PAX Australia's cosplay competition was won by a meticulously outfitted Halsin

(Image credit: Maria Boyadgis and Kiko Villasenor)

The cosplay at gaming conventions like PAX Australia is an interesting window into what's dominating nerd culture at any given moment. The year when Heath Ledger Jokers were everywhere will be hard to forget, while this year Deadpools and Wolverines were all over. Last year's trend of Baldur's Gate 3 cosplay also continued strong, with people taking Larian's heroes and making them their own. That includes the winner of the Cosplay Central Crown Championships at PAX Australia this year, who cosplayed as femme Halsin.

Claire McCutcheon, AKA Instagram's Hench Wench, won the overall category with her take on the buff elven druid, complete with duck. You can see the months of effort that went into the costume on her Instagram story, beginning with a quick speed-build for last year's convention then 12 months of upgrading and dealing with accidental "battle damage" on freshly tooled leather thanks to her cat's claws. It's a huge amount of work and a well-deserved win, which was celebrated on the day—coincidentally her birthday, leading to the audience singing Happy Birthday after McCutcheon was announced as the winner.

A lineup of cosplayers at PAX Australia — (Image credit: Maria Boyadgis and Kiko Villasenor)

The runner-up was Danielle Debs as Micah-10 from Destiny 2, in an outfit that must have kept her 3D printer busy over a lot of nights. Other entrants included an impressively statuesque Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village and a Vault Dweller from Fallout complete with armored jumpsuit.

As the overall winner, McCutcheon took home a prize of $3,000 as well as a trophy and medal, tickets and accommodation for next year's PAX Australia, and the chance to represent Australia in the global cosplay championship at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) next year.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.