PAX East 25 showcase promises refreshing and exciting games

Camila Domingues
3 days ago
5 min read

PAX East 2025 has officially wrapped up in Boston, MA.

For the uninitiated, PAX East (or any other PAX convention, really) is where nerds come together to celebrate gaming and the gaming culture with fun panels with special guests, try both upcoming and current releases, participate in tournaments, network, and so much more. Four wonderful days filled with activities like learning how to play iconic games like Magic the Gathering (please don't do this to yourself), Universus, and Dungeons & Dragons, cosplaying as your favorite characters, and making new friends means four days full of picture ops and games to play and talk about.

Does this sound fun? Are you sad you missed out? Well, you won't have to be sad for much longer - tickets for PAX East 26 will be on sale starting May 22nd! On that lovely date, everyone can jump in and secure their badges for next year's event (March 26th-29th, 2026). You may look for more details and purchase tickets on said date by heading to PAX East's official website.

This year, our photo/video guy (and the other half of my soul), Adam, and I attended the convention and tried out some of the fun and refreshing games showcased, all varying in graphics and animation styles, genres, release dates, skill levels, and game types - PAX East also showcases some good ol' analog gaming like TCGs, board games, and TTRPGs.

Let's look at some highlights, shall we?

PAX East 2025 highlights

Hell Clock (Rogue Snail)

Camila playing Hell Clock as PAX East. She was probably praising the game. — Camila playing *Hell Clock* as PAX East. She was probably praising the game.

Imagine my surprise, as a Brazilian who's lived in the US for just over 23 years, when I sat down to play Hell Clock and heard Portuguese being spoken.

Based on the War of Canudos, a very brutal conflict between the First Brazilian Republic and the residents of Canudos, Bahia, Hell Clock is a fun zombie dungeon crawler that combines Roguelike and ARRP and tops it off with a really nice Path of Exile feel to it. Which isn't surprising, considering Path of Exile II was made by Brazilian devs as well. You play as Pajeú, a warrior who earned his freedom, trying to find the mentor and spiritual leader of Canudos's soul. With each level and as time passes, time bends, and your powers grow as you fight horrific beings to meet your goal.

Hell Clock has a demo out now on Steam, so be sure to check it out.

Muito bom e muito obrigada, Rogue Snail!

Camila very immersed in Tire Boy by GameTeam6 — Camila very immersed in *Tire Boy* by GameTeam6

Tire Boy (GameTeam6)

If you're a fan of the rolling adventures you get into while playing Katamari Damacy, you will love Tire Boy. You play as a boy. Who's a tire. And you roll around the land gathering objects, talking to fish folk and other cool creatures, and fighting foes off with weapons, like an acoustic guitar. While holding your teddy bear in your other hand, of course. According to Andy, one of the members of GameTeam6, Tire Boy is a story about self-discovery and looking into your origins.

Andy from GameTeam6 talks to Camila about Tire Boy — Andy from GameTeam6 talks to Camila about *Tire Boy*

This wee tire boy was raised by his guardian owl with no family around, and the goal is to learn more about his people and his family so he can incorporate more of it into his own life. You can talk to other villagers and creatures around in order to complete quests and get rewards. The game has an open-world layout, with the land in which I spent rolling around being about 8km long. There are plans to bring more variety to the worlds, and applying environmental changes like snow, sand, and how they could affect your rolling.

Tire Boy does not have a release date yet, though the plan is to get it released in the next year or so.

Universus game mat and cards — *Universus* game mat and cards

Universus (UVS Games)

Now, Universus is in no way, shape, or form a new game - it's one of those gifts that keeps on giving.

UVS Games has been around for a while now with Universus, their iconic trading card game, gathering more and more steam as the years go by - the company currently has 12 collaborations, with Riot Games and Street Fighter being the latest to join a pretty impressive list: Critical Role, Attack on Titan, Spy X Family, My Hero Academia, Godzilla, Solo Leveling, Tekken 8, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Yu Yu Hakusho, Cowboy Bebop, and Trigun. What this means is you have a fun card game where you can kick your opponent's ass regardless of what your favorite IP is - they're all made to play nicely together. Or, against each other.

If you're interested in learning a game that won't make you want to flip the table when you lose (because you will), or because you love board games, make sure you check out UVS Games' official website.

VCTV (DreamKey)

We spoke with Will Brierly, who ran Snowrunner Productions for 20 years before co-founding his new project, DreamKey. Not only is he known for creating the first FPS (first-person Soda drinking simulation) Soda Drinker Pro in 2016, but he's also snuck a whole 100GB game into the tiny game he had originally made. That's VCTV.

VCTV is an interactive chat game that is always live on Twitch. It’s a human-written script remixed by AI to come up with fun “live” animated shows about literally anything the audience wants that exists within its configured limits. Yes, I know, the word "AI" is scary right now, but this is actually a really ethical way of using it. Instead of growing its footprint in the world, the only use this AI has is to literally take human-made creations provided to it and randomize it according to what the chat wants to watch - every art can be traced to a human who has received royalties, the characters have hundreds of pages of human-written program that dictate personality and quirks. So while it’s an “AI” game, it’s more of a human game that uses AI to an extent.

Will has been working on this for quite sometime and Joey Kramer from Aerosmith is a backer and investor for the game itself! If this is something that interests you, you can check out VCTV9000 on Twitch.

Dune: Awakening (Funcom)

While checking out the Dune: Awakening booth, we got to have an exclusive interview with Natasha, part of the PR team.

Camila speaks with Natasha, Dune: Awakening PR rep. Camila accidentally said Dune: Prodigy instead of Dune: Prophecy because she's human and was nervous.

I also got to play a little bit of the current Beta for Awakening and had a lot of fun forgetting how the shields work in the Dune universe for about 30 seconds, and then storming the figurative castle with another fellow attendee. Though there's still a lot of room but not a lot of time for improvements, the game has the classic elements of what makes a(n) MMO fun: multiplayer, guns, and enemies that are fun to eliminate. Add the Dune universe element to it, and we'll all be screaming "Lisan al Gaib" together in unison.

Dune: Awakening beta gameplay

Dune: Awakening comes out on June 5th!

These and many more games showcased at PAX East brought us immense joy, and talking to each and every one of their reps only showed us how passionate they are about their projects - and the final products shows it.

We have some more PAX East coverage coming - interviews, cosplay pictures, and more! And not just on our lovely site - be sure to keep an eye on our Instagram page and YouTube channel for more exclusive interviews and videos about the event.