EGX, formerly known as Eurogamer, is the largest gaming expo in the UK, and this year’s event was the biggest yet.
Ubisoft were out in force with Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Rainbow Six: Siege, Tom Clancy’s The Division, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. However, EA’s stand showcasing Star Wars: Battlefront had to be the largest, with a full-size TIE-Fighter on display. Sadly, you were not able to get inside it, although there was a TIE-fighter pilot for posing with.
That is not to say that the other stands were lesser quality, as the stand for Mad Max had their own police Interceptor, whilst the Just Cause 3 stand was offering free energy drinks. Total War: Warhammer had a giant spider crashing out of their stand. Thankfully, no one seemed to be arachnophobic (or if they were, they were keeping well clear).
Halo 5 was also on offer, but it sadly seemed to be drowned out by the other stands. EGX2015 was seriously big…
What was particularly pleasing to see was the huge numbers of indie developers in attendance, showcasing their latest and forthcoming games. These games varied from simple pc-based card games through to frenetic first-person shooters such as Pixelbomb Games’ Beyond: Flesh and Blood.
Many classic video games were also being showcased on the colossal retro gaming stands, including numerous arcade machines and pinball games from many a person’s youth.
There were even a ton of board games, including several tables of Warhammer Fantasy battle to tempt the wargamers there.
What were also big this year were the queues. Not only did you need to queue to enter the convention (longer if you had made the mistake of deciding to buy tickets on the day), with the whole of Hall 19 dedicated to ticket sales and their queues, but you also needed to queue to play the games. These delays were particularly annoying, but little could be done to alleviate this.
Thankfully, the presence of many cosplayers served to distract queuing gamers with their awesome costumes. They were always happy to pose for photographs.
For those interested in pursuing video game development as a profession, there was also a small careers fair, with delegates from various universities across the UK, as well as some from Microsoft.
Despite the sheer numbers and scale of the event, apart from the queues there were very few – if any – organisational issues that could be discerned. The EGX team had the experience and the logistics to handle this size of event with ease.
Overall, EGX2015 was a massive video game event for the UK, and quite possibly the largest to date. How they attempt to surpass themselves next year though will remain to be seen.
For more pictures Go HERE and HERE
and For Interviews go HERE – we have also added some to the bottom of this article.