CreatureCantina.com breaks down Toy Fair NY 2026!

by Bill Cable
on 2026-02-25, 10:13:56

A week and a half ago I flew into NYC for the annual Toy Fair New York, a convention where toy manufacturers reveal their products for the calendar year. With The Mandalorian and Grogu releasing in just three months, I expected to see tons of products with those characters plastered all over them, and maybe even stumble across some new reveals. I was... surprised by what I did find.

This was it. This was the only new reveal at the entire show. A mercenary battle droid (Roger Roger!).

The almost total lack of The Mandalorian and Grogu product on the show floor was shocking. Usually with a huge movie release you'd see it on backpacks, notebooks, ephemera, party supplies, and all manner of bits and bobs. There was none of that. There was product from LEGO (which we couldn't photograph), and Jazwares (which we'll get to soon), but not the tsunami of product I anticipated.

There is one caveat... there was an embargo for The Mandalorian and Grogu that broke Thursday evening with a Disney event (which my group learned about Saturday morning) where some new Hasbro/LEGO/Jazwares stuff was first revealed. So I guess it's possible the other vendors didn't want the hassle of complying with that - waiting until the last minute to unbox their products. But ALL of the other vendors? That seems unlikely.

We also learned that some of the long-standing Star Wars licensees have terminated their agreements, or don't plan to produce any new products in 2026. Kotobukiya, a Japanese manufacturer of some of the nicest Star Wars statues and figurines ever produced, has stopped working with Disney entirely. And Metal Earth has no plans to make any new Star Wars sets for 2026, though they are excited to see the Razor Crest back and anticipate robust sales of their existing model (which is one of their all-time highest sellers).

It is a strange time for Star Wars it seems. So - we've talked about what wasn't there. Maybe we should move on to talk about what was!

First off, check out this spectacular 1/12 scale Landspeeder model by AMT (now available for preorder from select retailers):

The other quite impressive new product was this Star Wars battery-powered train by Lionel:

This set is but one of a vast assortment of upcoming Star Wars train cars. They were super excited to have the license, and we chatted for quite a while about our mutual love of Star Wars.

LEGO did have new product to share, but we had to sign an NDA and couldn't take any photos, so the best I can do here is share news coverage of the reveal. I was really happy to see the Razor Crest 2.0. In addition to those sets, they went all-in with their new SMART Play System, which... well... I'll say I'm still skeptical about. We had essentially the same tech back in 1999 with the Hasbro CommTech Reader, though not as miniaturized an without lights, and that didn't exactly set the toy world ablaze. So TBD with that initiative.

The real winner of Toy Fair 2026 was, for the second consecutive year, Jazwares, maker of the Micro Galaxy Squadron line. Their unbridled passion for Star Wars leads to hands-down the best Star Wars vehicles on the market. They revealed a couple new sets for The Mandalorian and Grogu:

They also revealed a set for Ahsoka:

You can view additional photos of Jazwares' Star Wars products here on the CreatureCantina Facebook page.

Jazwares won the weekend, just as they did in 2025. They made it worthwhile making the trek to the Big Apple. And who knows... maybe we'll see more Mando movie stuff in the coming months. But overall Toy Fair was very different than I anticipated. And it makes me wonder if Star Wars is really losing its cultural relevance. We're certainly not at the Star Trek stage of pure niche kitsch, but if toy manufacturers aren't really battling each other for the rights to produce stuff, that might not be far off...