Content Warning: Violence towards trans-women; bigotry; gamers™, The Last of Us Part II spoilers. “I told you I was sorry.” Those were the last words Gwen Araujo spoke before being beaten to death. Gwen was a trans woman who was murdered in cold blood after a group of men questioned…

An essay about knowing not just what video game players want, but why they want those things. The fandom of every minimally to hugely successful video game is an ever shifting tide. Players say they want a thing, and then complain upon receiving it. “Such ingrates,” another part of the…

The first several hours of Death Stranding have you (as Norman Reedus (as Sam Porter Bridges)) delivering dozens if not hundreds of kilos of packages on foot through a ghost-infested wasteland. Your shoes are wearing out, you’re forcing Sam to jack-hammer six bottles of Monster Energy to stay awake, you’re…

Dishonored 2 has always felt a bit strange to me from a gameplay perspective. There has always been a nebulous wrongness with how the game plays when compared to Dishonored 1. Not in the larger-scope, the games are very similar in structure, although Dishonored 2 does seem to have larger…

This is about Remedy’s latest game, Control. The Oldest House is a place of order. It grows far and away above the New York skyline, its concrete obelisk pierces the sky. The sky opens wide and reaches back. The walls are so very thin. The ocean beyond is so very…

This is an essay about ghosts. It is — incidentally — also about Death Stranding and couriers. I watched Cameron die seven times. He raced the train, it won. He didn’t see the train, the train (and its sixty tons of unthinking steel) didn’t care. He tried to stop, the…

This is an essay about hurting people with design. It is also about tech, city planning, and the KKK. “Do no harm,” is a quaint, well-meaning adage. I’ve certainly heard it bandied about in a wide variety of professions, followed by nods and the slight furrowing of brows. Outside…

Syberia (Microïds, 2002) is a point-and-click adventure game which contains the most perfectly awful puzzle I have ever experienced. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of all the overlapping cruelties it would be hazardous to stare at the chart for prolonged periods of time. The game is, in…

Destiny 2 needed to finally address its longevity problem. The latest director’s cut by Luke smith has revealed that going forward, weapons will not be able to be brought up to all future power levels. After some number of seasons or expansions, weapons will reach their upgrade ceiling and will…