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Hasbro Celebrates International Day of Play 2026 this June 11 with Global Experiences That Invite Everyone to Play

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Hasbro is celebrating the third annual International Day of Play (IDOP) on June 11, 2026 by inviting players everywhere to connect, learn, and play together.

Recognized by the United Nations as a global call to action, International Day of Play champions play as a fundamental human right; advocating for more time, space, and access to play for all.

This year, Hasbro is turning that call into action: expanding access to play through beginner-friendly experiences, community-driven events, and connected digital activations across Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Powered by a global network of more than 10,000 Wizards Play Network retail locations, Hasbro is bringing play to life at scale—meeting players wherever they are and inspiring a lifetime of play.

As part of its Playing to Win strategy, Hasbro is focused on expanding access to play and growing its communities around the world; bringing its “Everyone Plays” philosophy to life by lowering barriers and creating welcoming, social experiences for all.

Hasbro’s 2026 IDOP highlights:

Magic: The Gathering – Bring a Friend, Build a Community

Magic: The Gathering is transforming IDOP into a community-powered play moment, anchored by in-store events across the Wizards Play Network and amplified through MTG Arena, including:

  • Avengers Academy is a Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes learn-to-play experience designed to help players introduce friends to Magic in a fun, low-pressure environment
  • Social formats like Commander and Two-Headed Giant, where players team up, play together, and build confidence
  • Welcome decks and in-store rewards for new players and those who bring a friend
  • A global MTG Arena activation, including a phantom event and limited-time digital rewards

Dungeons & Dragons – Start Your Story

Dungeons & Dragons invites players everywhere to step into a world of imagination and adventure with Borderlands Quest: Dagger Danger, a beginner-friendly experience available globally.

  • A guided adventure designed for first-time players and Dungeon Masters
  • Pre-made characters, simplified rules, and a clear narrative path to make getting started easy
  • Available digitally on D&D Beyond at no cost to DDB account holders, and brought to life at participating Wizards Play Network locations worldwide

Whether playing at home or in-store, D&D’s IDOP activation makes it easy for anyone, anywhere to start playing together.

Play Around the World

Across its global offices, Hasbro is bringing International Day of Play to life through employee engagement and community impact:

  • A global “Power Down to Play” moment encouraging employees to step away from work and connect through play;
  • Friendly Connect 4 tournaments across seven global hubs, complete with brackets and championship moments;
  • A “donate to play” model supporting local nonprofits that expand access to play;
  • Volunteer opportunities connecting employees directly with communities through play-based experiences that directly support local organizations around the world, including:
  • In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Hasbro volunteers will host a CampOut Family Game Night for children and families from The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a year-round program that provides free, medically supported camp experiences for children with serious illnesses and their families;
  • In Boston, Massachusetts, Hasbro volunteers will join longstanding partner Playworks to host an IDOP activation bringing classic recess favorites to life alongside the City of Boston;
  • In Renton, Washington, volunteers from Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast will bring joy to hundreds of middle school students at Showalter Middle School during a Magic and D&D Game Day.

A Global Movement for Play

International Day of Play, adopted by the United Nations in 2024, is a global advocacy day dedicated to protecting and promoting every person’s right to play. Celebrated annually on June 11, it calls on governments, organizations, and communities to ensure all children have access to safe, inclusive, and meaningful play opportunities.

Comics Studios Pencil United Launches Digital Comics App

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Northern SoulsAtmospheric, enigmatic and magical, Pencil United‘s digital native graphic drama series Northern Souls follows the quest of a young man, suspected of having schizophrenia, to find his identity in Europe’s last wilderness, Swedish Lappland, at the same time as WW2 reaches northern Scandinavia. The first episode of the interactive touchscreen reading experience is now available for download, exclusively through the Pencil United app which can be retrieved from the App Store for all Retina iPads.

The series’ main character Mielat, as the strange voices inside his head call him, is contained and tormented by the fact that he doesn’t remember who he is or where he comes from. Everything before the point where he found a peculiar piece of bone with metal pendants is black. With the twisted logic of the mentally ill, he believes that the artefact will lead him to the answers while the voices keep insisting that he has a hidden calling. As a result of a life-threatening flight, Mielat is reluctantly joined by a female German Red Cross doctor. Gradually it is revealed that the rational and determined woman, named Elke, has an agenda of her own but also that the two wanderers’ destinies are mysteriously entwined.

Northern Souls is aimed at a broad adult readership and is full of complex and charismatic characters. In addition to the adventure’s dramatic action the story also holds existential, ethical and political dilemmas. The time period during which the drama is set, right at the beginning of the 1940s, is not just the starting point for the progressive welfare state in Sweden but also the start of the atomic age and the series deals with themes such as the soul and materialism.

The publisher sees themselves as similar to HBO when it comes to original comics focusing on a few carefully chosen in-house produced high quality series in different genres. Going beyong repurposed print, Pencil United has decided to cultivate and enhance interactivity and closeness by adding touch-the-panels navigation, dynamic dual-layer full screen graphics, slideshows, panning widescreen images and info hotspots, in order to create an intimate digital native experience unlike anything else on the market. By focusing on this, the company hopes to reach a broad audience that is interested in modern comics culture and a digital experience.

As a part of Pencil United’s belief in the power of stories and the importance of education, creativity and humanism for development in the world, the studio has decided that for each and every downloaded issue through the Pencil United app they will buy five pencils from UNICEF who will distribute them to schools all over the world.

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A small step for comics but a great leap for digital native graphic storytelling

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Northen SoulsThe newly founded studio Pencil United creates comics designed to be read exclusively on touchscreens. Unlike the big mainstream publishers who are stuck with the limitations of printed pages when they digitize comic books, Pencil United embraces the possibilities of the digital medium for graphic storytelling unlike any other. A first taste of the independent studio’s unique reading experience, the drama series Northern Souls, will be available early in 2016 when the Pencil United app is released in the App Store. For every episode that is downloaded through the app the studio will buy UNICEF pencils to support children’s learning and creativity.

The truth about digitally published comics today is that they are still in most cases repurposed print and the reading interfaces are the results of making comic book pages readable on different screens. The business models of print publishers to capitalize on comic books in two different media are causing limitations for the digital experience and its potential.

Pencil United’s basic philosophy is, as Scott McCloud has put it “to embrace the digital environment as the native soil – and plant in that soil what could never grow anywhere else.” The Swedish studio believes that there has long been a curiosity for what the digital medium could add to comics but that it seems as if true innovation is only going to come from small independent creators that are detached from the conventions of the print business.

Pencil United’s reading interface is not an experimental display that makes it hard to follow but rather a smooth seamless reading line where the reader at his or her own pace makes the action of the story float by the window of the screen.

As a part of Pencil United’s belief in the power of stories and the importance of learning, creativity and humanism for development in the world, the studio has decided that for each and every download through the Pencil United app they will buy five pencils from UNICEF who will distribute them to schools all over the world.

World Comics India and Grassroot Comics

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Sharad Sharma and World Comics India is a grassroots comics movement in India.  The concept allows common people great comic books to “express their own self.”  According to Sharma:

This has served as one of the most popular communication tool in peoples’ movement.

The workshops involves a trainer teaching people basic techniques in creating comic books.  The success of the grassroots comic movement in India is thought to herald from the wealth of story telling in Indian culture.  Unicef has used the technique there.

The project works by pasting comics up in all possible locations like villages, meeting places, bus stops, shops, offices, schools, on notice-boards and electricity poles or even on trees, creating an awesome string between the creator and his reader.

Replicated in South Asian, African and Latin America countries, the Middle East and Europe, grassroots comics originated in India in the 1990s.  The credit goes to a group of like-minded cartoonists, development journalists and activists who aimed to use their skill for betterment of the society.

Sharing HIV Stigma Through Comics

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AIDS Ribbon40 children born to HIV positive parents have shared the stigma the comes with being in that position in India through comic strips.  Some of these strips are being shared and displayed by the Red Ribbon Express (RRE).  The comics were created at a workshop by World Comics India and was supported by Unicef, the workshop was held at the Nehru Yuva Kendra.

Parents are often thrown out of their villages forcing hardship on the families and children and children who themselves are HIV positive are driven from their jobs.

The project not only creates awareness but also allowed the children to escape from their harsh reality.