This game is great. It's also worth acknowledging how refreshingly forward-thinking this release is. The game wasn't a huge hit, but instead of binning it off they're investing in prepping it for a second wind.

Agreed. Both Emma and I are biased but that doesn't make us wrong.

Are you or someone you know skipping GDC (or considering doing so) because of worries about coming to the US/San Francisco in the current environment? If so, I want to hear from you for a piece. DM me here or kyle DOT orland AT arstechnica DOT com. Please spread the word

Saw Tropical Fuck Storm on Toronto last night and they were excellent.

See ya at the next Gamescom I guess lol.

Metroidvanias are either Protestant or Catholic. Castlevania? Catholic, of course. Metroid? Protestant. Blasphemous is Catholic. Dead Cells, Protestant. Hollow Knight is Protestant, but Hollow Knight: Silksong is Catholic. That's why people are complaining the game is hard. Cause it's Catholic now.

Made some incredible progress in Silksong today but I've peeled back enough layers of what comes next to realise I probably ain't got the kind of time this game wants from me.

everyone has already got the explicit discourse on this covered so i will simply add its insanely funny to say this as the developer of games where you kill like. ten thousand guys

Mount Fay sucks I hate it.

What the fuck is going on over there? www.bbc.com/news/article...

R.I.P. Robert Redford. One of my favourites of his was surprisingly recent. The Old Man and the Gun. A true(ish) story of a man who just loves robbing banks, who meets an old woman who he might love more. It would have been my grandad's favourite movie ever, if he'd lived to see it.

Today would have been my dad's 68th birthday. He passed shortly after his 66th. I wish I could call him today, my life's changed so much since he's been gone, and I have so much I wish I could tell him. Have this photo of him doing the classic dad double thumbs up. R.I.P. Alan Kings.

If I was granted a time machine to go anywhere in time for a few hours I would absolutely waste it by going back to witness one of the greatest live performances ever recorded with my own eyes and ears. Listening to Ugly and vengeful. annavonhausswolff.bandcamp.com/album/live-a...

respectfully, I think every single person in the country could stand to reflect on this

Javier Bardem at the #Emmys: "Here I am today denouncing the genocide in Gaza... Free Palestine!" (via @Variety)

This album came out and it's really really fucking good, as expected. marujamusic.bandcamp.com/album/pain-t...

NIAMOS!

Patriot on Amazon is my favourite show I've ever watched. I am currently steadily working through my 5th watch, and seeing so many clever, surreal, sad, and sometimes heart-warming details I've never noticed before. There's nothing else like it. An absolute treasure.

Patriot on Amazon is my favourite show I've ever watched. I am currently steadily working through my 5th watch, and seeing so many clever, surreal, sad, and sometimes heart-warming details I've never noticed before. There's nothing else like it. An absolute treasure.

Real art is so fuckin good. Have y'all seen any of this real art? Great stuff.

Just a reminder that the Safeguard Mechanism places no limits on emissions from exported fossil fuels. So when the government says this project is covered by the Safeguard Mechanism, they are ignoring something like 90+% of the emissions this project will be responsible for.

I haven't finished Act 1 of Silksong yet but I finally found an optional boss I'm just going to nope out of. Savage Beastfly, man. I'll do that post endgame or something.

I'm a big music poster today but this album absolutely fucking rips: ganser.bandcamp.com/album/animal...

Please do not retweet a video of a man dying onto my feed thank you. I don't care who the man is, I don't need to see that shit.

Cannot wait for this album to come out this Friday. Cannot wait to see them live in a couple of weeks.

What an expertly called shot

Much of our current moment can be explained if one posits that The Thick of It is an SCP that has escaped and eaten the news.

silksong

I'm really enjoying Silksong so far, but I feel like what it's missing the most from Hollow Knight is a feeling that all these different biomes are connected to each other in any meaningful way. The first game had such a cohesive and curious world.

My "This update is not about reducing headcount" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.

My "This update is not about reducing headcount" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.

I don't think we should be wasting any time on discourse that spawned primarily in twitter replies. Twitter is 75% bots, and the other 25% may as well be bots if we're being honest.

Caught Stealing is (by my preference) Darren Aronofsky's best film. It's just an honest, straightforward "man needs to run away from some goons" movie. Something you could watch with your normal Dad. It's pretty good, man.

Gonna dredge up this thread again.

I'm at a point in Silksong where I have more new areas available to me than I can keep track of, but all of them feel like they're too hard to get through right now. Sigh.

Everyone is talking about Silksong today, but for you early adopters of the Switch 2: you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you miss out on Star Wars Outlaws, which came to Switch 2 today. Cracking game, unfairly overlooked, and one of the most next-gen things your new handheld can run.

GTA VI makes everyone stupid. Just thinking about it seems to cook the brains of anyone who dares speak about it. So here's my statement, as an industry intermediate: GTA VI is going to be an open world third person shooter.

In an industry where the news of layoffs is near-daily it should be difficult to attribute intent to their timings, but laying off a bunch of people on the day Silksong drops still seems pretty fucking deliberate to me.

The Draknek New Voices Puzzle Grant is offering $15,000 USD to traditionally under-supported game developers working on thinky puzzle games. If this is you, we invite you to apply! Deadline: September 28th grants.draknek.org

I think I don’t have a choice by say this is my all time favorite Kingfisher photo I’ve had the chance of clicking The Queen of Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve fishing the moon 📷🌿🪶🌔

I simply do not want to talk about any of this stuff

Actually, Frankenstein is a doctor success at the Venice film festival

I'm back on Canadian soil. Or concrete? Mostly concrete. It's possible I may not encounter soil for a month or more.

Monster's Expedition remains one of the best games I've ever played. Best as I can tell there's not a bad game in here.

I wish I could talk to my dad. Fuck

Contrary to what you might think, we've actually 𝑛𝑜𝑡 been sleeping and / or dead since launching Dread Delusion... ...we've been making a dying earth JRPG called 🍄 ⚔️ 💀 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐘 💀 ⚔️ 🍄 & you can wishlist it on Steam rn! store.steampowered.com/app/3940340/...

From the creator of Dread Delusion @lovelyhellplace.bsky.social, comes Entropy A turn-based tactical RPG inspired by classic JRPGs. Assemble your party of mercenaries and forge your own path towards an expedition into hell to stop the demonic incursion. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChEN...

Okay yes the industry is broken and layoffs post-launch are awful, but best as I can tell there's only one confirmed layoff at Giant Squid so far? Am I missing some additional context? All my sympathies with that developer and anyone else effected, though, that is a miserable situation.