For @theguardian.com Summer Games Previews, I spoke to the lovely @liambme.bsky.social of @denkiworks.bsky.social about Tanuki: Pon's Summer 🦝🌿 www.theguardian.com/games/2026/a...

‘He’s tiny, dumpy and funny – so his BMX tricks are hilarious’: Tanuki: Pon’s Summer, an adorable slice-of-life adventure

Denkiworks’ debut lets players pull off tricks and pull pints in a stunning, Japan-inspired setting

theguardian.com

beast of reincarnation placates the player with a taxing. dopamine-driven power fantasy, forcing them to be oblivious to the climatic calamities and human digitization in their vicinity - reflecting our own human made cycles of erosion in the process. my review: www.theguardian.com/games/2026/a...

Beast of Reincarnation review – a taxing reflection of human-made damage

Game Freak channels a post-apocalyptic reality that reflects our own repetitive erosion cycles, with a fair bit of hand-holding

theguardian.com

Here's my review of @househouse.com's Big Walk: an enchanting, if occasionally frustrating, paean to play and discovery; a balm for the pernicious attention-holding logic that shapes so much of online communication. Go play it! (if you're not already) www.theguardian.com/games/2026/a...

Big Walk review – larking around with mates elevated to an artform

The creators of Untitled Goose Game return with an online, open-world adventure that delivers slapstick silliness and bucolic majesty in nearly equal measure

theguardian.com

Man I almost cried reading this from @dominikdiamond.bsky.social. For nearly 5 years I have edited his hilarious column about rediscovering video games whilst being continually roasted by his children, and now the kids are moving out 😭 www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

My family is coming apart – so it’s time for one last video game session | Dominik Diamond

I wanted our last family games night to be the best fun we’ve ever had. Maybe we should have stuck with Mario Kart …

theguardian.com

This is exactly the kind of rabbit hole you love to lose yourself down as a journalist www.inverse.com/input/cultur...

The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s 'high five' photos

Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told.

inverse.com

I needed a little extra time with Halo: Campaign Evolved, a game that's very hard to divorce from what it represents about Xbox and the modern games industry. It made me wistful for the heyday of the ambitious single-player shooter: www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

Halo: Campaign Evolved review – they don’t make ‘em like this any more

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; Halo Studios/Xbox Game StudiosHalo’s modernised introduction to all that was great about the 00s’ first-person shooter is also a welcome return trip for those of us who were t...

theguardian.com

My son has finally completed Sneaky Sasquatch after nearly 500 hours of play, beginning when he was a tiny guy who couldn't even read yet but was delighted by Sasquatch's gleefully greedy eating animation. (He's 9 now.) I hope that every game has at least one child who loves it this much.

Oh man! I believe this was my first E3

Video Game History Foundation@gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Carolyn Rauch event ephemera collection also has photos of E3... including this gallery of 1600+ publicity photos from E3 2009. (Yes, really. 1600 photos.) archive.gamehistory.org/item/bcd920e...

new game idea

huck mason@tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 2w ago

foolproof 👍

All the hype around the Odyssey has reminded me of my favourite Greek mythology nugget: Achilles was given the choice by fate to live a long, happy, unremarkable life, or die young and become the most famous warrior of all time. 3000+ years later, we all still know his name. The story came true!

I was not as into Splatoon Raiders as others seem to be. It just feels like a lesser version of Splatoon www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

Splatoon Raiders review – Nintendo’s inky shooter fades to grey

The single-player offshoot of the quirky and colourful multiplayer series is disappointingly run-of-the-mill

theguardian.com

At a previous job I once won a company award for "irreverence"

SMD@anothersmd.bsky.social · last yr.

what are some absurd work situations you can share? once i got called into a meeting i had nothing to do with because the consultant brought an engineer and no one in the room could understand him, so they asked me to translate. he was scouse. i translated from english to english.

new writing from me for @artreview.bsky.social: on video games not just as wartime propaganda and recruitment tool but as burgeoning battlefield tech and new perceptual logic. artreview.com/how-videogam...

How Videogames Feed the War Machine

What’s happening is less the corruption of a sacrosanct form of play than the interactive medium’s return to, and reentanglement with, its military roots

artreview.com

German broadcast. Nailed it

Wayne Rooney speaks for everyone.

This has been the most embarrassing World Cup of my lifetime. Perhaps not *quite* as ethically repulsive as the Qatar one, but significantly more cringe

NEW: I spoke to multiple people impacted by the job cuts at Xbox to understand how the latest round of mass layoffs played out and what it means for the embattled video game division moving forward. This is their story.

Inside the latest round of mass layoffs at Xbox

Multiple workers impacted by the latest job cuts at Xbox believe the decision will hamstring some studios.

gamedeveloper.com

I had an interesting time with D-topia, a game that asks what if life were oppressively smooth, what if it was stripped of friction? The puzzles are straightforward to a fault; the daisy chain-style design lacks tension — and yet that is kind of the point. www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

D-topia review – cosy sci-fi mystery takes aim at AI

A soft puzzle game makes a sharp point about the over-optimised future ahead

theguardian.com

Reading @mackeza.bsky.social’s Super Nintendo. This passage seems especially pertinent right now.

Post Games is a delight - a properly produced show about games that I always learn from. This subscriber-bonus taster episode includes a secret bit from the episode I featured on earlier in the year

Chris Plante@plante.bsky.social · 4w ago

Here's a free taste of the many awesome segments you'll get as a Post Games Patreon supporter! (No subscription or login required!)

Launching a new website about video games today. Meet @respec.net. A sibling to @rpgsite.net, a spiritual successor to VG247, & a brother from another mother to other 100% independent UK media brands like @videogameschronicle.com and @trueachievements.com. www.respec.net/feature/87-w...

Welcome to Respec: A word from the Editors | Respec

Welcome to our new little corner of the internet. Why a new video game website, and why now? Allow us to explain...

respec.net

Essential context for the Xbox layoffs: Game Pass is/was an expensive bet on something that people seemingly don't want

Cecilia D'Anastasio@cecianasta.bsky.social · 4w ago

New: Behind Xbox's big reset was a failed Game Pass strategy. Xbox spent nearly $80b in deals for content that it hoped would grow the subscription service. Instead, Game Pass lost subscribers. Deep dive: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The NHS was founded 78 years ago today. It was built after the devastation of the Second World War when the country was bankrupt - but when the people demanded a society built on fairness and dignity for all. Today, we must defend the right to healthcare and rebuild our social security system.

Statement from VGHF director Frank Cifaldi on the discontinuation of physical PlayStation media, and the closure of the PS3 and PSP digital storefronts.

Microsoft this week: We're laying off half the industry. Sony: We're ending physical games. Nintendo: have u seen this splatoon weapon we call it the bloblobber

Man, it's not so much "end of an era" as "end times" in games industry news right now

Stephen Totilo@stephentotilo.bsky.social · last mo.

NEW: Sony to end production of discs for all new PlayStation games (first and third party) as of January 2028 Full news and analysis at the link: www.gamefile.news/p/sony-drops...

First time published on The Guardian! You know what that means: it’s time to copy precisely one link and whatsapp my parents. www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

‘I felt like Orpheus’: how the designer of Gears of War bounced back from studio closure by producing Hadestown

After suffering the schadenfreude of gamers online, the Tony-winning Broadway musical offered redemption to Cliff Bleszinski

theguardian.com

you ought to include the followup post which points out that touhou has been doing this the whole time

Xavier@xavierck.com · last mo.

they're right and they should say it