Portal’s 2025 review & 2026 preview

Introduction

January. A time to look back. And a time to look ahead at what’s coming down the road. In today’s blog post, we’ll do a bit of both.

We’re going to start with a 2025 recap, which includes some major company news. Not to mention plenty of exciting projects with our partners, and some fun along the way.  

After that, we’re all about 2026. Our plans for the year, plus what’s getting us excited in the world of video games, toys and tabletop. There’s a lot to get through. Let’s get started.

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Generation Media acquisition

We’ll begin with the biggest story of our 2025: Portal’s acquisition by Generation Media. The two businesses are no strangers to each other. We’ve known the GM team for a long time and worked alongside them on multiple projects with several shared partners.

During these projects, it became clear our companies share an ethos: a strong desire to do outstanding work and see our clients succeed. That common approach led to a partnership that has flourished over the years.

Generation Media are leading lights in the world of media. They specialise in data-driven strategies and innovative approaches for all sorts of sectors: toys, video games, tabletop games, fashion, finance and more. Essentially, they help big brands connect with audiences through insights and tailored media planning. All that, and they’re a fantastic group of people.

The acquisition will bring opportunities for our team to grow (more on that shortly), and it means we can expand the services we offer to our clients, to ensure that we continue to evolve.

On that note. You will have noticed that, in addition to the great work we do in the video games industry, we have also been very active in toys and tabletop games recently. Our acquisition by Generation Media will see us more present in these industries than ever before.

We’re thrilled by the opportunities that Portal’s integration with Generation Media brings. Our creative expertise and the talent of our team extend both companies' offerings. As part of a bigger group, we can devise and execute increasingly ambitious and innovative campaigns, ensuring the continued success of our partners.

Importantly, this comes without cultural compromise. Portal and Generation Media’s shared underlying values mean that we’ll all be pulling in the right direction, together, to do more for our clients.

For more on the acquisition, take a look at this article from Toy World Magazine.

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Growing stronger

Excitingly, our acquisition by Generation Media has allowed us to expand. The successful integration means that expansion begins immediately with the arrival of three new faces.

Becky joins from Generation Media’s Entertainment team, which is now a new division within Portal.

Becky has worked with Generation Media since early 2023 and has a wealth of experience across the entertainment industries. As Head of Creative Innovation, Becky will lead the way when it comes to, well, creativity.

Her arrival means our clients and the wider industry will be able to discover exactly what’s possible when it comes to fundamental, or experiential marketing across performance material, video, user-generated content, events and more.

This is a pivotal moment for Portal. We can now offer a full range of content creator marketing services to our partners. Managing budgets, working with talent agencies, identifying and approaching the most suitable creators for your game and making sure campaigns go off without a hitch. The whole kit and kaboodle.

As you’ll no doubt know, influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach and build audiences. Its importance is only set to grow, so we’re thrilled that we can bring these services to our partners.

We asked Becky to give us a few words on her move. Here’s what she said:

“As we keep going from strength to strength creatively, it's amazing to now be a part of the Portal team, and I can't wait to get stuck in. To have all of our creative needs from content production through to influencer marketing all within one team will allow us to go full steam ahead with our ambitious goals for the future and elevate our offering. Bring it on!”

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A recent graduate from Nottingham Trent University, Emily has just celebrated her first anniversary at Generation Media and now joins the Portal crew.

As Digital Content Assistant, Emily will work alongside Becky. She brings with her a passion for design and an infectiously sunny outlook.

Emily will work closely with our clients, carefully managing projects from beginning to end. Her deep understanding of what makes audiences tick, along with her knowledge of trends both new and fading, means our campaigns will always feel fresh and current.

As a digital native, Emily has unrivalled insights into user-generated content. For UGC campaigns, she will assist partners on best practice including the dos and don’ts of content creation. Finally, with years of online experience, she will be ideally positioned to offer feedback on the most suitable (and not so suitable) creators for your campaign.

Hit us with some words, Emily:

“I’m beyond excited to join the amazing team at Portal! Combining our passion for entertainment with Portal’s creativity opens up so many opportunities to bring bold, engaging content to life. Looking forward to what's next!”

Thanks, Emily! A new department deserves comment from the top. Here’s Portal’s Managing Director, Joshua Heaton, on Becky and Emily’s arrival:

"Our clients and the industry are constantly growing and evolving. As leading specialists in marketing, video and brand in the toy and video games industries, Portal has to evolve too. That means offering services that captivate our clients' audiences and exceed expectations. Becky and Emily’s knowledge and experience mean we can bring new and innovative services to the table. We’re elated to have them as part of the Portal team."

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Inbound, but not quite ready to be named, Portal will shortly welcome a Creative Director to the company. We might not be able to share their identity yet, but we can tell you that they have a strong background in toys and games. Their skills and experience will give Portal a dedicated creative lead and mean we can bring even more innovation to our campaigns.

Here’s Joshua:

“We’re looking forward to welcoming our new Creative Director into the team. This is an important and highly specialised role in any creative agency. They’ll work closely with the team and me to keep pushing the boundaries of what Portal can achieve for its clients.”

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The rest of 2025

2025 wasn’t all acquisitions and new hires. We found time to do our day jobs too, working on brilliant projects with our fantastic partners. Here’s a selection of highlights.

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Two Point Museum

SEGA’s Two Point series goes from strength to strength with every new entry. Their cheeky charm has won over millions of players from all over the world. In October, we had the privilege of working with the Japanese publisher on Two Point Museum’s Switch 2 launch.

Working to a tight deadline, we produced a 50-second trailer showcasing the game as an ideal companion for Nintendo’s new console. SEGA loved the trailer. As did Nintendo, who requested their own version for use in the eShop and their social channels.

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Spin Master

2025 saw us partner with Spin Master, the global toy and tabletop company, for the first time. We produced two short but densely packed video ads for Beat the Parents: Let’s Roll! and Hedbanz.

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

Our long-running partnership with Paradox Interactive continued throughout the year. And no project from 2025 was bigger or more involved than Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2.

We were present in pretty much every phase of the vampiric RPG’s marketing campaign. Announcement, pre-order, pre-release and launch. And produced almost every kind of creative asset, too. Key art, video ads, special edition artwork, storefront capsules, out of home and more. We were incredibly proud to contribute creatively to such a high-profile title.

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Asmodee

We were proud to work with Asmodee on a winter holiday campaign for a selection of the distributor’s games. Our “Asmodee Makes the Memories” concept helped bring big hitters like Dobble and Catan to the front of consumers’ minds ahead of the critical Christmas period.

My own family spent a lot of time playing various Asmodee games this winter. Proof, if it were needed, that advertising really does work.

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Stellaris

Almost ten years since it first launched, Paradox’s grand sci-fi opera shows no sign of slowing down. This year, we were tasked by the Swedish publisher to produce a series of short, rapid-fire videos featuring a Stellaris expert. This meant finding the right creator, drafting scripts, shooting the content in-person and producing the videos with motion graphics, design and video editing all done in-house.

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Europa Universalis V

Another long-running, beloved strategy series from Paradox. Europa Universalis V was released in November, a full 12 years after the fourth edition. Eagerly anticipated does not do justice to the excitement that fans felt for the arrival of EU V.

This was another super in-depth project for us. We supported the pre-order, pre-release and launch phases for the strategy game with social media trailers, animated key art, storefront capsules & takeovers and a whole lot more.

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Gamescom & MCV/DEVELOP Awards

As you can tell, we had a lot on our plate in 2025. But we still made time to leave the office and represent both Portal and Generation Media out in the real world. In August, we travelled to Cologne for Gamescom. This was our busiest show yet, with more meetings and greater bratwurst consumption than ever before. We even set ourselves little daily challenges, gamifying the whole event.

In June, we attended our second MCV/DEVELOP awards as nominees. We didn’t come away with a win, but once again, our drawing challenge was the talk of the evening. Thanks to everyone who took part.

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2026 preview

Before we leave you, there’s just time to look at some of the treats that 2026 has in store for us. We’ve cast our specialist eye over the big new releases on the way in the world of entertainment, including video games, toys and tabletop. Here are a few highlights.

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Grand Theft Auto VI

There’s only one place to start in the world of video games: GTA VI. Rockstar’s latest crime epic is such a behemoth that other publishers move their own release dates to avoid it. More than that. People are moving their weddings so that they don’t clash with this thing.

Okay, that last one’s an exaggeration, but GTA VI is going to be huge. It’s already been delayed twice. Will November’s release date be a case of third time lucky? Let’s see.

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Marvel’s Wolverine

Insomniac switches its attention from Spider-Man to another, much cooler (imo), superhero: Wolverine. Marvel’s Wolverine sees the grumpy Canadian taking to the streets in search of answers about his murky past. What he’ll find, who knows? It’s definitely going to involve slashing up a lot of bad guys, though.

Sony has yet to confirm a release date beyond “late 2025”. Perhaps they’re waiting to see if GTA suffers yet another delay.

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LEGO NINJAGO: Destiny’s Bounty Adventures

Part toy, part board game. Asmodee’s Destiny Bounty Adventures is the company’s third collaboration with the Danish block maker. This is a cooperative game aimed squarely at families. Players must face off against pesky pirates, slippery serpents and even a bewildered postman.

Look for it in late July.

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Stellaris: Infinite Legacy

A 4X board game based on Paradox’s epic space strategy title. Given our work on the video game, this tabletop version has us both intrigued and excited. Infinite Legacy has been a while in the making. A hugely successful Kickstarter campaign saw the project raise a massive $2.5 million back in 2021.

The community is on tenterhooks, but not for much longer. An update from the team in late December suggests that Infinite Legacy is charting a course for release this year. Fingers crossed.

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DC Super Heroes United

On the way from our friends at Spin Master is another crowdfunded superstar. DC Super Heroes United raised a frankly bonkers $4.5 million via Gamefound and was fully funded in just 27 minutes.

The CMON developed game asks players to build their team of legendary heroes to thwart the master plan of the most powerful villains in the DC universe.

The Toy Fair

Let’s be honest, most work conferences are rubbish. The Toy Fair is an exception. A massive hall filled with the latest toys of all types and packed with adults playing together under the guise of “networking”.

Our friends at Generation Media are to host a seminar at the event. You can find out more about that here. You don’t have long to wait. The Toy Fair takes place at London’s Olympia on 20-22 January.

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Gamescom and client visits

We’ll be back at Gamescom this August. Can we beat our 2025 meeting record? Only one way to find out. As well as Germany, we’ll be jetting off to Italy, North America and even Thailand to meet with various partners. Exciting times!

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Signing off

That’s all from us, thanks so much for reading. We hope you have a wonderful 2026!