Day 3 of PAX West 2025 brought an eclectic mix of experiences, from deep-space cooperation and chilling horror mysteries to colony sims, fungus-cleaning adventures, and downright absurd ape boxing. I spent the day diving into games that stretched from the slow-burn dread of haunted hotels to the chaos of FPS-fueled authoritarianism, and even found one of my favorite “stupid fun” discoveries of the show floor. Here’s everything I checked out on the third day of PAX West.
STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions
I’ve never played any of the Astroneer games, but they always had my curiosity, so I figured I’d give STARSEEKER: Astroneer Expeditions a look during the show. Whereas Astroneer was more of a survival game, STARSEEKER offers a more traditional multiplayer experience as you and dozens of players work together to complete objectives on a fully explorable planet. My demo unfortunately wasn’t with a full party of four, as it was a more guided private session, but I was shown how players can choose a role via their tool choice (I got the electric tool, which is useful for stunning aliens) and work with their team to complete objectives while choosing to help or annoy other squads on the same planet.
My demo consisted of acquiring a radar sensor and tunneling our way up a mountain using the terraform tool to place it at the very top before gliding back down to our extraction. Things got a bit chaotic at times when explosive plants scattered on the mountain detonated, taking chunks out of the terrain, but we persevered and made it back to the station. I can definitely see potential for some stupid fun with a group of friends, and I’m eager to play it again under proper circumstances instead of a tight, linear session.
The Occultist
A busy show floor isn’t the best place to experience a demo for a horror game, but I’m a junkie for the genre, so I wasn’t going to let that keep me from checking out The Occultist. Playing as Alan Rebels, a paranormal investigator, you travel to the long-abandoned Godstone Island to investigate what may have happened to your father, who has disappeared.
My demo began with Alan arriving at the island, and after exploring its forests for some time, I came upon an abandoned farmstead that reeked of being haunted. It’s here where I was introduced to the game’s main shtick: Alan holds onto a skull-shaped pendulum that allows him to view supernatural objects that are invisible to the normal human eye. As I explored the home and learned more about the family that lived there, I encountered increasingly haunted activities, such as chairs moving across the room or a creepy old woman who appeared only to vanish a second later.
Using Alan’s pendulum, I was able to view things like hidden blood streaks or photographs. Following the blood led me to the basement, where I was immediately assaulted by the ghost of the deceased mother of the family, who wouldn’t let me enter until I used the clues around the home to discover her name. Things didn’t go too well for Alan in the basement once I eventually entered, leading to a chase to the barn, where I had to solve further puzzles to escape the pursuing ghost before my time with Alan came to an end.
I’m a big sucker for any media that leans heavily into the occult, so The Occultist is definitely something I’m keeping on my radar for 2026, and I’d recommend you check it out, too.
The Fading of Nicole Wilson
On the other side of the horror coin is The Fading of Nicole Wilson, a folk horror game about a haunted, derelict hotel and the mysteries it might hide.
You play as Brit, an unsatisfied teen who takes a gig as an assistant for a ghost-hunting documentary filmmaker. When her boss gets injured while exploring the Timberline Hotel, Brit is tasked with finishing the film for her. The Fading of Nicole Wilson focuses less on minute-to-minute scares and more on a slow buildup to its frights, as you accompany Brit through the hotel while things slowly begin to ratchet up in terror.
Using her ghost-hunting gear, my demo had me exploring the initial areas of the hotel with tools like video cameras to record sinister drawings on the walls or an audio recorder to potentially capture the sounds of the deceased. Things took a turn for the worse when night came and supernatural entities started to make their presence known—and it’s here when my demo was unfortunately cut short. I love a good slow-burn horror story, but this is one I’ll have to wait to experience, as its release date is currently unknown.
Ambrosia Sky
Imagine Metroid mixed with PowerWash Simulator and you’ve got Ambrosia Sky, a first-person sci-fi game about Dalia, a researcher tasked with discovering the origins of a strange new alien fungus and laying victims of the fungus to rest. My demo, while short, gave a good look at the game’s core loop of entering a level, clearing out the fungus with your chemical sprayer, and discovering long-forgotten recordings from the people who died. As someone who was a sucker for cleaning levels with the hose in Mario Sunshine and dumped too many hours into PowerWash Simulator, I was immediately at home as I quickly got to work clearing fungus from my path.
As I slowly made my way through the decrepit station, I came across various puzzles that needed me to do things like reroute power to activate locked doors or tinker with the gravity controls to help reach other areas. The Metroid inspiration kicks in with your ability to revisit previous levels with upgraded tools, like your sprayer that can be upgraded to mimic the abilities of the fungus, or your tether that allows you to grapple to far-off locations and satisfyingly zip over. Odd alien bugs litter the area, but serve as more nuisances than threats (at least in my time with the game), as a quick blast with your chemical sprayer got rid of them.
As you explore the area, reading old emails from long-dead denizens, you feel an overt somberness to the entire affair—especially when you reach your goal: the corpse of a friend of Dalia’s, and you learn a little bit about them and how they’re connected to what happened. There’s no release date yet, but Ambrosia Sky is definitely one to keep an eye out for.
Pax Autocratica
Pax Autocratica is what happens when you successfully play with your food, as it’s a satirical totalitarian colony sim mixed with a roguelike FPS.
Ook Boxing
I love finding stupid-ass games at PAX, and Ook Boxing was exactly that. You’re a gorilla, and you have to fight cartoonishly large waves of apes, and you do so with elemental powers or the environment itself. It’s an incredibly silly setup that I love, and the game plays simply enough to let you focus on the hilarity of it all. At one point, there were thousands of apes parachuting from above, and I was managing them by kiting them through a river to shock hundreds of them with my lightning powers. Or I’d grab a tree and swing it around wildly, sending apes flying everywhere.
There’s no release date just yet, but it was confirmed to be free when it eventually does, so I’d definitely recommend giving it a try when it comes out.
