PAX Aus 2026: A Ripping Return to Form

We'd be the first to admit that our impressions of last year's PAX Australia were less than stellar. Beleaguered by a gaming industry that often refuses to acknowledge economic struggles, we thought 2025's PAX missed the mark. We're delighted to say PAX and its exhibitors tackled 2026 with thoughtful vigor, giving 85,000 attendees plenty of fun activities and panels to justify the ticket price.

Join us here on Anime Atelier as we take you through the exhibition hall doors and into PAX Aus 2026!

The PAX Thunder Down Under

As we've often noted throughout convention reviews, Australia can struggle to attract exhibitors and "big names" because of geographic isolation and a relatively small population. That said, PAX Aus keeps the underdog spirit alive, drawing over 85,000 attendees over three days. PAX West, PAX's original home, averages about 120,000 attendees per year—so Australians are keeping pace with our American siblings despite population differences.

Australia's value was clear this year, with industry partners investing considerable time and effort in their events, particularly in the gaming space.

Nintendo hosted dozens of Switch 2 units, loaded up with playable demos of titles including Monster Hunter Wilds, Minecraft Dungeons II, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Elden Ring, and more. Some of the braver souls could even join the lengthy queue for a chance to play The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake before its November 5 release. Outside the exhibition hall, Pikmin Bloom made an appearance with interactive AR (augmented reality) activities.

Sega created two large, immersive exhibits, one for Persona 4 Revival and the other for Stranger Than Heaven. The latter—the latest project from Yakuza/Like a Dragon's RGG Studio—was particularly enjoyable. Although we couldn't capture any game footage, we were charmed by the 1920s-style izakaya that Sega and its event staff created. Stranger Than Heaven has a lofty premise, featuring a 50-year story of crime and family across five distinct Japanese eras. We found the gameplay surprisingly deep for a third-person fighting game, with control over attacks and deflections; the world design and audio were fantastic, as expected from RGG Studio, and the demo definitely piqued our interest more than the previous trailers.

Square Enix ran two huge booths: one to promote FFXIV's latest Evercold expansion, and the other for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation. Unfortunately, there was no playable demo for Revelation. The FFXIV exhibition featured a cute crafting area and a themed photo-op area. Additionally, Square Enix ran a developer panel featuring Localization Director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and Global Community Producer Toshio "Foxclon" Murouchi, who talked about all things behind the scenes of FFXIV.

It wasn't just RPG fans who felt the love, with early access to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, plus both casual and competitive PC tournaments for those who wanted to test their skills in FPS, fighting, racing, and MOBA titles. As always, the more extroverted among us could get on stage for Dance Dance Revolution; and the speedrunning panels returned too, offering fascinating insight into how players break games wide open to complete them as quickly as possible.

We'd also be remiss not to mention a huge staple of PAX—the impressive array of indie developers showcasing their latest games. Australia is a hotbed of fantastic indie games, having proudly birthed global successes such as Hollow Knight, Untitled Goose Game, Unpacking, Cult of the Lamb, and more. It's always fantastic to see gamers support indie devs just as much as, if not more than, AAA developers. 

Gotta Collect Them All

Of course, video games are only one part of the PAX experience, with a secondary hall entirely devoted to cardboard worship in all its many forms. The tabletop library let players grab a board game and try it, while plenty of stores offered dice and accessories for your next tabletop session.

The trading card game (TCG) portion of PAX thrived better than ever this year, with familiar heavyweights like Lorcana and Magic: The Gathering available to play or learn, alongside newcomers such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Naruto. A personal favorite TCG, Grand Archive, hosted excellent learn-to-play sessions led by local players and judges, with shiny cardboard to admire and plenty of beginner and advanced starter decks. 

Of particular note for Australian TCG players was the quiet return of TCGPlayer to Australia. The Etsy-backed online marketplace for TCG singles has been notably absent from Australia for several years, leaving us reliant on third-party suppliers or pure booster-ripping luck. Etsy made its presence felt at PAX with a stamp rally and ongoing live auctions focused on TCG and related products.

The Food, the Fashion, the Fandom

Merchandise stalls were thinner this year, with only a handful of perennial vendors, such as Curious Empire, Good Games, Black Milk Clothing, and Kings Comics. Given the Australian economy has been struggling—interest rates hit a 15-year high in early October—we're not really complaining. We'd love to support our local stores and creators as much as possible, but with tighter finances, less temptation wasn't necessarily bad.

PAX Aus continued its yearly cosplay competition, but you didn't need to compete to have a great time dressing up. We saw plenty of our favorite characters from different video games and fandoms, ranging from the complex to the charmingly rustic. 

PAX Aus 2026 was definitely more thoughtful than previous years, with plenty of spots to sit and relax without buying anything—a welcome reprieve after hours of pounding the concrete. One of our favorite spots to return to was Crunchyroll's manga booth, where the anime giant advertised its new push into digital manga. While licensing rights are a complex problem worthy of their own article, new avenues for digital readership are always welcome in Australia, especially since we're often excluded from more common subscriptions like K-Manga or Manga+.

PAX Aus 2026 In Summary

As always, stepping into the PAX hall means stepping into something far bigger, and far more connected, than you ever thought possible. In 2026, "disconnection" has struck home for us more than ever; despite our 24/7 ability to connect to billions of strangers around the world via the internet, we may be more truly alone than ever. 

That sense of community is so fundamentally human, yet AI "companions" and the virtualization of every location, even our workspaces, are now eerily pushing it out of our lives. Ironically, the notoriously awful cell reception inside Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Center was a blessing, since it forced us to return to the people in front of us and focus on the thousands of like-minded individuals thronging the halls.

In many ways, PAX Aus 2026 was more than the sum of its parts. It was three days of exhibitors, vendors, panels, and competition. But it was also a pertinent reminder that, despite the incessant digitization of our lives, we are still real human beings who can pour by the thousands into one location to celebrate a shared love of nerdy subculture. 

And that's something we can't put a price on.

Anime Atelier was given press passes to attend PAX Aus 2026.
Title image photography © Brendan White.