National Videogame Museum’s New Summer Exhibition

The National Videogame Museum is turning its gallery over to players and fans in a unique exhibition that puts personal videogame stories, memories and collections centre stage.

‘Together We Play’ launches on 18th July and celebrates the communities, collections, friendships, and spaces created through a shared love of videogames.

The exhibition is supported by the BFI National Lottery Screen Heritage Fund.

Highlights:

• Specially commissioned mural celebrating player stories and memories – collected from hundreds of conversations with players and fans across the UK.
• Personal Collections – Including a Guinness World-Record-breaking Tomb Raider Games Library and a curated selection from the Mario Museum.
• Celebrating Cosplay – Showcasing the creativity, skill, and sense of belonging that cosplay inspires through live art sketches, collected during MCM Comic Con.
• Themed playable spaces recreating an 8-bit 1980’s living room scene, and DOOM from the 1990’s desktop PC era.

And, back for its second year! Visitors can enjoy the fun again and again with the Museum’s ‘One Ticket. Play All Summer’ offer. Enjoy unlimited return visits from
18th July – 1st September 2026.

Exhibition Details:

Celebrating Players Voices

At the heart of the exhibition is a specially commissioned mural, created by Sheffield artist William Exley. The ‘Your Videogame Stories’ mural celebrates player stories and memories, collected from hundreds of conversations with players and fans across the UK.

You can also hear from Sheffield residents and explore their creativity through the ‘Sheffield of Stories’ project – a recreation of our city in Minecraft – created in collaboration with artist Adam Clarke, Sheffield DocFest and the people of Sheffield.

Reliving Memories. Making New Ones

Step back in time and revisit places where many gaming memories began.
Explore Lee Smithson’s meticulously crafted miniature 1980s living room, complete with an iconic Commodore 64, or play together in our immersive 1990s-inspired play space, featuring Doom (1993).

You could also challenge your friends and family to a game of Mario Kart Wii from the 2000’s and battle it out to be the first across the finish line!

Celebrating Fan Passion

We’re bringing together collections built over years of enthusiasm and dedication, including games, memorabilia, artwork, merchandise, and fan-created objects. Featured items include a Guinness World Record collection of Tomb Raider videogames and highlights from the Mario Museum, a vast personal collection of Mario games and Nintendo memorabilia.

Artwork by Peony Gent also celebrates the creativity and craftsmanship of cosplay culture, captured live at MCM Comic Con 2026.

Do I Look Like A Gamer?

The Museum is also showcasing the ‘Do I Look Like a Gamer?’ campaign by mayamada, which challenges stereotypes and highlights the diversity of people and communities who play videogames today.

Do you see yourself represented in the display?

Partner quotes:

“Videogames are now a huge global industry so it is incredibly important to acknowledge the players, fans and communities who bring videogames alive through play. In this exhibition memories, stories and personal fan collections are celebrated as central to videogame culture.”
John O’Shea, Creative Director & Co-CEO, National Videogame Museum

“We were excited to support the National Videogame Museum’s highly culturally ambitious project Behind the Screens, which comprises this exhibition and other upcoming sector-focused and audience-facing programmes of activity. It’s brilliant to watch how the museum weaves the thread of gathering diverse perspectives throughout, with its attention to representation and the creative, communal, and collaborative nature of creating and playing videogames”.
Marta Berto, BFI Screen Heritage Fund Manager

“Videogames have always informed the way I draw – through character design, ways of telling stories and the creation of visual worlds. I hope the piece acts as a visual document of the stories shared for the exhibition, with enough recognisable and relatable elements to prompt visitors to reflect on their own experiences of gaming and add to the stories collected here.”
William Exley, Your Videogame Stories mural artist

Together We Play opens to the public at the National Videogame Museum on Saturday 18th July.

National Videogame Museum
Castle House, Angel Street,
Sheffield, S3 8LN
For more information and tickets, head to https://thenvm.org/togetherweplay/