Pax East 2017 in Review

Pax East 2017 has come to an end and it's time to give my review on my experience at the convention. I played some really interesting indie games. Attended some panels, and even met some really cool people.

Pax East 2017 in Review
Pax East is an event in Boston, Massachusetts that every gamer should attend at least once. It's open to the public and is an event for the fans. This is my third year attending and this event has grown a ton over the years. Pax East 2017 was my first year going as Media and it allowed me to get hands on demos with some really cool games! You may have spotted me with my Keengamer shirt walking around the show floor looking very distracted by all the games!

If you'd like to check those articles out, they'll be linked below!

The Town of Light Demo
Victor Vran Overkill Edition Demo
Mothergunship Demo
Divinity Original Sin 2 Demo

They are all worth checking out and were a ton of fun to try out!

I arrived at Pax East almost around the time it started because instead of flying to the convention, I went on a road trip instead. Keep in mind Boston is pretty expensive but it was a pretty fun road trip from New Jersey. When I got there I waited in a line outside for a little while before being let inside the convention center. I hadn't been there since 2012 so it was pretty nostalgic to see the convention center looking as it did before.

Twitch Booth at Pax East 2017
The Twitch booth was one of the first things I spotted on my way down from the main entrance. It had a Partner Meet & Greet section where you could meet your favorite streamers. As well as a Partner lounge, and even a stage where developers were being interviewed live on Twitch.

Lawbreakers was also heavily advertised as Pax East 2017, I sadly didn't get to try it out but am really looking forward to the game. Just from the booth I could tell their are a ton of passionate fans and developers working hard to make the game as good as possible. To the right side was the Bethesda booth where you could get hands on with the upcoming Morrowind expansion for Elder Scrolls Online.

Getting into a couple booths could prove to be a challenge but most of the time was pretty rewarding to get to play the new content for a certain game quite early. Some handed out pins and posters which is really cool for people like me with empty walls.

Pax East 2017 pictures
The only negative thing about Pax East 2017 was the extremely long lines. It got a little out of hand when some of them blocked some of the booths. This could easily be fixed if the event was held in a bigger building. Other than that the event had a lot of variety when it came to games. There was a lot of merchandise booths for things like Ocarina's from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. There you could purchase or even hear the booth staff play tunes from your favorite Zelda games. A couple game development colleges were also present at the convention providing information on their courses and programs.

One of the coolest things about Pax East 2017 is meeting your favorite Youtubers/Streamers. Most of them walk around the show floor and interact with fans. Twitch Prime played a huge part in the event this year. They had a lounge where gamer's could hangout and rest from the loud and busy show floor and maybe even watch a couple streams. Another thing is a room located on the second floor where you could borrow from a huge library of video games and play co-op, by yourself or even have some people watch you speedrun your favorite game.

Pax East 2017 offered a lot of panels and tournaments for all types of games as well. From Street Fighter to Mario Kart, there's a lot things to do if you want to take a break from the show floor.

Dark Souls 3 at Pax East
Back to a postive note, I got to check out Dark Souls III's new DLC, The Ringed City. It was extremely brutal but seems to be a challenging close to the epic RPG. We were given a ten minute limit to the demo and I used up most of the time dying so I didn't get to see much. I haven't played a lot of Dark Souls lately so I was a bit rusty but I managed to take down a huge monster by luring it around a staircase.

Trion had a very interesting looking dragon at their booth. It looked like it was made out of Lego's upon first glance. Blizzard also had a very cool booth. I couldn't tell if there was an area inside the booth but on the outside there was a merchandise section with some things that seemed to be exclusive to the event.

Trion at Pax East
 Pax East has a tradition of giving you a swag bag of a bunch of interesting goodies. This year it included a couple cool things like a Lawbreakers beta key, some coupons, and a couple flyers. The Astro coupon could come in handy later on for me personally so it's very much appreciated for me. One thing that I was trying to track down was this awesome looking Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild hoodie that I saw a couple people running around with. I'm a hoodie person and any gaming apparel that involves Zelda is a must buy for me but unfortunately I couldn't track down the source of it. However it could've been from a giveaway early in the day. A lot of times if you hang around a booth for long you can win some cool gear.

One thing that I'd note for next time is to plan out the day a bit more a perhaps fly to Boston instead of driving the day of the convention. Even though it was quite the trip, I had tons of fun with my significant other who was experiencing Pax East for the first time. We both are huge fans of video games and were fascinated by all of the well crafted booths.


Overall I'll say my experience at this event was pretty positive. I was lost for a couple hours but was able to locate some of the booths I really wanted to go to. I met a lot of really cool and passionate developers and attended a couple panels such as one for Youtube Gaming, and a Twitch Product Panel. Both were very interesting and informative. Pax East is an event for all sorts of gamers, it's a great experience and while it always seems to force you to brave the Boston cold, it's definitely worth it.Every year Pax East grows bigger and bigger but is one of very few major gaming events that's open to the public. You don't need to be a big time personality in the industry to enjoy Pax East, it's made for fans and will hopefully always be that way. Huge thanks to all the developers I met for the awesome demos!

Until next time Pax East.

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