Steam Deck stole the PAX limelight as Sony and Nintendo went AWOL

Talk about a one-two punch. After years of Australians paying almost $400 above US recommended retail to attain a grey-imported Steam Deck, the company has finally decided to launch its coveted console in this market.

This was all done by stealth. With no prior warning — aside from an embargoed press release to some outlets — the company set up a kiosk at PAX for attendees to try out its new consoles (both the OLED and regular Steam Decks) and launched on the same day it was open to the public.

It was a great surprise move from the US gaming company. Its queue was flush with excited attendees looking to give the device a go.

On the other side of the coin, both Sony and Nintendo intend to launch devices within Australia within the next 12 months, yet neither was on the show floor.

Nintendo has more of an excuse than Sony. Its vaunted ‘Switch 2’ is yet to be formally announced. But it has several big-ticket games to market, including Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Mario Party: Jamboree. The latter is out today.

Given the marketing push for the PS5 Pro, it wouldn’t be unusual to expect a demo of some sort at PAX. It would have been a prime opportunity to feature the console’s main selling point — its enhanced frame rate with high-fidelity graphics. Now that its launching here in the same month as the Steam Deck, the PS5 Pro needs all the sales opportunities it can get given its toting a local price tag of $1200.

It’s not an unusual move either. In prior PAX shows, other console and PC makers have demoed their wares ahead of launch. Years ago, gamers queued at PAX for the opportunity to glimpse an Xbox One through a glass case a few months before its debut. No gameplay, just to see the form factor of the console. Gamers have been known to do crazier things at massive expos like PAX.

So what’s the broader view? This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment activity. Exhibits at PAX are booked well in advance. Have the larger console makers dropped the ball? Seen a budget cut? Or are they saving their funds for further marketing activities down the line?

Regardless, they paved the way for their latest rival, Steam, to well and truly steal the show.

Five unique indies from PAX

PAX isn’t just about the big end of town. Over 30 indie games from across the country set up demos at the event to show off and get feedback about upcoming titles. After over an hour of agonising and playing titles, I picked five out of the cohort that stood out from the crowd. Most of these titles are at least a year to two years out from full release.

Memory’s Reach

Possibly one of the most graphically advanced indie games on the show floor, Memory’s Reach combines exploration with puzzle mechanics. There are no enemies or obstacles, just increasingly elaborate puzzles for the player to solve and abilities to unlock to help traverse the planet. The game is inspired by the Metroid series, but the demo plays similarly to Portal — another well-known puzzle classic.

Untethered

This feels like a horror game. You’re alone on a dilapidated space station, which you need to repair in order to survive. But after talking to solo developer Luna Verratti, I learned that Untethered is about as scary as Don’t Starve. While there is a survival element, this is a much calmer game about scavenging for parts among the debris and building out your own unique space station.

Bearers

Bearers feels ambitious. Solo developer Christian Hodges is attempting to recreate a player-vs-player souls-like game with eight unique battle classes, inspired by 2005 online game Guild Wars. He’s been working on it for around two years now and the early demo is interesting. One to keep an eye on as it continues to advance and develop. (Bearers is a little earlier along — in pre-Alpha — than the other games I discovered. I emailed Christian for a screenshot, I’ll add it in when I get a reply.)

Fox and Shadow

What if Slay The Spire had an interwoven, sequential narrative similar to Hades? That’s the question at the core of Fox and Shadow, a sci-fi deck builder. AI has taken over the world, and for its protection has placed humanity deep underground. Harnessing an assortment of drones, with their own deck of cards, you fight to the surface supercharging the bots with various emotion chips to enhance their abilities. It’s a snappy twist on what is becoming an increasingly popular genre of game.

The Last Werewolf

This game follows Lachie, a woman searching for answers after realising she’s a werewolf. Disguising herself as a paranormal investigator, she goes around solving problems and learning more about mysterious happenstances to hopefully try and find more of her kind. This is all while managing her own emotions and the uncontrollable transformations that can occur.

Solo developer Rebecca Kerr told me the game — which is beautifully set in monochrome — is a deeper analogy for mental health and bipolar disorder. The first chapter, and a “lite” version of the second chapter of The Last Werewolf are out now on Steam. Its third and final chapter is due for release at a later date.

What I’m playing: Silent Hill 2 (Remake)

This game has more or less confirmed it: The future of survival horror firmly lies in its past. Remakes of titles have been the strongest games of this genre for a while now, and I’d argue this latest take on Silent Hill 2 kicks it up a notch yet again.

Originally released in 2001, the game follows James through his mysterious journey into Silent Hill, a mid-western ghost town. He’s looking for his dead wife. Despite dying from disease three years earlier, she’s penned him a letter from the grave saying she’ll meet him at their “special place” in the town.

It doesn’t take long after James’ arrival for things to get weird. A thick fog envelops the abandoned town, and monsters are patrolling the mist. As the game progresses, concepts like physics, reality and time start to deteriorate. All the while, you start to learn more about James’ relationship with his wife, Mary. And of course, not everything is as it seems.

To get to the bottom of this mysterious letter, James pushes through a psychological hellscape, solving clever puzzles and disposing of (or avoiding) enemies in his path.

The game is a return to an era well before action games inspired a new direction for survival horror. Ammunition is scarce. Guns are not upgradable, and enemies are bountiful. Having not played the original, I’m told that combat is less optional in this remake than in the first game. But it feels tense nonetheless.

There are perhaps two points that set this game apart from others in the genre. First, it has an excellent map system. Silent Hill 2 feels like an escape room. It’s full of combination locks and clever conundrums, not every door is opened with a key. To help you solve its many puzzles, James will annotate points of interest and possible solutions on the map as you discover them. It’s a neat little mechanic that makes you (the player) feel as if you are right there with James, solving these mysteries as he is.

The second is a radio that emits static when enemies are nearby. This sounds like a useful addition to the kit in a horror game. But it instead ends up filling you with dread. Out of nowhere the radio will emit static, and you are left wondering: is there an enemy nearby? Am I about to be ambushed? I can’t afford to take damage right now, I’m already close to death.

One other notable feature — ported from the original game — is the option to increase the puzzle difficulty. This greatly aids in replayability and makes the game harder in a unique way. Too often, difficulty in survival horror revolves around making ammo even more scarce and enemies require more shots to kill, which in my opinion doesn’t make the game any more fun.

It would be perfect if not for one gripe I have with the game: It’s incredibly dark.

Not only in its themes and plot, which is fine, but in its graphical settings. One later area in particular — the prison — feels particularly tough to navigate due to a design choice to shroud it in darkness.

As it’s by design, turning up the brightness settings won’t help, and your flashlight feels next to useless here too. But its a risky choice in an era where not all screens are equal. Some makes and models portray blacks starker than others. My screen — a modern LCD — fared OK, but on an older TV I could expect this area to be particularly gruelling, and not very fun as a result.

Many of my friends will give Silent Hill 2 a swerve as they can’t hack the horror elements of the game. I may be desensitised as a veteran fan of this genre, but it didn’t scare me as much as I thought it would. It is, however, an excellent version of a virtual escape room. The puzzles here are better and more creative than any real-world equivalents.

So if you hate horror, but love escape rooms, I’d still give this game a go. Play its combat setting on easy so you cruise through. While it is tense, and parts may terrify, it’s low on outright jump scares or shocks. I suspect your sense of satisfaction from cracking that next combination lock will outweigh your sense of dread.

Worth trying if you like: Escape rooms, the original Resident Evil games, the Evil Within series.

Available on: Playstation 5, Microsoft Windows.