PAX East has made a major pivot in the last two weeks due to a massive surge seen in the spread of the coronavirus. On the heels of the announcement that Sony, Capcom, Facebook, and Square Enix scaling back their presence this year, the teams behind Cyberpunk 2077 and PUBG are also pulling out of this year’s convention.
Recently appointed communications rep for Cyberpunk 2077, Stephanie Bayer, has confirmed on Twitter that the crew is pulling out of PAX East specifically due to the Coronavirus:
I just found out my team is cancelling our PAX East trip so I will NOT be at PAX East as previously planned.
I should still be at GDC though!
— Ｓｔｅｐｈａｎｉｅ Ｂａｙｅｒ (@NSSteph) February 25, 2020
Can’t be upset at looking out for the welfare of our team, that’s rare and very refreshing to see! That being said, we had our appointments lined up with the PUBG crew but received an email last night saying that they were also pulling out of the festivities for the same reason. In the email that was sent to Prima Games:
“In an update from the recent invite, PUBG Corporation has decided to cancel it’s presence at PAX as well as GDC 2020 due to the continued spread of coronavirus. Unfortunately, this means that we will not be hosting the planned happy hour at Rosa Mexicano this Friday.
“We will be rescheduling this plan for an upcoming event, once the coronavirus is under control and travel returns to normal. My apologies, as we were looking forward to seeing you in Boston. Hope we can count you in for our next happy hour – which I will share details on soon.”
Due to all of the media surrounding the show and the virus, the folks responsible for PAX East have promised that they are taking extra measures to ensure attendance safety.
