The annual opener to the PAX show season, PAX South started off 2020 by showcasing the theme for this year’s PAX merchandise, along with some game announcements, and a few significant layout changes.
Beginning in 2019, PAX show exclusive merch has featured a particular theme. Last year was sort of a drippy pizza thing, this year it’s a collegiate theme. While the “drippy” theme wasn’t especially popular, the collegiate theme seems to be off to a strong start. This writer saw quite a few of the letterman style jackets being worn around town, and the LE crest pin and patch look quite sharp to these eyes.
If 2019 is any indicator, attendees at the rest of the 2020 PAX shows can expect some sort of similar collegiate theme.
The layout changes seemed to be necessitated primarily by the move of True Dungeon, a live RPG experience (LARPing. It’s LARPing. Ed.) from the third floor of the convention center down to the first floor. This pushed the queue/autograph area to a different section of the first floor, and moved the PC Freeplay and BYOC areas up to the third-floor ballroom formerly occupied by True Dungeon. Overall it felt like a slightly more efficient use of the space, while still leaving plenty of room should the Expo Hall grow in the future.
The Expo Hall area itself was dominated (ironically) by tinyBuild’s massive booth, with the smiling visage of the Neighbor from Hello Neighbor smiling down on unsettlingly on everyone entering the show floor. While most booths had a fairly typical demo station setup, tinyBuild arranged their booth like a series of carnival games, save that gamers could sample the latest builds of Totally Reliable Delivery Service, Hellpoint, and Black Skylands rather than trying to knock down pins or toss rings.
Major announcements from the show started with 3D Realms’ reveal of Kingpin: Reloaded. NIS America announced that Trails of Cold Steel III would be coming to PC in March, and that Langrisser I & II would have a demo out for Nintendo Switch™, PS4™, and PC coming Soon™. Glorious PC Gaming Race debuted their new Glorious Model D RGB Gaming mouse, and GUNNAR Optiks had their new Emery glasses on display at their booth.
While PAX South continues to be the smallest of the main shows in the continental US, that also allows it to experiment with some new ideas. New this year was the LatinX Lounge, a showcase of games and ideas from Central- and South-American countries, as well as panels focused on that particular market and developer group. The encroachment of PAX East into late February this year may have pushed a few middle-size companies to skip displays at South in favor of simply going all out at East, but the smaller feel also leaves more room for odd experimental games which would get completely lost at one of the larger shows.
For anyone who’s never been to a PAX show before, South is the perfect place to start. The San Antonio Riverwalk is great, crowds are smaller, but it’s still a solid PAX experience. Also, San Antonio weather in January is all but guaranteed to be better than Boston’s weather in February.
