PAX East 2026 Quick Impressions

RPGamer got the chance to demo a variety of upcoming games this year’s PAX East in Boston. This includes two upcoming titles from NIS America, DLC for Borderlands 4, and two interesting indie titles. As a bonus, we’ve also included impressions of the upcoming Bubsy 4D, which aims to flip the reputation of that series on its head.

Disgaea Mayhem

Smashing prinnies in real time is a blast.

Disgaea Mayhem will be instantly enjoyable to any Disgaea fan with at least a passing interest in the musou genre. Though there is only a single playable character, all the different weapon types present in the main series are available. Companion characters will change into these various weapons, with a wide range of familiar skills for each. The demo on display offered three different stages with familiar enemies and bosses to tackle. The mechanics were easy to understand and quite entertaining, but it’s unclear how much depth the game will have just based on this small slice. It appears to be a very promising offshoot off the Disgaea series, however.

Brigandine: Abyss

There’s a lot going on in battles in Brigandine: Abyss.

Brigandine: Abyss is the third entry in this series of strategy RPGs, which originally started on the PlayStation. The demo for the game did not hold back in the slightest, promptly assaulting anyone playing it with a barrage of information about strengths and weaknesses, magic types, terrain, and a system of units controlling summoned monsters. It was certainly a lot to take in, but it quickly became clear why it was necessary. This is an incredibly in-depth strategy game, where hastily made decisions can spell utter disaster, as I quickly discovered. My rush to play with the mechanics led to many key units quickly dying. This can be especially disastrous, as a leader unit dying removes any monster units tied to that commander. Though it was a bit overwhelming as far as a demo goes, it was clear there was a lot to this game, and it ultimately makes the full game seem more intriguing instead of the demo being a turn off. Strategy fans should certainly keep an eye on this one.

Borderlands 4 DLC

Though there was no playable demo for the Borderlands 4 DLC, there was a show to promote the new story content, which launched shortly afterwards. The cosmic horror-themed DLC features a new location, but more importantly, an-all new vault hunter named C4sh. This new character isn’t limited to the DLC either; he can be played in the main campaign as well, with a full set of voice lines to match. Themed around special powered playing cards and a special dual-wielding ability, the new character offers a whole new way to play. The story pack, titled Mad Ellie and the Vault of the damned, will include many new weapons, including a flamethrower-type weapon that sprays blood, which was shown during the presentation. The new content is available now.

Mad Mojo

Mad mojo is a weird mashup of a bunch of different indie hits.

Mad Mojo is an upcoming indie game that could best be described as a mashup of different concepts from hit indie games. The game is presented as a faux playtest of a new monster-collecting game, and strange things start happening immediately as the player goes through the fake EULA. The main gameplay is a roguelike deckbuilding adventure using cards based on the monsters the player has captured. Attacks are played as poker-style matching of cards, and defense uses a simple active parrying mechanic. If this strange mix of mechanics wasn’t enough, death kicks the player out to a fake computer desktop screen. Puzzles will be presented to the player once there that give hints of the overall meta-mystery of the game before returning the player to the main gameplay. It’s unclear how well this mish-mash of ideas will work out, but the demo certainly showed a lot of promise.

Crystalmancers

Crystalmancers feels like a take on Puzzle Quest, replacing that game’s match-three with Tetris-type mechanics.

Crystalmancers is a roguelike adventure that feels reminiscent of Puzzle Quest, using puzzle game mechanics as a way to handle combat. Instead of match-three, in this case, Crystalmancer works with Tetris mechanics to handle combat. Instead of pieces steadily progressing down, the player can take their time and move the current piece in any open space it can fit. Enemies attack by re-arranging tiles or simply making new pieces appear on the bottom of the screen to make it harder for the player to clear. As the player progresses through the game, they’ll acquire new pieces with special abilities, and even the ability to visit a blacksmith and change the shape of pieces by adding or removing blocks. The basic concept was immediately engaging and showed a ton of promise. Any fan of puzzle-RPG mashups should keep an eye on this one.

Bubsy 4D

The Bubsy series shockingly keeps rolling along.

Yes, Bubsy 4D is obviously not an RPG and not something we’d usually discuss, but it was hard not to mention the latest entry in this series of notoriously awful games. This is because Bubsy 4D is immediately incredibly fun and engaging right off the bat. This shouldn’t be too surprising, given that the developer of this entry is behind the excellent Demon Turf and Demon Tides platformers. Mechanically, Bubsy has a number of moves for double jumping and climbing across the game’s carefully designed levels. Moving Bubsy around the stages was fast and smooth, and most of all fun. There’s even a mechanic where Bubsy turns into a ball shape for rolling around Sonic-styled pipe sections that rival the better 3D Sonic games. There wasn’t a ton of combat in the demo, so it’s yet to be seen if that aspect of the game will match the quality of the rest. Overall, it was truly shocking to play a Bubsy game that felt like it could be the next big thing in the genre instead of the next example on how not to design a game. Hopefully, the final product matches the quality of this demo outing.