Video Games Dominated This Year's World Cosplay Summit

For cosplayers looking to show off their latest creations in 2021, this year's World Cosplay Summit was as good a chance as any to do so provided that they could make the cut. With the finals now over, the top three teams have emerged, each one bringing to life a video game that earned them top marks with the judges.

While previous WCS events had been held in-person in Nagoya, Japan, this year adopted a safer method as participants were required to film video segments that showed off their costumes. 30 countries and one observer nation took part, and the event culminated with Elffi Cosplay and Calssara being declared the grand winners of the World Cosplay Summit 2021 Video Division.

The German duo cosplayed as Biggs and Jessie from Final Fantasy VII Remake, while second place went to the Italian team of Diaboliko Cosplay and Nero Cosplay for their Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Fierce Deity Link and Skull Kid outfits.

Lastly, the British team of Be More Shonen and Nomes Cosplay took third place for their Zack Fair and Cloud Strife cosplays from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

The rest of this year's participants also tapped into video games for cosplay inspiration, as Team Mexico entered with a Resident Evil 3 Jill Valentine and Nemesis cosplay, Team Finland was inspired by Bloodborne, and Team Canada entered with a pair of costumes straight out of NieR: Automata.

Conventions have been hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, but with vaccination drives taking place globally, a small number of them have been held. For the most part though, large in-person events like Dragon Con, Emerald City Comic-Con, and Los Angeles Comic-Con have shifted dates to later in the year, while other shows have opted to go online instead with a weekend of livestreams.