PAX, the long-running tabletop and video game convention founded by Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, is returning to the southern United States with a brand-new event, PAX Unplugged Houston. The inaugural show will take place at the George R. Brown Convention Center from 25 to 27 June 2027, marking PAX's first southern outing in around six years since PAX South ended in 2020. The organisers say Houston was chosen for its strong infrastructure, airport capacity, hotel availability and a large, young, tech-savvy population, which Krahulik jokingly described as having a high "dork population".

The new show will be PAX's second yearly Unplugged event, reflecting the tabletop gaming industry's continued growth and creative expansion. Holkins and Krahulik noted that tabletop content has always featured heavily at their video-game-focused conventions, with a third of PAX East's floor space typically dedicated to it, and pointed to projects such as Acquisitions Incorporated, the pioneering Dungeons & Dragons actual-play show launched in 2008, as evidence of that crossover. They also referenced Acquisitions Incorporated's recent switch from D&D to the Daggerheart system, underscoring the sector's ongoing evolution.