PAX West as it was originally planned for 2020 has been cancelled because of the coronavirus and will be replaced by PAX Online, the first PAX event of its kind. PAX Online will combine both PAX West and PAX Australia into the online event scheduled to take place from September 12th to September 20th and will still showcase a number of expected PAX events and announcements despite being conducted online this year. For anyone who was planning on attending one of these events this year, you can at least be reassured by knowing that PAX Online will be totally free with no badges or credentials needed to see what’s being announced.
PAX organizers announced the changes to this year’s scheduled events this week to present the revised plans to those who were interested in attending and may now be interested in tuning into the online event. There will still be panels, presentations, and merch to look forward to as PAX adopts an online strategy similar to the ones many other companies have moved towards during these unprecedented times.
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In April, we were still hoping to bring you PAX West this year. But health and safety are paramount, and as we worked on solutions, it became clear that if we really wanted to welcome everybody home, we’d have to take PAX Online. Read the full post here: https://t.co/tMoLP5ndfA pic.twitter.com/7VVJYzn4aa
— PAX (@pax) June 16, 2020
While there won’t be any booths for people to visit at the PAX events since everything’s been taken online, there will still be opportunities to try out games, according to the organizers. An FAQ on the PAX site said work is currently underway on “a project that will let you download and demo games from the comfort of your home.” How that’ll work and what games players will be able to download and demo hasn’t been announced yet, but we’ll expect to hear more on that in the future.
The latest decision on PAX’s 2020 events follows a statement from earlier in the year that said PAX West would go on as planned in September. That statement was from April but always had an “as of right now” attached to it so that PAX could remain flexible as many companies have had to while they adapt to different plans.
PAX West is not the only major gaming event that’s been cancelled this year. Numerous other events put on by individual companies have been cancelled, pushed back, or otherwise changed, but the biggest cancellation has been E3. The event was supposed to be taking place in June but was cancelled months ago, and unlike PAX Online, there’s no big online event planned to replace it.
PAX Online will take place from September 12th to September 20th.
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