PAX West is always a deluge. Rows of booths, the chatter of fans, and the sheer flood of indie releases make it easy for things to blur together. You walk a few aisles and suddenly can’t tell one roguelike from another, one cosy sim from the next. But every so often, a game pops. It has an art style that won’t let you look away, a mechanic that feels fresh, or a spark of personality that keeps you thinking about it long after the convention floor closes.
Weeks later, when the noise has died down, those are the games that stick. These five stood out to me—not just as demos, but as experiences that feel worth carrying forward on your radar.
Fallen Tear: The Ascension – A Hand-Drawn Myth in Motion
Developed by Winter Crew Studios and published by CMD Studios, Fallen Tear: The Ascension is a heady cocktail: part JRPG, part Metroidvania, and fully kinetic. You play as Hira, a seemingly small protagonist thrust into a struggle against ancient gods. Platforming and side-scrolling provide the backbone, but RPG systems layer in summoning mechanics—friends you meet along the way become allies who can be called into battle.
What sets Fallen Tear apart is pedigree. The studio’s background in animation is unmistakable. Every frame feels alive; each attack or movement is tuned with extra precision to inject personality into the character. Watching it in motion feels closer to studying a finely drawn sketchbook that suddenly leapt into action. It’s as much about its style as its systems, and both are sharp.
A demo is available on Steam now, with a full release planned for Q1 2026.
The Rabbit Haul – Cozy Days, Chaotic Nights
By day: farm life. By night: tower defence. The Rabbit Haul, from Caldera Interactive, splits itself cleanly down the middle and makes both halves sing. In the daylight hours you nurture crops, build a town, and enjoy the cosy loop familiar to fans of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing. But when night falls, a band of raccoon raiders—the “trash panda posse”—forces you into roguelite tower-defence battles that are anything but wholesome.
The art style is the bridge. Paper-like characters in a 3D landscape evoke Paper Mario spliced with Cult of the Lamb. It’s cute and fierce all at once, the kind of aesthetic that instantly catches your eye across a crowded convention hall. That vibrancy carries into the details—animations, character expressions, even the way the farm itself feels lived-in.
There’s no set release date yet, but the developers host regular playtests with their community via Discord. If you like the idea of a cosy life by day and frantic defence by night, this is one to watch.
Sunderfolk – Strategy, Simplified and Shared
Not every standout at PAX is unreleased. Sunderfolk, from Secret Door and published by Dreamhaven, is already out in the wild, but if it’s not on your wishlist, it should be. It’s a tactical RPG with a twist: accessibility.
Instead of complicated controllers or steep onboarding, it borrows the ethos of Jackbox party games—everyone plays using their phones or tablets. Now imagine applying that ease of entry to something as complex as Gloomhaven or Baldur’s Gate. The result is a tactical fantasy RPG where barbarians can be bears, bards can be bats, and anyone can join the adventure with nothing more than an app download.
It’s designed for co-op, though solo play is possible, and new modes keep expanding its offerings. Campaign play exists, but so does a “one-shot” mission structure, perfect for when you only have an hour. For families, friends, or newcomers who’ve always found traditional tactics too intimidating, Sunderfolk lowers the barrier and raises the fun.
Rogue Eclipse – A Synthwave Dogfight
Step into the PAX Rising area where indie games get selected and spotlighted, and sometimes a game grabs you by sheer momentum. Rogue Eclipse by Huskrafts did exactly that. It’s an arcade roguelike in the spirit of classic pick-up-and-play experiences, but with spaceship dogfights set to a pulsing 80s synth soundtrack laced with Middle Eastern rhythms.
The premise is simple: survive escalating battles against waves of enemies after your ship gets caught on enemy radar. But the execution is hypnotic. The ship’s speed, the roll of a barrel turn, the staccato beat of lasers over synth chords—everything feeds into a flow state not unlike Tetris or Geometry Wars.
Fast, fluid, and endlessly replayable. No release date yet, but a demo is live on Steam. It’s the kind of game you load onto a Steam Deck, play for “just one run”, and suddenly find yourself still dogfighting an hour later.
Memoria Wake – A Dream That Fights Back
Finally, Memoria Wake from Team Crescendo. This is the one that stuck with me in the same way Tunic did years ago when it first appeared at a PAX showcase—a small, whimsical isometric adventure that quietly promised something larger.
On its surface, Memoria Wake feels like a dream: cartoony, lucid environments, a playful art style, and a surreal sense of place. But just beneath that softness lies steel. Combat leans sharp and Souls-like, built around precise parries and punishing encounters. Every battle is difficult, but never unfair—each one pushing you to study, adapt, and try again.
That duality—whimsy stitched to rigour—makes Memoria Wake mesmerising. It lingers, not just because of how it looks, but because of how it feels to overcome.
No release date yet, but a demo is available, and it’s one of the most exciting projects to emerge from PAX West this year.
PAX West can be overwhelming, but almost by design. For every great game on display, a dozen others risk getting lost in the shuffle. But the joy of an event like this is slowing down, listening, and finding the titles that resonate. Fallen Tear: The Ascension dazzles with its animation pedigree. The Rabbit Haul nails its tonal split. Sunderfolk rethinks accessibility for tactics. Rogue Eclipse delivers pure arcade endorphins. And Memoria Wake captures that rare mix of wonder and challenge.
They’re not the only ones worth talking about, but they’re five that matter. And in an industry where it’s easy to lose focus among the noise, sometimes choosing what to pay attention to is the most important decision of all.
