Playing Indies at PAX East 2025 Restored Some Faith in Gaming

As someone interested in gaming, it can feel hard not to look at the direction the industry is moving in and feel a sense of dread. Hardware prices are rising with each generation and have minimal improvements to show. Companies have begun to demand 70 dollars for select games, and now we’re starting to see 80 dollar releases. Titles are often shipped unfinished, and with Mobile Game practices sprinkled throughout. Though even in my deepest gaming slumps, there is one event that manages to pull me up each year: PAX (formerly the Penny Arcade Expo).

While the convention finds itself on the West Coast and in Australia for some reason, it’s the East Coast variant I have been frequenting since 2020. Some of the bigger developers in the industry will have some presence at the event; drawing the likes of Square Enix (Final Fantasy), BANDAI NAMCO (Dark Souls), and even Nintendo on occasion. Personally, I’ve never been drawn to the big queues for these big companies. It’s always been the smaller booths run by smaller developers that continues to draw my attention. It’s at these booths that you’ll find nothing but unfiltered passion behind the games on display. And more often than not, you’ll be speaking right to the game’s developers, where you can give direct feedback on what you’ve just played. And this year’s bill featured far fewer mainstream companies and surprisingly, a lot more smaller developers and well known Indie companies to the Boston Convention Center. So I saddled up my convention bag, prepared my legs for the long weekend ahead, and charged right into the Expo Hall.

One of the running themes I came across in my demo sessions this year: homage. This is not at all to imply that the games I played were derivative of gaming’s past. Moreso that the developers took what made the games they’ve played so fun and made their own magic with those elements. Many of the games I demoed through my weekend at PAX East felt like they took inspiration from the best of gaming’s past and honestly brought me back to playing the games that inspired them.  

For example, Windswept by Top Hat Games feels like a marriage between two of the Super Nintendo’s finest titles: Yoshi’s Island & Donkey Kong Country. You play as an adorable tag team of a Duck and Turtle who each have their own abilities, but can be combined to progress through the level. Much like Donkey Kong Country, there seems to be a lot to collect and many different bonus rooms to discover that will leave players collecting for hours. Similarly, The Big Catch by XSEED Games takes some notes from the Action-Platformers of the PlayStation 2 era (think Jak & Daxter). The hook here is that you’re using fishing mechanics to traverse this world and tackle enemies. Finishing this demo left me feeling like I had only scratched the surface of what there was to see and leads me to believe that the full release is gonna host an ocean of content (all fishing puns are fully intended).

With the increase in Team-Based PvE (Player vs Environment) Shooters like HellDivers 2 & WarHammer comes Pizza Bandit by JOSOFT. The best way I can describe the how this game feels is the intense hoard gameplay of HellDivers 2, combined with the intense restaurant atmosphere of the hit TV show The Bear. You have to put together orders of pizzas and bullets into drop pods all the while you face an onslaught of aliens and cyborgs. Playing this game with my spouse and two random convention-goers was chaotic fun! We all had to shout out who was on pizza duty and who was fetching the sodas all the while several aliens started charging us.

Another running theme I found was the theme of Cozy Gaming; a gaming trend where titles are much less intense in theme and focus more on having a relaxed gaming experience. The first game I got to play at the convention, TANKUKI: Pon’s Summer by Denkiworks definitely fits the bill. You play as a Tanuki named Pon who goes around delivering packages and mail to the local town. Now here’s where the game straddles the line between being cozy and my previous point, because I did not expect this game to have Tony Hawk style (or perhaps Matt Hoffman Pro BMX style) controls as you ride around town on your bike. While the environment and vibe of the game is very relaxed, I love that I have the option to hit 360 Superman Seat Grabs as I deliver someone’s mail. Aside from the BMX action, you get these little slice of life moments that come with minigames. In my session, I delivered some old tapes to a former Sumo Champion who then trained me in the art of Sumo Wrestling; and I even got to fight a couple matches.

This year, I once again got my hands on one of my favorite working Indie titles in the Cozy Gaming space: A Corgi’s Cozy Hike by Scalisco Games. This is the third year in a row that I’ve come across this title in the Expo Hall, and the third time I found myself stopped and in line to play. Each year it feels like the game is more and more fleshed out. I can recall the first demo being a lot more centered on the movement of the title corgi. Last year, it was a little more of the same, with their planned Kickstarter launching around the time of the event. This year, I got to play around with the fluent and fantastic movement the game offers yet again. But this time, I experienced more interactions with the characters who also inhabit the game’s world. While soaring across the map and climbing to new heights felt fun in prior demo sessions, this small addition made the world feel a lot less baren and more lived in.

The last game I really want to shout out is OFF; a title I had discovered while waiting in line to play the demo has already been out for well over a decade. As one of the gentlemen running the booth put it, OFF was a game made in RPG Maker 2003 that you “really had to want to play” in order to find it through online spaces. OFF even inspired indie titles like Undertale & Omori; and from what I saw of the game while waiting in line, I absolutely see it. After finally getting into the driver’s seat, I must say that it was the best vertical slice of a game I got to play across both days of attending. With gameplay presented through segments, I got to experience some puzzle sections, a hint of combat, a couple mini-games, and some fun dark humor to boot. As someone who’s only finished a handful of RPGs in my lifetime (one of which being Undertale), I’m looking forward to the official release.

With PAX East 2025 in the books, I found myself with a much better outlook on the gaming world. Beneath the skylines where Live Service Games and Battle Passes seem to get the most vision, I found a lot of great projects. And these titles go without mentioning the numerous projects I would stop and watch for a minute while going booth to booth. If you feel that gaming has become stale and you’re ever in need of a refreshing change of pace, then absolutely check out the wealth of Indie Games out there waiting for you to pick up and play.