Your Post-PAX West Digest

We saw a lot of games in Seattle.

Author

Robert Scarpinito
September 06, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

Greetings From Seattle!

Andrew Otton, Austin Suther, and I just spent a hectic Labor Day Weekend in the Emerald City to check out the 20th anniversary of PAX West. I’m still in Seattle because, well, I live here, but we got to see a ton of cool, cute, and creative games.

We’ll be rolling out our coverage over the next week, but we’ve already got a bunch that I’m excite to share with you, including some big ones we can’t talk about yet. But let’s kick things off with Nintendo’s next big game.

Andrew spent an hour with Echoes of Wisdom, and if you’re into the immense creative freedom that Tears of the Kingdom or Super Mario Odyssey brought to the Switch, you’ll want to tune into this one.

In a way, this use of Echoes is an expansion on Cappy’s mechanics from Super Mario Odyssey. While not directly taking control of enemies or objects here, you’re still interacting with them in a similar way, and they are full of surprising effects that will have you say, “I can’t believe they thought of that.”

—Andrew Otton, Editor in Chief

Andrew and I both played the next Henry simulator, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. The slice we played was roughly 60 hours into the game, and it still felt like every little choice mattered. We both played the same quest, but it progressed differently because I failed a stealth check.

While various game systems have been streamlined a bit more, like the combat, the biggest upgrade I experienced in my demo was just the sheer scale of the game.

The demo took place in Kuttenberg, a large German city in Bohemia. A real place, it was full of buildings, market stalls, taverns, guild halls, and so much more. Hundreds of NPCs were walking around going about their daily tasks.

—Andrew Otton, Editor in Chief

The remake of the now 31-year-old Romancing SaGa 2 hits storefronts next month, and Austin got his hands on an early build of it at an offsite Square Enix event during PAX West. He came away pretty excited with its main focus being passing down abilities and knowledge to the next generation in a yearslong war against seven big bads.

The second dungeon skips a generation. The main character of the first part of the demo is now a young woman, rather than a man. I have a party full of unfamiliar heroes, and all of them are much more powerful than the last party. Generational knowledge truly is powerful!

—Austin Suther, Staff Writer

That’s not the only Square Enix game Austin saw—the console and PC port of Fantasian is coming soon, and he has some mixed thoughts on the game’s mobile roots.

Austin got a dose of nostalgia with the upcoming beat-’em-up, which he loved. He messaged me and Andrew right after playing it to tell us how cool it was, and in his preview, he said that all the people who played it on the show floor “were among the happiest in the crowd.”

I played the upcoming co-op horde shooter, Pizza Bandit, coming from Korean studio JOFSOFT. When I read that it combined Overcooked with Gears of War, I just had to see how this monstrous combination came to life.

In Pizza Bandit, you team up with three other people to shoot hordes of enemies, defend your restaurant, and sling some ‘za with rocket-powered delivery pods.

It sounds like a silly premise that shouldn’t work, but that’s only half right: it is a silly premise. Much like pineapple and ham on pizza, it’s an unexpected yet pleasant combination that could be an addictive recipe when it fully launches.

—Robert Scarpinito, Features Editor

Players who love that one-touch, one-kill mechanic from games like Hotline Miami will find a lot to love in Death the Guitar. It’s a fast-paced, high-octane 2D platformer where you kill enemies with the power of sound. I found myself not just beating levels, but wanting to practice the most efficient routes through them.

The Big Headlines

For every Helldivers 2, there must be a Concord. It’s perfectly balanced, just as Thanos would have it. This hero shooter from literally 14 days ago felt like it should have been from 8 years ago—and it shut down as of today.

If you were one of the few players who kept jumping off in-game cliffs in these past few days, I hope you got your platinum. And for the developers at Firewalk Studios, I hope they’re able to land on their feet after this debacle.

OK look, I didn’t write that headline, and I have to work with what I’ve got. However, Joe has a point. It looks a little eh. Visually, it’s giving Spy Kids 3D. And the dialog and comedic chops felt a little played out. And what in the world is Jason Momoa wearing?

CD Projekt Red and Go On Board are collaborating on what could be one of the biggest tabletop games in recent years. And update: It’s now been 3 days and it’s raised almost $3 million.

It’ll be a co-operative narrative-driven game where chooms have to work together to earn street cred and eddies. The Gamefound campaign will end on Sept. 19, so you still have time to check out the page and consider sending them your own eddies.

One of the biggest indie breakouts of the year is coming to iOS and Android later this month, so you can now be addicted to Balatro anywhere, any time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t need clairvoyance to see this one coming. My heart goes out to the QA staffers that were laid off over the past month.

Once the pioneers of Arkham-style combat, Rocksteady’s reputation has fallen since its heydays with the Caped Crusader. Maybe the world needs more Batman games—though the DCU Head James Gunn has said there are no plans for that.