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This year’s edition of the PAX West gaming show in Seattle was a great opportunity to get an early look and hands-on time with some of the upcoming horror games we’re excited about, as well as getting some more exposure to games we’ve already covered or reported on.
We connected with several publishers and developers on their upcoming games, so here’s a collection of what we were able to check out.
After reporting about Drowned Lake way back in late 2023, we finally got to try it for ourselves, and it was a fantastic experience.
The story is set in a small fishing village in Brazil that’s been completely flooded. The only way to get around is by using a small boat, while trying to solve the mystery of a man whose disappeared. The variety of gameplay varies from a top-down boating exploration to a first-person exploration and clue-finding mode, as well as some first-person boat-driving sequences, making for a very diverse experience.
There is a variety of analog horror elements, one of which is a video camera your character carries to document findings along the way. It’s also used during gameplay, as you try to uncover and document clues from the lake and other locations. Lastly, the foreboding atmosphere and sound design round out the experience.
The word is that developer Monumental Collab is aiming for a release either late this year or early next year. This is good news, as the game is shaping up to be even more exciting than the original trailers showed it to be, and as a result, is heavily on my radar for the near future.
Our next stop on the show floor was the DreadXP booth to try out the full build of their upcoming retro survival horror title, The Lacerator. The game is a solo-dev affair by Brazilian developer, Fernando, who I also got to chat with after playing a full playthrough of the game. The Lacerator plays like a classic Resident Evil game, with fixed camera angles and a crunchy lo-fi aesthetics. There’s also a trashy grindhouse aesthetic to go with it, and the gameplay is pretty unique for a few reasons.
You take control of Max, a former porn star and arrogant idiot, whose crassness and stupidity make for a lot of humor in the game. Aside from the terrifying moments, this is an interesting way to approach this type of game, similar to some of the games by Jordan King and other retro horror devs in recent years.
While the game is on the shorter side (most runs average around 30 minutes), the gameplay and paths you play can change wildly depending on your decisions. Since many of your choices result in different parts of your body being severed, the gameplay changes wildly around that dynamic. For example, if you lose a leg, you’re forced to crawl around on your stomach, barely able to use any weapons or items, if you lose an arm, you’ll find it very difficult to swing a melee weapon or aim a gun, and so on. You might even have the opportunity to replace your severed body parts with souped-up replacement prosthetics at some point, leading to even more unique gameplay opportunities.
This playthrough was a lot of fun, and talking with Fernando about all the different possibilities the game offers on each run as well as speaking about his influences and what he loves about classic horror games was a treat.
I can’t wait to check out the full game when it launches before the end of this year. You can currently wishlist on Steam and check out the demo for yourself.
We also had an awesome opportunity to attend a private preview event with Bandai Namco to spend a few hours with Little Nightmares III, which included playing a few hours of the game on co-op as well as getting to chat with the game’s producer. The event had an awesomely-themed visual setup with art and props from the game set up in the space.
We’ll have a full-length preview of Little Nightmares III up in just a few days with a lot more details on the slice of the game that we got to experience as well as further details we received in our time with the dev team behind it.
The show floor was littered with a ton of other horror games, including Eclipsium, No, I’m Not A Human, Caput Mortum, an awesome “live” version of Buckshot Roulette (complete with shotgun, game-accurate table, and items), and Resident Evil Requiem, which we already have a lot of great coverage of on our site and recent YouTube videos.
We had an all-around awesome experience at PAX West 2025, and can’t wait to get our hands on the finished version of all games we were able to check out. We’re also looking forward to more great horror gaming experiences at next year’s show.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more coverage on all of these games as they become available, and for our in-depth preview of Little Nightmares III later this week!
