[COLUMN] Three Days at PAX Australia 2025 | by Lachlan Williams

Hi everyone. Nice to meet you. My name is Lachlan Williams, and I’ve been doing this for ages. If you only know the Second Wind crew from their amazing story of rebirth as the independent media group it is today, you might not know me. But, if you followed Nick, Yahtzee, Darren, KC, Jess, and everyone else on the team here from The Former Place, then you might not know me by name, but you’ll have seen my work.

I used to be an editor of words at The Escapist, helping out behind the scenes and making sure words were in the right place. I’ve worked with the Second Wind team for years, before they were Second Wind, enjoying their work before anyone else got to see how great it was. I’ve also known Nick for a very, VERY long time, working with him across his many ventures in games media.

This year, I was also laid off from my position at The Escapist. Surprise! But it is my great privilege to once again share my words with an audience alongside the fantastic people now known as Second Wind. Thanks team, for giving me this opportunity. And thank you, reader and supporter, for making sure people I care about can keep doing what they love.

It’s been a year, huh.

In a year that has seen continuing studio shutdowns, game cancelations, questionable company acquisitions, and swathes of layoffs in both game development and games media, I know that I’ve desperately needed some kind of misery circuit breaker.

For me, PAX Australia was that circuit breaker.

I’ve always enjoyed PAX Australia. There’s something so earthy and grounded about watching excited con-goers rub shoulders with talented creatives, celebrating the things we love in common. It reminds me of the excitement and joy this artform can bring at its best.

Seeing the artform I love bring joy to so many people is refreshing, and an uplifting reminder of the power of video games. lDevelopers big and small — mostly small — took up space in the first of the two halls, and it didn’t disappoint.

Nintendo had by far the biggest individual booth, and they had a lot to show off. Flagship titles like Metroid Prime 4, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Kirby Air Riders, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment flanked the booth, with playable demos on docked Switch 2s. Most interesting of these was Metroid Prime 4, which was playing docked at 120hz with the JoyCon’s mouse controls enabled. I didn’t get a chance to try it out, but I saw it running and it looked smooth as butter, and my colleague who did play it told me the mouse controls worked really well.

Hidden away in the centre of the booth, concealed behind thin walls and a blackout curtain, Nintendo were also showing the Elden Ring and (recently delayed) Borderlands 4 ports. Elden Ring was my highlight, publicly playable for the first time in handheld mode. While the Gamescom build of Elden Ring was notoriously choppy, the build at PAX Australia was much more current, and performance drastically improved. According to the Bandai Namco rep, Elden Ring targets 1080p with a 30fps cap handheld, and also 1080p/30fps docked.

Nintendo’s presence on the show floor felt dominating, honestly. The next largest (and only other) large publisher present was Xbox, whose booth was maybe a quarter of the size of Nintendo’s — maybe less.

Xbox continued to lean hard into their confusing “This is an Xbox” marketing line, with a bunch of high-end PCs and some ROG Xbox Allies to try on the show floor. More interestingly, there was a playable demo of Ninja Gaiden 4 running on Xbox Series X hardware. It looked, felt, and ran pretty great on the console hardware. The staff member at the booth told us that the demo apparently had a 5% completion rate on normal difficulty, and I’d believe that — we were part of the 95%.

Other booths emphasised the show’s push into hardware, with local part sellers and builders having booth space, as well as larger hardware manufacturers and OEMs like MSI and Thermaltake.

Making its PAX Australia debut was Keychron, who are marking their push into the Australian market earlier this year. They make great keyboards, and, more than most peripherals, mechanical keyboards benefit from hands-on testing, so having a variety of their flagship models available for in-person thocking was a big benefit.

But, as always, the heart of the show was the PAX Rising indie game section. A great selection of fantastic-looking indie games graced the entryway; the first obstacle an attendee must navigate. The typically diverse showing of genres and aesthetics did not disappoint. From the delightfully absurdist idle puzzler Tingus Goose, or the cyber-pastel narrative rhythm racer Angel, and the pacifist dichromatic folklore bullet hell Key Fairy, to the rock stacking patience simulator Cairn, and the cyberpunk top down action RPG Sinthetic, PAX Australia’s indie showcase was a heady kaleidoscope of colour and joy.

And always weaving through the convention were the people — normal folks, families with kids, enthusiastic merch-hounds, and the cosplayers. From the armies of beret-and-baguette wielding Clair Obscur cosplayers, to the rogue crew of the Tulpar carrying their “we hate Jimmy” posters, to the eclectic and elaborate anime gacha game characters I couldn’t even begin to name, the cosplayers brought their best this year.Not even a surprise (and smoothly handled) evacuation due to a false fire alarm could dampen spirits.

PAX Australia is special. It’s an energetic reminder of what really matters in this vast and complex industry. It’s the people who smile and laugh and be raw and real with each other over the thing they love. And I needed that reminder this year.