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A Wrap on Gen Con 2025!

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Greetings, ‘Finders, and thank you for a stellar Gen Con 2025, featuring the launch of Starfinder Second Edition and the first-ever use of skirmish rules in Pathfinder Second Edition!

A photo of Paizo's booth at GenCon 2025 before the show floor opens with it's iconic purple and black checkered floor mat. The show floor and booth are empty of people, but full of product.

Starfinder Second Edition Launch!

An intergalactic welcome to Starfinders new and old as we usher in a new era of science-fantasy roleplaying! Gen Con saw the launch of Starfinder Second Edition with the release of Starfinder Player Core, Era of the Eclipse, Murder in Metal City, and a plethora of accessories!

In addition to product releases, we also celebrated the beginning of Starfinder’s new era with some amazing announcements—including the upcoming Starfinder Afterlight CRPG from our partners at EpicTellers!

You can follow the campaign for Starfinder Afterlight on Kickstarter or wishlist the game on Steam!

Starfinder Afterlight Coming Soon to Kickstarter: A promotional banner for a starfinder video game. The background is a colorful space setting with a tall space station in the lower righthand corner. In the foreground is a bright slice through space with headshots of a diverse group of aliens including humans, insect-like, lizard-like, and rat-like aliens.

For those who couldn’t make it to the show, we’ve recorded a version of our Starfinder Launch Panel to cover all the announcements! Plus, settle in for a wild ride with our celebrity game, recorded live at Gen Con!

Two armies face off on a barren plane of land. On the left, an army of horned devils dressed in dark spiky plate armor, on the write an army of humans dressed in white and blue plate armor

Pathfinder Battlecry! & the Hellfire Crisis

Get ready for battle! Gen Con also marked the release of Pathfinder Battlecry!, the latest rulebook for Pathfinder Second Edition. This book introduces two new classes: the commander and the guardian, as well as skirmish rules, player options, siege rituals, and so much more!
<hellknight hill GMs>

A photo of a group of five people wearing purple t-shirts standing and cheering as they're surrounded by tables covered in miniatures on three sides

Gen Con also bore witness to the opening salvo of the Hellfire Crisis—The Battle of Hellknight Hill! This special Pathfinder adventure made use of the new skirmish mechanics, giving players the opportunity to marshal their troops and storm the Hellknight citadel!

A photo of a GM (a game master) in a purple shirt gesturing over a table covered in miniatures and terrain as he guides players (off camera) through a campaign

Sending up a special thank you to our Hellknight Hill GMs, as well as BJ Hensley, Thurston Hillman, Mike Webb, and our friends at Titan Forge, My Mini Factory, and Dwarven Forge for the stunning miniatures and terrain!

Organized Play

Gen Con 2025 Sagamore Ballroom: A panoramic photo of a ballroom full of tables packed with ttrpg players, at the bottom center of the photo are three tables covered in miniatures and terrain shaped in a U formation. Two game masters are sitting at the tables

Gen Con was another astounding year of gaming for Pathfinders and Starfinders alike! Over the course of the weekend, over 1,100 games ran in the Sagamore Ballroom with over 5,000 players! The energy in the ballroom was electric­—nothing beats the excitement of hundreds of people diving into adventure together!

For a snapshot of the hard work our Organized Play GMs, HQ volunteers, and organizers put in over Gen Con, we’ve collected some fun stats:

  • Over 70 tables and 350 players for the Starfinder Second Edition Launch Special
  • Over 80 tables and 450 players for the Pathfinder Second Edition Multi-Table Special
  • Over 450 characters built at our character creation stations
  • Over 100 tables of Hellknight Hill
  • Over 200 volunteer GMs, HQ, and info desk workers
A photo of a table full of pathfinder society players. The game master is wearing a purple t-shirt while all the players are dressed in full chainmail and leather armor

Whether this was your first time playing with us or you’re a veteran of the Sagamore Ballroom, thank you for joining us for another wonderful year of Pathfinder and Starfinder at Gen Con!

Pathfinder Quest

A new adventure is on the horizon! With Pathfinder Quest launching on BackerKit on September 16th, we kicked off the Launch Party at Gen Con 2025!

A photo of a group of players playing the Pathfinder Quest Board and card game.

Throughout the weekend, we ran demos of Pathfinder Quest in the Sagamore Ballroom and at our demo space in Hall C! We also streamed a special demo session on Gen Con TV, featuring Krystina Arielle!

Join the party today to participate in trivia challenges, access exclusive updates, and receive a free metal coin when you pledge!

Drifter’s End

Paizo partnered with the newly remodeled Bar Cardinale at the Omni Severin to bring Drifter’s End, a Starfinder-themed bar, to life!

A photo of a bartender wearing a Drifter's End T-shirt, a black t-shirt with blue text, shaking up a cocktail with one hand A photo of a bright blue cocktail in a tall glass with a button of a skittermander in front of it and a propped up Drifter's End Cocktail menu in the background A picture of a Strawberry Machine Cake, a small cake decorated with white frosty, chocolate cogs, and strawberries. Behind the cake is a triangular cocktail glass with a bright pink cosmopolitan drink.

It was wonderful to see Drifter’s End full of friendly faces throughout the weekend! Let us know if you tried the Strawberry Machine Cake or any of our special themed drinks!

We can’t wait to see you all next year for The Best Four Days in Gaming!

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Tags: Community Conventions Gen Con Organized Play
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5 people marked this as a favorite.

This was my first gencon and it was a fantastic experience! While participating in the multi table special was a huge highlight of the trip, I think my favorite part was hands down the Strawberry Machine Cake. That might be the best cake I've ever had! I demand you guys sell more of it somehow! (Or at least point us to good alternatives that might be around the same quality)
Dark Archive
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Also my very first GenCon!
The Paizo team were super awesome and sweet, very accommodating and down to just talk shop about Pathfinder and Starfinder. Really happy to finally meet some of the people behind the games I love, and bought some awesome goodies in the process!

My partner and I didn't do too much gaming, though we both really enjoyed trying out the Pathfinder Quest prototype and found it very intuitive and easy to play. Really excited to get in on the backer-kit for that!

The Starfinder Reveals panel was also a lot of fun, the dynamic between the speakers was really enjoyable and it was cool to get so many sneak peeks in less than an hour! (Still hoping that we get a proper look at Zon-Shelyn before toooo long, maybe in a fun setting blog post?)

We definitely want to try and come back again and next time take the full 4 day experience to really sink our teeth into things.

And lastly, BIG shout-out not just to the creative teams but also the staff at the counter and who helped set up! Everything looked great and was arranged really beautifully and everyone we interacted with was so pleasant and enthusiastic, you all did a terrific job! <3
Wayfinders Contributor
2 people marked this as a favorite.

As one of the Hellknight Hill GMs, it was a delight GMing for all the people who came to our three tables! Thank you players of GenCon!

Hmm
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Twas also my first GenCon, while I unfortunately didn't get to play any games I had a great time wandering the halls and getting autographs from the Starfinder team
1 person marked this as a favorite.

It was a good one. I enjoyed the Hellknight battle, albeit it was a little short. Looking forward to next year.

If you guys wanted to set up a wargame separate from Society, I would be totally down for that as someone who's won on Deity for every civilization in Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. Furthermore, if you could send recipes for other conventions to sell Strawberry Machine Cakes, that would be incredible! All in all, I would love to come back to Gen Con as soon as I can.
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