After lots of walking around everywhere and going to talks and stuff, I decided to take Sunday and hang out with my wife around the city of Seattle and enjoy the rest of the convention.

No notes, the city of Seattle is a beautiful place. I had a lot of fun roaming around.

BACK TO PAX

We headed back to the convention center after the Needle and hung out in the Expo Hall for the majority of the day. We wanted to make sure we grabbed some merch from the artist corner and played some game demos.

Upon first glance, the Expo Hall was absolutely packed! Every booth had so many people at it, and the artist corner was difficult to navigate. We bought some stuff from the Fangamer and Pink Gorilla Games booths, and it’s a shame I couldn’t buy any vinyl from the Iam8bit booth. The artist corner was super rad with loads of artists selling merch, and we bought some prints from EyYoJimbo and FINISH.

We then moved on to the demos that I wanted to play. LONG LINES, VERY LONG LINES for some and so I generally skipped the longer ones. I did stop at the following: Croak, Vagabones, Ruffed Up, The Void Rains Upon Her Heart and Spirit of Midnight.I had already played and enjoyed the Croak demo, and all of the other ones were really fun and made sure to take pictures of the booths to wishlist at a later date.

The star of the show was the Konami booth, which was, first of all, bumping with people, and looked fantastic with a Silent Hill, Metal Gear, and Castlevania setups. The Behemoths’ booth was also really great. I didn’t know whether they still made games or were just here because they are based in Seattle. Whichever, it was great to see Battleblock Theater again.

My wife wanted to catch the talk on the Lore of Kingdom Hearts and so, we moved back to the Summit building 5th floor. On the way, we headed down to see what the play area was like. HUGE PC area to check out a pc if you wanted to, and there were TV’s with Smash, Mario Kart, and other fighting games that were filled with people.

The board game was pretty great, with a checkout area that seemingly had every board game imaginable. We stopped off and played some quick games about baking, stacking stones, and a game specifically about ruining friendships. I made my wife buy me butter dice from Tabletop Girlypop, and so great pins and earrings from

We hit the 3rd floor for the Arcade Freeplay, in which we played some Die Hard and other games, which were super fun, especially if you have a second person to play with casually. I also tried Pinball and lost to my wife. She is better at pinball than I am, especially the Rollercoaster Tycoon machine.

Lastly, we ended up at the Kingdom Hearts panel, and boy, was it a ride. Good panel with faces that I did not know but had some sort of grasp on the lore of the games. I TRIED MY HARDEST TO FOLLOW, BUT THERE IS SO MUCH INFORMATION AND TIME TRAVEL THAT THERE WAS NO WAY TO BE ABLE TO FOLLOW EVERYTHING.

How Was PAX West Overall?

Nothing but an absolute blast, the 3 days that we were at PAX West 2026. I was generally interested in the talks, and I was able to get a lot of them and came out satisfied with what I was a part of. All of the people (Enforcers, I guess) that I came into contact with were super nice and helpful when I was just wandering around looking for where I was supposed to go.

A lot of really great cosplays; I love that people have such compassion and love for stuff that they work so hard, and the cosplays always looked really, really good. I was hesitant about the etiquette for that stuff, so I didn’t take any pictures, just appreciated it with my eyes.

Everything at the Expo Hall was great; I wish that I could have brought back more! I can say the same thing for the board game area. Lots of great games, with incredibly nice people assisting with how to play. I wanted to snag the Slay the Spire board game, but that game was HUGE.

I do not have a single complaint about the convention as a whole. Everything was really fun, really well managed, and really well thought out, especially the Q&As with developers and panelists. I am honored to be able to report back on everything I experienced over my three days at the con. *I didn’t stay the 4th day because I could not afford to.