Last month’s MCM comic con event saw record numbers as it attracted over 131,000 fans of comics, movies, anime, games and more, sightly surpassing the 130,560 from the previous most attended mcm event in October 2015. Once again, hordes of visitors journeyed to the longtime home of the event, the London Excel centre.

A wide range of talks, events and meetups took place, as well as tons of vendors for all sorts of geeky merchandise and thousands of fans ready to add something new to their collections. Loads of Special guests also attended, such as stars from the worlds of TV, Film, Games and many internet and YouTube personalities. While many consider anime and movies to be one of the big draws of the convention, the increasing focus on gaming continues to bring in many who come to see, play and compete.

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ESports

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What started off as a fairly lukewarm attempt at integrating the the growing esports scene info the event a few years ago, the esports aspect of the show now commands its own separate area, supported by big PC gaming and esports brands like alienware, scan, red bull.

Bandai Namco

As one of the larger developers featuring japanese games, Bandai Namco has been a staple of London MCM for many years, while constantly seeming to increase their presence at the show each year. This year’s event saw their orange-hued booth space return, featuring its own event stage and gigantic display upfront, for various talks and events held throughout the show. The heavily anticipated Tekken 7 was on show on stage and in the booth for people to play for themselves, as well as many upcoming entries in well known series such as Dragonball XenoVerse 2, Tales of Berseria and Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, and a few new IPs like the mysterious ‘Little Nightmares’.

NIS America

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While not on the same scale as Bandai Namco, NIS America also had a mini stage/viewing area inside their booth where they showcased some of their upcoming games, held quizzes and competitions and even held some talks with developers like the creator of harvest moon, Yasuhiro Wada, on his new game, ‘Birthdays the beginnings’. Also in the booth was several demo stations with games like Trails of Cold Steel 2, Psycho Pass Mandatory Happiness. Elsewhere, NISA had also brought along Suda 51 (Killer 7, No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw) to talk on one of the main event stages at the show about the remake of The Silver Case (Which NISA are publishing).

PQube

 

 

Indie Games

 

The Indie games presence among the gaming part of London MCM is also one of the most interesting aspects which continues to grow and showcase dozens of interesting games from smaller developers, some including games created by just 1 or two people! Some of our highlights were Mekazoo, a bright and colourful platformer with a wide range of abilities for you to traverse the environment, and Snake pase, which features a happy little snake that you can control by slithering along the ground, up walls and branches, over obstacles and more.

Gravity Rush 2

One of the most unexpected games being demoed at this year’s mcm was Gravity Rush 2 which came in the form of two lonely ps4 demo pods on either side of the mcm buzz stage in one of the convention centers halls. As far as I could tell, there hasn’t been any major announcements prior to the event that gravity rush would be there and neither Japan studio or Sony / PlayStation had their own booth at the event, making GR2’s random appearance even more surprising. The demo was an English version of the TGS demo that appeared last month and gave you a chance to try out Kat’s new skills and transformations that will be usable in the full game when it releases next year.

Cosplay

Here’s a selection of some of our favourite cosplay from the weekend

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And finally, we’ll end with this mini shrine created for con-goers to pay their respects.