Last week, I spent the weekend in Boston for PAX East 2023. This annual gaming convention that takes place in the Hub of the Universe offers gamers a chance to try out and discover games from indie developers and smaller publishers. In previous years, the Big 3 companies (Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony) would make an appearance at the convention to show off games that were close to release. In 2020, before COVID became a pandemic, Nintendo brought Animal Crossing, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake also made an appearance. However, this year only Nintendo appeared at the convention, but with a pathetic gimmick, the NintendoVS where Nintendo featured competitions and Pokemon Trading Cards. No Zelda Tears of the Kingdom or Pikmin 4. As I have mentioned earlier in my rant about the Big 3, the leaders of the video game industry have been falling behind the expectations of their gamers, but that is a discussion for another article.
In this article, I’ll be going over my highlights of PAX East as well as the winners and losers of the convention. This will include my top five titles that I played and which developers put the most effort (or least effort) into their booths at PAX.
Honorable Mention: Slay the Princess
Do you like The Stanley Parable? Do you like fantasy games? Then Slay the Princess is the game for you. Taking one of the booths in the PAX Uprising section of the Expo Hall, Slay the Princess is one of the games Penny Arcade, the organizers of the convention, deemed worthy enough to highlight in a premium spot on the floor. The attendees seemed to agree with Penny Arcade for Slay the Princess always had a long line. The premise of the game is that you play as an assassin whose job is to kill a captured princess or else the world is going to end. Like Stanley Parable, the player can either listen to, argue with or even ignore the narrator by listening to the titular princess or their character’s inner thoughts. Slay the Princess is definitely a game I am going to be keeping track of and might pick up down the line when there is a lull in my backlog of games.
5th Place: ODR Hockey Heroes
As a huge ice hockey fan, given that my IGN is named after the Boston Bruins, finding a small little indie game based around hockey was a pleasant surprise. As soon as I saw skaters smashing into each other out of the corner of my eye, I just found my body walking directly to their booth. In ODR Hockey Heroes, you can draft yourself a team of players who must save the world from evil ice magic that froze the planet and the only way to save the Earth is to play ice hockey; a premise I can get behind. At their booth, the ODR developers showcased the game’s couch co-op potential, which was a lot of fun. It harkened back to the prime of sports games when you and a friend can pick whatever team you want and play against each other. In a market where sports games are generally frowned upon for massive microtransactions present in their titles, ODR Hockey Heroes can make an impact. Now on top of the couch co-op and the multiplayer, ODR will have a story mode for singleplayer players, or gamers that don’t have friends who like hockey or anyone to play with. I also had a great conversation with the developers themselves. We had a good laugh trash talking our hometown NHL teams, as the devs were from Toronto. It showed that the creators of ODR really are passionate about hockey and video games as a whole. I have already wishlisted ODR Hockey Heroes on Steam and I recommend hockey sports gamers to do the same. Or even a group of gamers looking for a fun arcade like title.
4th Place: Void Crew
The first of two games that came from publisher Focus Entertainment to make it to my top five Pax titles will be Void Crew, a PvE focused shooter with inspirations from Deep Rock Galactic and Sea of Thieves. After a very long wait, somewhere around 3 to 4 hours, I finally got a chance to play this game, and with a developer. Essentially, in Void Crew, you play as clones who do missions for a company while flying spaceships together. Basically, take Deep Rock Galactic, replace the dwarves with clones, the bugs with robots, and mining with spaceship piloting, and you have the same game. Void Crew, in the play state that I experienced, is definitely still in Alpha as movement in some areas was jarring, the balance on your ships weapons a bit questionable, the lack of gameplay for a player not lucky enough to pilot the ship or sit in a turret being the main gameplay flaws. Void Crew in my eyes still holds a lot of potential. Although there will probably be another year or two until release I will be keeping an eye on the game’s development and will consider picking up the game. However, this will only happen if I have a group of friends to play with. And the developer informed me that there is zero chance of a PvP element being implemented into the game, which is disappointing as the game could thrive with an arena like game mode where four teams of four fight to be the last ship standing. Void Crew is a very niche game, but luckily it falls into my niche.
3rd Place: Sovereign Syndicate
Another game from the PAX Uprising showcase to make this list is Sovereign Syndicate. If you liked 2019’s Disco Elysium, then I have good news for you as Sovereign Syndicate is heavily inspired by the narrative hit. As someone who is slowly digesting Disco Elysium in my gaming time, I recognized the similarity between the two titles quickly. The developers of the game noticed and approached me. We had a great conversation about the game and how it was their first time in Boston, them being from Alberta. I gave them some suggestions for exploring Boston. Sovereign Syndicate’s similarities with Disco end once you get past the genre similarities; an isometric top-down narrative RPG without combat where discissions and game events are decided from character traits and a little luck. Sovereign Syndicate takes place in a fantasy steampunk version of Victorian London and instead of playing as one character, you play as three: a minotaur, a human, and a dwarf with a robot friend. And yes, the decisions you make as one of these characters impacts the other two. When it comes to the story event outcomes, I liked what Sovereign Syndicate did more than Disco. In Disco, the outcome of events is based on dice rolls, whereas in Sovereign Syndicate, the player has a little more choice by choosing tarot cards with numerical strengths to them. There is still luck involved, but at least the player has a little more involvement. The demo I played through was short, only fifteen minutes, but it gave me a sense of what the game will be like. Sovereign Syndicate is another game I’ll be keeping an eye out for when it comes out early next year. Hopefully by then, I will have finished Disco Elysium.
2nd Place: Everspace 2
My second-place title will be Everspace 2, a direct sequel from ROCKFISH Games. I stumbled upon Everspace 2 by accident on the expo floor and got in line after watching someone play the game within earshot of one of the esports booths. And I am glad that I did get in line. Everspace 2 is a third-person looter shooter where the player controls one of eight classes of starfighter and plays missions. After having a conversation with the developer while waiting, the gameplay is heavily inspired by the old X-Wing games and despite being a direct sequel, players do not need to have played the original Everspace to enjoy the story, only missing out on inside jokes and references. The planned story length of the game being around 40 hours, so plenty to do in the game. After playing the demo, which was compromised of the tutorial of the game, my main issue with the game so far comes from the quality of the voice acting, but that is something that can be forgiven. Everspace 2 is already out on Steam currently as early access, and I was informed by the developers that progress will be carried over when the game is released fully. As a personal belief, after being burned by Baldur’s Gate 3 early release, I don’t buy into early access games anymore. With that said, I do plan on purchasing Everspace 2 when it is available, for I do see promise in this kind of game.
1st Place: Aliens: Dark Descent
My top pick from PAX is another title from Focus Entertainment, that being Aliens: Dark Descent. The Alien franchise is one of my favorite IPs of all time, with the xenomorph being my favorite horror movie monster/killer (Dead by Daylight please add them). With the movies after the sequel Aliens all being subpar, the franchise has been surviving off of its representation in comics and video games. In the gaming world, Alien seemed to be doomed after the travesty release of Aliens: Colonial Marines, but since then Alien had solid follow-ups with Isolation and Fireteam. Alien: Isolation was arguably the best horror game from 2014, and although not perfect, Aliens: Fireteam Elite showed that Focus Entertainment’s studios were up to the task. Aliens: Dark Descent is made by a different studio under Focus’s umbrella, that being Tindalos Interactive. Dark Descent is an isometric strategy game with X-Com feels. The player controls a squad of Colonial Marines as they travel from mission to mission. The player must balance resources and their squads stress and health as they are hunted by the hive of xenomorphs they are fighting against. From the demo I played, where the story was not told, the game is very well polished and is, in fact, rather hard. The game doesn’t hold the player’s hand in terms of difficulty curve, and offers a challenge that is balanced and rewarding. I was planning on picking up this title just from name value alone, but after playing it, I am looking forward to its release in summer this year.
The games that I couldn’t get a chance to play but looked interesting includes: The Wandering Village (a city building game where the biomes change because you build atop a dragon), Wrestle Quest (a campy JRPG where you craft your story as a wrestler) and Wildfrost (a rogue lite card game made by the devs of Wargroove). The best booth award will go to Devolver Digital for their movie theater theme, with Wrestle Quest in a close second. Worst booth will go to Nintendo. PAX East 2023 was a fantastic event where I discovered serval indie developers I will be keeping my eye on and I look forward to returning next year!
Nerdcrash! 