PAX East 2025: ‘Mafia: The Old Country’ and ‘Magic the Gathering’ x ‘Final Fantasy’ Panels

While the main focus for many at PAX East is to wander the Expo Hall floors and check out games or play some tabletop adventures, there are a huge number of panels happening at all times. The topics range from small discussions on how to find roleplaying groups to massive presentations from companies like Gearbox for Borderlands 4.

I popped into a lot of panels over the four days at PAX East 2025, enjoying the music of Bioshop Infinite, listening to talks about “Romance and Intimacy in Games” and massive devstreams on the future of Warframe. There is so much to see and do outside of the expo halls it can get overwhelming so I find making a schedule of panels that interest me helped, and I dropped into them if I was able.

There were however two massive panels I was able to get front-row seating for to look at a couple of very different major games coming soon. The new Mafia game set in 1900s Sicily and the collaboration between Magic the Gathering and Final Fantasy were very entertaining and got my interest very high for both releases.

Mafia: The Old Country Developer Panel: Family Takes Sacrifice

This was a fun one. I have only dabbled in the Mafia games, but watching this panel made me want to try them all. Hosted by Greg Miller from Kinda Funny and featuring Hangar 13 Studio President Nick Baynes, Game Director Alex Cox, and Cinematics Director Tomáš Hřebíček, this panel had in-person and recorded segments showing off what we can expect once the game releases.

Set during the early years of the Mafia’s reign in Sicily, Mafia: The Old Country will look at the story of Enzo Favara. He was an orphan who was forced to labor in the sulphur mines and then gets taken in by the Cosa Nostra family and has to prove his worth to them to survive and move up in the family.

The developers discussed how they wanted with this release to have a strong focus on a tightly woven narrative experience instead of a sprawling open-world experience. This allowed them to really narrow in on Enzo’s journey as he moves from set piece to set piece in this gorgeous-looking 3rd-person adventure game.

There was a big focus on the actors, in particular Riccardo Frascari as Enzo Favara, Carina Conti as Isabella Torrisi, and Johnny Santiago as the head of the family, Don Bernardo Torrisi. They all had pre-recorded messages for us to watch at the panel, and seeing them in action in-game I was blown away by how they looked and felt. The game is in Unreal Engine 5 and it was quite impressive to see.

Because the developers wanted the game to have a deep sense of realism, they spent a good deal of time touring Sicily and speaking to locals and historians about the Mafia presence there in the 1900s. They researched the knife fights that were common, tactics, family traditions, and rules of conduct, and really tried to incorporate this background into the game.

I cam away from the panel really impressed with what I saw and doubly so by the passion expressed by the team on stage. They have been making Mafia games for over 20 years and this team is still excited to continue making them and having Mafia: The Old Country be the best one yet.

Have a watch of the panel above and keep an eye out for the game when it releases August 8, 2025.

Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy Debut Showcase

This was a big must-see panel for me at PAX East. I have been a fan of Magic the Gathering since it started many, many years ago, and addicted to Final Fantasy since FF3 (6 really) was released in North America for the SNES.

The focus of this panel was on the upcoming release of the MTG x Final Fantasy CCG that is launching in June and will feature dozens of boosters and six new commander decks. This is massive not just for MTG, but for the hundreds of millions of Final Fantasy fans around the world.

Hosted by perhaps the most charming man in the world, Ben Starr of FF XVI (and many other games) fame, the panel featured card reveals, insight from the designers, and a fun trivia game featuring wrestlers (!) and Karen Fukuhara. It was a fun couple of hours that had the audience laughing, cheering, and generally just having a blast from start to finish.

The meat of the panel was going through each Final Fantasy game and revealing what cards the developers focused on from each numbered game. Starting from the beginning, they showed heroes, villains, animals, and the new land types.

The cards themselves were incredibly interesting. The developers asked all of the mainstream artists who designed the games from the beginning to draw cards of their choice from the series they worked on. These cards became the definitive ones featured in each games loadout, often with variants triggered through transformation or evolution.

Examples were shown, for example of Kefka (FFVI) having a variant after he defeats the party midway through the game. The hero Terra also has variants that can get triggered. Crowd favorites like Cloud and Sephiroth (FFVII), Vivi (FFIX) and Squall (FFXIII) were all shown on the big screen in card format to shouts of excitement and fanfare.

One of the best reveals was when they got to the last mainline game, FFXVI, and Ben Starr who played Clive in the game stood up and revealed his character’s card on the t-shirt he was wearing. It was classic Ben Starr amazingness and it drove the crowd to their feet with room-crushing cheers and shouts.

There was also a mid-panel trivia game where audience members worked with the celebrity guests and on-stage peers to try to answer questions. It was fun and a nice palate cleanser, but dragged a little too long when all we wanted was to see more cards!

The reveals were interesting, as was the approach the developers are taking to this version of MTG featuring the Final Fantasy Universe. Lands are adjusted and also remain the same, many heroes are multi-colored requiring substantial planning, and the big-name heroes have stunning commander decks that can be bought and enhanced with boosters.

All in all this was the most enjoyable panel I have been to in a while. The combination of host, guests, reveals, and general exuberance for the release was infectious.

The Magic the Gathering and Final Fantasy collaboration releases June 13.