occassionally, a video game preview can be poetry — and this is one such time. lovely work @ashleybardhan.bsky.social

And good luck to each and every Ubisoft employee.

people are focusing on the scary part ("AI-generated") but why, why on Earth, would I want content "from users"

I wonder if Rockstar leadership envisaged this kind of response when they decided to fire 30+ workers in a union?

Mom, I'm in the magazine!

NEW: the IWGB has filed formal legal claims against Rockstar after it says the company refused to meet to discuss bringing back fired developers. "Rockstar has declined to meet with the IWGB, leading the union and barristers to issue formal legal claims on behalf of the Claimants."

Writing my games-of-the-year list. Here's what I got so far 😈 10. Donkey Kong Bananza 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Baby Steps

Larson’s gunning for that Samus gig lol

This was my favorite piece in APOT5, and that's saying a lot.

"I see the game as the guest. I want to make sure I do everything I can to show off every part of this guest." I spoke with Shinya Arino, host and faithful "employee" of GameCenter CX about his philosophy, career highlights, and the secrets behind the trailblazing show. He was a delight.

Or to put it another way, if scored video game reviews only ever illuminate the inadequacy of scores when they foreground a progressive ideology, that would describe an inherent conservative bias in reviewing.

Possibly unpopular opinion: I like review scores! I like how clear-cut they can be. I like how numerical valuations often force the writer and editorial team to sharpen focus — that a publication has to *really* commit.

Goodnight Universe, from @nicedreamgames.com, is a treat: funny, beautifully observed, gently profound. And by frequently tasking you to close your eyes, it is a rare video game that soothes rather than scorches the retinas. www.ft.com/content/a3f4...

Interesting thread! Paet of why Balatro is cool is because it demonstrates that poker is a much more fun "game" once you give players tools to break free of chance as a determining factor - i.e., what makes the game lucrative as a gambling operation. Which I don't think most of its imitators get.

The company says it’s heartbreaking, they promise improvements, new guardrails. Anything but shutting it down. Suicide is just a metric in their ongoing beta test. Sam Altman and everyone like him should be in fucking jail.

The Scottish Greens stand with the dozens of workers sacked by @rockstargames.com for exercising their right to organise with @gameworkers.co.uk @iwgbunion.bsky.social Reinstate them now, then get around the table & give your staff the pay & conditions they deserve for making you billions.

I wrote about historical fiction and romantic visions of the past in this year's videogames. Read it below!

Tomorrow. 💫

BREAKING: Yesterday Grand Theft Auto VI maker Rockstar Games fired dozens of people, all of whom were involved in union efforts. A British union calls it "blatant and ruthless" union-busting. Take-Two Interactive says it was due to misconduct. Here's the scoop: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Booted up this game for the countless time this morning without even realising it was its birthday! One of the most beautiful games of all time with an astounding sense of place and history. Can only give it my highest recommendation.

A beautiful, singular, and quietly radical game that I'm proud to have covered a bunch of times. • www.theguardian.com/games/2023/n... • www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/a... • www.theguardian.com/games/2023/a...

- Simon Parkin reports on the Microsoft boycott - Reid McCarter interviews MachineGames maestro Jerk Gustafsson - Paul Weedon profiles Snapshot, founded by XCOM creator Julian Gollop - I have an essay on Resident Evil. I also speak with Red Barrels about making The Outlast Trials

hi all, the awaited day has come: I'm looking for freelance writers to pitch Inverse Gaming for end-of-year coverage! namely, I'm looking for someone to contribute our best of RPGs this year list ($350), and pitch us on some year-end lookback essays ($500+). please pitch me: [email protected]

I have been fighting with Silent Hill f since I finished it a few weeks ago. The latest issue of @bulletpointsvg.bsky.social continues here: bulletpointsmonthly.com/2025/10/29/i... If you have the time and inclination to read and share this, I'll be grateful. Small preview attached.

thank you to @mikesenters.bsky.social for being so succinct and clear about why this latest wave of Trump branded Halo memes feels so horrifying

The Last Guardian executive producer Yasuhide Kobayashi didn't want to move the game from PS3 to PS4.

for sure, that's me too. I feel like I missed out on growing up coding my own stuff like the folks just a little older. but yea always amazed at discovering the cool stuff people were making back then that got lost. mel croucher in interactivity or lilliane schwartz or suzanne treister in pieces

Dans "Pourquoi Sony n'arrive pas à produire plus de jeux multijoueurs à succès ?" The Ringer revient sur l'histoire entre Sony et le multijoueur des années 2000 à nos jours. Il y a plus dans ce papier que des petites phrases sorties de leur contexte pour le clic. 📰 www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...

Anyways... Play Oikoispiel! The download page by itself is giving you more to think about than I'd say like 90% of art/"serious" games www.oikospiel.com

I always come back to this @radiatoryang.bsky.social quote (included in my review of @marijamdid.com's book), which seems to sum up so much of the fundamental tension around the ongoing games/entertainment/commerce debate that GaaS discourse obvs taps into www.thenation.com/article/cult...

SEO lists as a Trojan horse for criticism 💪🏻 www.vulture.com/article/game...

So is a slot machine

Can i get a 'holy fucking shit' in here

​Over at The Ringer, I went long on the history of PlayStation online, from SOCOM and Uncharted 2 to its current live-service woes. Notable hearing Shawn Layden on​ GaaS:​ “A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.” www.theringer.com/2025/10/24/v...

For @ign.com: An inside look at how Sony secured GTA as a PS2 exclusive and how it helped the console 'win' that generation. With new details on the exclusivity deal, how Sony nearly missed out on exclusivity in the US, and how Xbox could've derailed it. www.ign.com/articles/how...

Anyone in touch with the Unbeatable devs, @dcellgames.com? Lined up to review but no response on email.

Not good enough, Phil!!! Remember, 30 percent is the magic number. Let's make the gamers' thumbs bleed!!

Please, please validate all the time I have spent playing/thinking about Baby Steps by reading this article? Please?? "Instead of doing anything normal with my life for the past week, I have been on a horrible hiking holiday with the worst man in the world." www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...

Gosh, what a vibe this book is: vivacious, pugnacious, street-level prose set in late '90s San Francisco. Lots of environmental dread, tons of hard-drug hangovers. Enamoured!

"very creative" I dunno lol, is that the best you got for one of your flagship studios?

Majorly mixed on Keeper, a game whose vivid world blooms like a dream coloured by psilocybin, yet lacks the interactive vocabulary to wholly do it justice. www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o...

A day listening to D'Angelo 👑 youtu.be/_RLP0xAjdJU

A generational talent gone before his time. This one hurts.

reading this now, most bonkers fact i've found so far: shadow of the colossus started life as monster hunter before monster hunter?!

I mean, hell yeah -- lavish hardly does this justice

NEW: Nearly 100 current and former developers at MindsEye studio Build A Rocket Boy slam Leslie Benzies and the rest of studio leadership for poor management and botched layoffs. They say crunch was mandated leading up to release only for 250 people to be sacked afterwards.

I reviewed Battlefield 6 for Kotaku

Read @reidmccarter.bsky.social's review. "The point of the game, whether in its single-player campaign or multiplayer mode, is to make you feel like you’re an agent of small change within the overwhelming chaos of a warzone."

Explored this in a broader piece on Yotei's depiction of nature and the historical moment of its setting. atmos.earth/art-and-cult...

let me at it 🔪