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The Origins Awards, one of tabletop gaming’s longest-running prizes voted on by industry professionals, has crowned its latest group of winners after whittling them down from 120 nominees.

Jon Perry’s Hot Streak continues to live up to its name as far as award wins go, adding party game of the year to a pair of Golden Geek Award wins, casual game of the year in the American Tabletop Awards, and a ‘recommended’ accolade in the Spiel des Jahres.

Matt Leacock’s The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, built on the DNA of his global hit Pandemic, doubled down on its own Golden Geek Award wins by being named cooperative/solo Game of the Year, while Vital Lacerda’s design Speakeasy took the Heavy Strategy Game of the Year award.

Railroad Tiles, designed by Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva, took Gateway Game of the Year, while Will Thompson’s Winter Rabbit was named Light Strategy Game of the Year at the award ceremony, which took place at Origins Game Fair last month.

The awards also recognised Matt Brown and Zara Reid’s conservation-themed board game Kavango with a Sustainability Award, which aim to celebrate games with thoughtful production and publishers which “have taken strides towards sustainable manufacturing to reduce the impact on the natural environment”.

Outside the board game categories, James Parks and Ben Costa’s Land of Eem won Roleplaying Game of the Year, while in the trading card and collectible game categories Riftbound: Proving Grounds won Fixed Constructible Game of the Year, while the Gudnak: Expansion Bundle took the Randomized Constructible Game award.

Games Workshop dominated the miniatures awards, winning both Miniatures Game of the Year with Blood Bowl: Third Season Edition and Miniature of the Year with Warhammer: Age of Sigmar model Festus The Leech Lord.

Goblin Hobbies’ Stampin’ Plates claimed the Paint/Hobby Accessory award, while Luis Silva’s TCG design Shard Bugs claimed Fan Favorite Game of the Year, voted on by Origins attendees.

The awards, which are organised by non-profit trade organisation GAMA, came under fire earlier this year for failing to mention any of the games’ designers for the third year in a row.

GAMA made an effort to rectify that error with its announcement of the award winners, including not only the names of the designers but also the artists who worked on each title.

The Origins awards, which were first presented in 1975, have been in heavy flux over the past few years, going from 10 categories in 2019 to 24 in 2024 – with the make-up of those categories significantly shaken up from year to year.

GAMA briefly introduced categories in 2024 which represented its membership having expanded beyond just retailers, publishers and wholesalers – including recognition for artists, writers and media.

But those segments were quickly dropped again in 2025, with categories cut including Best Media Production, Best Game Related Writing and Best 2D Artwork – although the miniatures segment was expanded from two categories to three, covering games, the miniatures themselves, and paint and accessories.

Separate from the main slate of awards, the trade organisation also revealed its hall of fame entrants this year, awarded – like the Origins Awards – by its division the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design.

AAGAD describes itself as “a peer based network of gaming industry professionals whose mission is to promote innovation and excellence in design and production of games and game related materials”.

Individuals inducted into the hall of fame this year include Richard Borg, famous for his design of the Command and Colors system used by games including Memoir ’44, and Antoine Bauza, the creator of designs including 7 Wonders, Hanabi and Tokaido.

Magic: The Gathering, Pathfinder RPG and Dungeons & Dragons artist Wayne Reynolds was also inducted into the hall of fame.

Origins Awards 2026 – Full Results

Gateway Game of the Year
Railroad Tiles
Publisher: Horrible Guild
Designers: Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva
Artists: Francesco De Benedittis and Barla Tranquilli

Party Game of the Year
Hot Streak
Publisher: CMYK
Designer: Jon Perry
Artist: Cécile Gariépy

Light Strategy Game of the Year
Winter Rabbit
Publisher: Absurdist Productions
Designer: Will Thompson
Artists: Kindra Swafford and Jonni Ketcher

Heavy Strategy Game of the Year
Speakeasy
Publisher: Eagle-Gryphon Games
Designer: Vital Lacerda
Artist: Ian O’Toole

Cooperative/Solo Game of the Year
The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designer: Matt Leacock
Artists: Jared Blando and Cory Godbey

Roleplaying Game of the Year
Land of Eem
Publisher: Exalted Funeral
Designed & Written by: James Parks and Ben Costa
Artists: Justin Gerard, Sean Kiernan, Anneliese Mak, Sam Mamei, Rosario Mendez and Rob Gatto

Roleplaying Game Supplement of the Year
Call of Cthulhu: The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising
Publisher: Chaosium
Designers/Authors: Yukihiro Terada, Jason Sheets, Damon Lang, and Andrew Logan Montgomery

Miniatures Game of the Year
Blood Bowl Third Season Edition
Publisher: Games Workshop

Miniature of the Year
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Festus, The Leech Lord
Publisher: Games Workshop

Paint/Hobby Accessory of the Year
Goblin Hobbies Stampin’ Plates
Producer: Goblin Hobbies
Designed by: Brent Amberger and Casey Alden

Fixed Constructible Game of the Year
Riftbound: Proving Grounds
Publisher: UVS Games & Riot Games
Designers: David Smith and Jon Moormann

Randomized Constructible Game of the Year
Gudnak: Expansion Bundle
Publisher: Chaotic Great Games
Designer: Tim O’Brien and Ian Oliver
Artist: Vittoria Pompolani

Fan Favorite Game of the Year
Shard Bugs
Publisher: Shard Bugs LLC
Designer: Luis Silva
Artists: Ray of Sand, Nelygibi, Julio E. Jácome Paz, María Ayuso, Alma Faustica, Pietro Desirò, Ninamarie, Steve Ozminkowski, Erick Mezart

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GAMA’s long-running tabletop gaming convention Origins has seen its annual attendance fall for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic, even as revenue, exhibitor space and the volume of scheduled events continued to expand.

Attendance slipped to 18,700 at this year’s event in June from a post-pandemic record of 19,171 at last year’s 50th anniversary event – and remains below the all-time high of 20,642 posted in 2019.

While that attendance reflect a recovery from the lows of around 10,500 and 11,500 in 2021 and 2022, when many people were still reluctant to attend large gatherings post pandemic, other major shows such as Gen Con, Spiel Essen and the UK Games Expo had all recovered to beat their pre-Covid highs by 2024.

UKGE has had a particularly strong post-Covid recovery, with its unique attendance roughly doubling compared to its 2019 total to reach 51,000 this year.

Despite this year’s slide in attendance, however, Origins continues to grow in other areas, with new GAMA communications director Kevin Ronnebaum telling BoardGameWire the 2026 show made more revenue than ever amid significant ongoing growth in its scheduled events programme.

More than 8,600 events ranging from industry panels and seminars to tournaments, RPG sessions and creative workshops took place at Origins this year, up 10% year-on-year and growing almost a third compared to 2024’s total.

Underscoring the event’s ongoing reputation as a show to play games at rather than just for shopping, more than 8,000 games were checked out of the on-site game library this year – a new record, and up 22% compared to 2025.

The number of exhibitors remained steady at 413, almost identical to last year and up about 26% compared to the 305 who ran booths at the 2025 event. But this year’s exhibitors ran larger booths on average, Ronnebaum said, with the total space taken up by exhibitors growing 10,000 sq ft to reach 62,720 sq ft.

Big names from 2025 who did not return to exhibit this year included Hachette Boardgames, Cephalofair Games, Chip Theory Games, and Queen Games, although the show did attract attendees such as Blue Orange, Eagle-Gryphon Games and CoolStuffInc who did not run booths last year.

Ronnebaum said that positives about the event from GAMA’s point of view included a better registration experience and care of VIP and premium badge holders, further growth in RPGs and improved organisation in how exhibitors were onboarded, which he said received positive feedback.

He added that challenges which reared their heads included the decision to stagger booths this year rather than position them in a neat grid, which he said had proved “a little confusing” for attendees.

That confusion was apparent in online discussion of the event, with some visitors reporting that locating specific exhibitors had become more difficult and that the show floor felt harder to browse efficiently.

Not all feedback was negative, however, with some attendees acknowledging the layout changes seemed to aid in persuading visitors to dwell at individual booths rather than just rushing along the aisles.

Origins, which takes place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Ohio, is set to return between June 9 and 13 for its 2027 show.

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