by W. Eric Martin

BoardGameGeek's awkwardly named Q1 2025 Convention Preview is now live, although the preview itself bears the name "Spielwarenmesse/FIJ/GAMA Q1 2025 Preview", which isn't much better.

Typically, BGG's convention previews focus on a single convention — SPIEL Essen, Gen Con, PAXU, etc. — but three shows — Spielwarenmesse in Nürnberg, Germany; Festival International des Jeux in Cannes, France; and GAMA Expo in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. — take place at the start of each year and feature many overlapping titles from globe-spanning publishers, so separate previews for each would be tiny and repetitive.

Better to put them all in one place...and while doing that, I also surveyed publishers on titles they plan to bring to retail in the first half of 2025. The end result is a mish-mash of upcoming games that will hit the retail market in the first half of 2025 or will be demoed at the three conventions above regardless of when they'll be released. (In other words, expect to see some of these titles appear once again on the aforementioned Gen Con and SPIEL Essen previews.)

In addition to compiling these upcoming games in one location for you, I use these surveys to spur publishers to submit game listings, images, release dates, etc. I'm the bug in their ear saying, "Bzzz bzzz bzzz", which translates to "You should probably tell people what you're working on."

I'll update this preview through the end of February 2025, at which point I'll start working on previews for shows later in the year.

A sampling of what's listed