PAX East will also feature a lineup of highly-anticipated panels from some of the biggest names in gaming, including Blizzard, Markiplier, Acquisitions Inc. and more. Meanwhile, in the expo halls a myriad of exhibitors, including Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Blizzard, Square Enix, other major studios, and independent teams will showcase their latest creations.
“Brendan Greene’s story is a fascinating one, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is only the latest chapter,” said Jerry Holkins, co-founder, Penny Arcade. “At four full days, this year’s PAX East 2018 is shaping up to be the biggest one yet, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have the founder of the Battle Royale phenomenon kick off the festivities.”
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
Sub Cultured stopped by PAX South 2018 to check out all the delightful titles this convention had to offer!
Aftercharge
Aftercharge is a 3v3 asymmetrical FPS game. 3 players play as a group of robots trying to destroy a number of energy extractors on the map. They’re completely invisible unless they’ve just been damaged or are directly in front of an enemy. They have the ability to resurrect their allies and also a number of abilities to help them sneak around the map. The enemy team is invincible and has abilities to either impede the invisible enemies or buff themselves. The resulting combat are a stressful mix of sneaking/seeking and frantically trying to kill/run away before invisibility comes back. It’s a great deal of fun, especially playing with friends.
You can look for Aftercharge coming to Windows, Mac, and Linux in Spring of 2018.
Pato Box
Pato Box sees you take control of a duck boxer doing what he does best — box. Even in situation in which it may not be applicable like opening doors, this guy’s a punching machine. He was betrayed on his way to the top of his boxing career and is ready to punch his way to the truth. The art style is stark black and white, which is a visual treat and so much fun to watch. The combat responds as well as you’d expect of something that looks like a Sin City Punch Out. It’s a unique experience and definitely one worth checking out.
Pato Box will be out this Spring for PC, Mac, Switch, and PS Vita.
Phantom Doctrine
If Donut County was the simplest game at PAX South 2018, Phantom Doctrine is definitely the most complicated, and not in a bad way. If you’ve ever played XCom and wanted it to be deeper on basically every level, this is exactly the game you’ve been looking for. Set during the Cold War, you lead an organization called The Cabal dedicated to fighting global conspiracy. The game takes major events from history that are all true, but where most of the game occurs is in “what if this happened”-type scenarios. Like in XCom, there are missions to go on that you can play through, and a home base to manage. As the base, you can look through evidence you’ve collected to try and piece together your enemies’ plans, recruit new operatives, brainwash captives, acquire more funds, and take the heat off your agents. While in the field, you can choose to operate with stealth or being aggressive, gather intel or rush to the objective. The game is really flexible to how you want to play it and how you want to spend your time. If you want to spend 20 hours in the base making sure everything’s perfect for the next mission, you can. If you want to speed run through the missions, you totally can. Missions also allow you to have special abilities like spotters, snipers, and grenade launchers, which come in handy when in a sticky situation.
If you’re ready to sink your teeth in to the deepest tactical game in quite some time, get hype for Phantom Doctrine coming in 2018 to at least PC.
Check out more of our coverage from PAX South 2018!
Party Hard 2, Due Process, The Swords of Ditto
Moonlighter, Tunic, Donut County
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
Sub Cultured stopped by PAX South 2018 to check out all the delightful titles this convention had to offer!
Moonlighter
Moonlighter is like if Recettear and a Roguelike had a baby. You play as a shopkeeper outside of an ever-changing dungeon. Your task is to sell goods to people. When you do, you earn money so you can get better equipment and craft better items to either sell or use yourself to go in to the dungeon. Clearing the dungeon will yield new items, which you can craft and sell in your shop, et cetera. It’s a big ol’ capitalism loop. The dungeon is different every time you enter, which makes it that much more fun. There’s 5 different entrances to the dungeon and characters to interact with so there’s presumably an end, but with the varying dungeons, bevy of characters to please, and loot to grab, you may not ever want to see it.
Moonlighter will be coming out in 2018 for Xbox One, PS4, PC, Switch, and Mac/Linux.
Tunic
Tunic has so much style that it hurts. Zelda is the easiest comparison — you’re a lone adventurer (in this case a lil’ fox) in a mysterious world who collects items that open up new paths. If Hat In Time is a cute-as-heck platformer, this is a cute-as-heck action/adventure game. The controls are tight and responsive and the combat feels fluid and satisfying. An extra layer of polish/intrigue to this game is the concept that it’s a game you’re just discovering that was made in a foreign country, so you’ll see parts of the manual in the game and all the text is in a made up language you don’t understand. Even the website has this language peppered about.
This game is one of the ones we were most excited by at PAX South, so be on the lookout for it coming out later this year to PC, Mac, Linux, and consoles in 2018.
Donut County
Once upon a time, @PeterMolydeux had a joke game description in which you play as a hole in the ground. From that, Ben Esposito created one of the most simple, but compelling games at PAX South, Donut County. The mechanics are simple — you play as a hole in the ground swallowing things up. The more you eat, the bigger your hole gets, which allows you to eat bigger things. Think reverse Katamari. Between levels, you’ll also get a glimpse into the lives of the citizens of Donut County which has been upended by this dumb hole. The art style is simple and effective, the humor isn’t overdone, and the gameplay, though simple, is satisfying.
Donut County is coming to PC, Mac, and iOS in 2018
Check out more of our coverage from PAX South 2018!
Aftercharge, Pato Box, Phantom Doctrine
Party Hard 2, Due Process, The Swords of Ditto
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
Nan Desu Kan 2018 Photo Gallery
Prisma & The Masquerade Menace
Prisma & The Masquerade Menace is in the early stages of development, so early in fact that it’s not even on Kickstarter yet. That didn’t stop the developer from having a fully playable level from the demo at PAX South.
It’s got some rough edges, but it’s already rather polished. At its core, it’s a platformer game in which you take control of Ray, a girl who can switch between different colored dimensions to make objects appear or disappear. Each of these dimensions also gives her abilities like high jumping, fast running, and block destroying. Once you get used to switching between dimensions, it becomes much more like a Sonic game in which you feel compelled to go as fast as possible, switching dimensions quickly and trying to think on your feet.
Prisma is still in its early stages, but give their Kickstarter a look when it goes live later this month!
Sundered
Sundered is a game that leaps out at you from a sea of titles at a gaming convention. It’s art style has a way of pulling you in, making you want more.
Sundered is a Metroidvania style platformer/exploration game in which you take control of Eshe, a wanderer exploring seemingly endless, always changing caverns filled with eldritch horrors. The controls solid and responsive and the game’s difficulty is a little more than Super Metroid (we died 3 times in the demo), making it feel like a substantial single player experience. Details like the hand drawn art and pencil marks when the camera is really zoomed in all combine to make this a visual feast that also delivers on a tight experience.
Sundered is coming out to PS4 and PC in July but you can Kickstart it right now here!
RiME
In RiME, you play a boy exploring a strange island trying to work your way to a pillar in its center. Along the way, you’ll solve puzzles, meet a super cute fox, and try to figure out the mysteries of your surroundings and what could have happened to make it the way it is now.
RiME feels a lot like Zelda mixed with Journey in the best possible way. The art style is stark and gorgeous, varying dramatically for different areas in the game. The world is all laid out in a way that’s easy to understand visually, which is a good thing since the game features no dialog or text, so you’re relying on just trying things out and being observant to solve puzzles.
RiME is due out summer 2017 on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
Want more PAX South 2017 coverage? All you had to do was ask!
Monster Boy, Warlock’s Tower, and Has Been Heroes
Minit, Beat Cop, and Strikers Edge
Arms, Splatoon 2, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
REVIEW | Salt and Sanctuary
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
REVIEW | Spider-Man PS4
Review | Re-Exploring No Man’s Sky Next
REVIEW | Downward Spiral: Horus Station
Monster Boy
Monster Boy started as a Kickstarter project called “Flying Hamster.” Since then, the team welcomed Ryuichi Nishizawa and turned the game into Monster Boy, based off the Wonder Boy in Monster World, a mashup between the Wonder Boy and Monster World series. Please go look those up if you have no idea what we’re talking about.
The player takes control of Jin, a boy who can transform into five different monsters to solve puzzles and take down enemies with a variety of abilities. This platformer hearkens back to old school platformers in the 80s and 90s — simple gameplay, peppy music, bright visuals. Like a Saturday morning cartoon video game that you set your alarm for.
Monster Boy is simultaneously releasing on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One later this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ6DYSf5VNE
Warlock’s Tower
Some game developers try to emulate the style of classic pixel games and achieve something between nostalgia and amusement. Then you have a game like Warlock’s Tower, which just looks like it’s always been a Gameboy game and dares you to tell it otherwise.
The graphics of Warlock’s Tower look exactly like an original Gameboy game being played on the Super Gameboy player, complete with being able to change main color from green to orange yellow. All of that helps Warlock’s Tower in the charming area, but the underlying gameplay is really cool, too.
At it’s core, Warlock’s Tower is a puzzle game in which you take control of a mailman trying to avoid monsters and deliver a letter to the warlock of the titular tower. Each move you make takes away one life, but there are tokens on each floor to increase the number of lives you have. It’s a puzzle to be able to figure out which tokens to get at what time and using what directions. The game even has Twitch integration so you can interact with your chat while you play.
Warlock’s Tower is out now for PC.
Has Been Heroes
Has Been Heroes is a Roguelike inspired by Plants Vs. Zombies.
Oh, what, you need more?
In the game, you’ll take control of three characters, each with their own lane. Each character has a different number of attacks, attack power, and control of spells. It’s up to the player to time their attacks accurately, swap characters, and utilize spells cleverly to fight back hoards of enemies.
At first, it takes a bit to get used with character switching and the concept of enemies having points with which to block your attacks, but very quickly, you’re pausing the game less, attacking with one character, swapping another in after the shield is broken to follow up with a health attack, and using spells on the fly. It’s satisfying to feel in control, but also like your heart is in your throat trying to figure out if your abilities will be off cooldown before the next enemy reaches you.
Has Been Heroes comes out March 28th for Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Want more PAX South 2017 coverage? All you had to do was ask!
Prisma and The Masquerade Menace, Sundered, and RiME
Minit, Beat Cop, and Strikers Edge
Arms, Splatoon 2, and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Daku Con 2018 Photo Gallery
Daku Con 2018 Convention Recap!
PAX South 2019: Splitgate Arena Warfare, World of Horror, JackQuest, and Disjunction
PAX South 2019: Jump Force, Skellboy, A Fold Apart
PAX South 2019: Devil May Cry 5, Young Souls, Magequit
