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There's far more on the expo floor of PAX West 2025 than Nintendo and Alienware (but both are present, much to the delight of many excited fans). Beyond the PAX Rising Showcase of up-and-coming indie games, opportunities to pick up merchandise and hardware, and playable demos of some of the most exciting upcoming releases, the multiple expo floors of the show — yes, there's more than one, with videogames in the Arch Building and tabletop games in the Summit — are packed with opportunities for everyone from the most ardent gamer to the naive but open newbie to find something new to obsess over. As the show approaches its halfway point, here are three of our favorite booths we've gotten to enjoy so far.

PAX West 2025 runs through September 1 at the Seattle Convention Center.

Borderlands 4 (Arch, booth #303, 403)

Even if Gearbox’s Borderlands 4 display didn’t include a rage room allowing fans to smash their cares away (It’s very fun, but very loud; not for the nervous, although on the plus side, at least you can break things if you get too scared), it would still be one of the most in-demand booths of the entire show, thanks to the foreboding arch that visitors have to pass through in order to enter the space and get to the photo-op space, the life-size statues of the game’s characters and, most importantly, the number of gaming set-ups giving visitors the chance to demo the much-anticipated game for themselves ahead of its September 12 release date. But, really, that rage room is pretty exciting, we have to admit.

Magic: The Gathering (Arch, booth #2139)

No matter whether you're playing Magic: The Gathering via Magic Online or with physical cards (we're a fan of the latter, especially because it means you get to play with all the cool Spider-Man cards), Wizards of the Coast is ready to show fans a good time with the massive MTG presence on the Arch expo floor. The MTG space is actually double-sided, with one half recreating Spidey’s New York (complete with Venom graffiti and complimentary Daily Bugles) to promote Magic: The Gathering x Spider-Man, while fans of Edge of Eternities get their own suitably cosmic design-laden hang-out to play via Magic Online. What more could Magic fans want? Exclusive welcome decks? Don't worry: those are available, as well. Just check in with the Daily Bugle stand in the Spider-Man space.

Shueisha Games (Booth #525)

What happens when one of the leading manga publishers in the business decides that it wants to get into gaming, with a particular focus on indie developers? The answer is right here at PAX West 2025, with Shueisha Games — the gaming spin-off of Shueisha Inc., the publisher behind One Piece, Naruto, Chainsaw Man, and countless other manga mainstays — displaying six games from developers around the world. The breakouts might be sports game Bakudo, but we’re pretty partial to Opus, which the company describes as “Spirited Away with camera mechanics.” (Don’t get us started on ANTHEM#9, which they’re saying is like if “Candy Crush and Slay the Spire had a baby.”)

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