Birds Boom, and even Jurassic Park, which is now a decade old…
Finally, to the side of both the main show booths and SIEX was a very nice looking area dedicated to arcade history, made in association with Arcade Britannia author Alan Meades (which had its own interactive game here). It’s cool that EAG have done this, considering all the recent talk on here about the importance of arcade history:
There were some notable absences too; Instance Automatics made the unfortunate decision of pulling out of the event, meaning UNIS’ latest games couldn’t be seen on the show floor, and there were some big titles that didn’t make it over from IAAPA. Besides Minions Bullseye Mania mentioned earlier, IGS/Wahlap’s Kaiju Rampage strangely didn’t appear, despite LAI Games being represented in Europe.
As well as smaller ‘indie’ companies (e.g. MonkeySplash Studios), AH favorites Alan-1 and exA-Arcadia also had no games there – the former because the Atari rights situation in Europe is unusual, the latter because they believe IAAPA serves enough of a purpose for attracting European sales already with its international visitor segment. Hopefully things will change on both of those fronts some day though…
Overall
On the whole, it sounds like EAG 2025 was successful for most involved. The Amusement Network have a good summary on the atmosphere and attendance observations. From much of what’s been said by Kevin, Ted and others who attended, the new format with the SIEX and the gaming show was pulled off fairly well, with room for it to be possibly even better next year.
Next up in trade shows over here will be Amusement Expo International during March, which AH will be covering with several posts and videos as usual. Interestingly enough, after Ted got back he also pointed out that one month after AEI, there will be another UK amusement show too – the new Amusement & Retail Entertainment Expo in Manchester. It sounds like most of the major companies (BNAE, SAI, Electrocoin etc) will be at that so expect some reportage there as well.
For a few video tours if you’d like to see more from the show, check out these uploads from Pinball News and Arcade Unknown. Which new arcade games seen at EAG 2025 are you most interested in?
