20 minutes into Fortune’s Weave and you can just already skip the JRPG dungeon battles. Like I knew you could do that from previews, but I assumed you unlocked it after reaching a certain level à la Persona. Nope. Right from the start: “Skip to Conclusion”. Why even bother putting this in the game?

I think where I’ve settled on this is it comes down to how much it seems like the creator respects their work and the audience. Using GenAI at some point of preproduction as a gap filler like these games did doesn’t overshadow everything else that’s clearly human crafted. In the public mind anyway.

Wallace@exalclaw.com · 5d ago

Been interesting to watch Blood of Dawnwalker receive the Clair Obscur treatment in that ppl will forget and/or just not mention that it used genAI during development and it seems like the biggest reason is bc the game was good enough

if you're going to hook me with a bloodthirsty revenge story, at least let me revel in the righteous violence for a little bit before you start moralizing. you can't just have a side character wringing their hands dig-two-gravesedly from the very first kill. come on

I have the same exact feeling. I think the more likely answer is AI slop farms pumping out a massive amount of articles at once, monkeys at a typewriter style. To my knowledge it still takes time to show up in search rankings. But it feels like it was generated as I searched. Uncanny.

bossk baby@bonnnt.bsky.social · last wk.

and all of the search results were "how to fix EXACT ERROR MESSAGE" and all of the contents were slop and I couldn't help but wonder, was this generated on the fly when I searched the term? Did any of these pages exist five minutes ago? If I turn around real fast will the world still be there?

Everyone should get into tennis the old fashioned way like I did: playing Mario Tennis for the game boy color for the first time.

giri nathan@girinathan.bsky.social · 2w ago

at the intersection of broader disconcerting trends—everything is phone, everything is gambling, and nobody knows how to be around each other in public—lies the 2026 U.S. Open

old samus comic (1/3)

I have never heard such brutal color commentary in any other sport than tennis.

Every time I do laundry, I stuff my dresser with my favorite shirts I know can wear for weeks, and then the next day I open my drawer and have to scrounge for something survivable to wear while my hamper overflows until I can do the wash again. Does anyone know why this happens.

"If the genre you usually play is starting to feel like a chore, try a new genre." is the other advice that always works for me. DK Bananza and Death Stranding 2 had me saying I was going to give up games forever, and then I got really into Gran Turismo and Kirby.

Zoë Hannah is bisexual@zoehhannah.com · 3w ago

BURNOUT! I have it, too. My fix? Quick, intense rounds of a game you can put down after 15 minutes. My recs here:

I Don't Care About Final Fantasy VII Anymore

Fast forward button in Revelation feels like the game telling on itself. Maybe write better!

how to install bisexual lighting

this is so important it needed its own clip actually

michael lutz@ztul.bsky.social · 4w ago

in this episode cmrn reads a letter tolkien wrote where he talks about how lore is beside the point of storytelling and he doesn't understand all the people asking him fine-grained questions about calendars and stuff and This Is The Truth They Have Hidden From You

I am once again asking for pre-release gameplay footage to include UI elements. It's an important part of the game feel and just showing me the animations tells me almost nothing about what it might be like to play!

Soulless ghouls.

Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social · last mo.

Wrote about text watermarking, a concept only slightly more offensive than AI “writing” by which AI companies show yet again that they don’t understand or care about writing at all: www.404media.co/anthropics-t...

Swear to god if I see one more promotional flyer with obvious AI images that when I ask get told “oh it’s Canva” I’m going to [redacted].

My wife and I read this and started crying until we were laughing. Got by a Big Walk poem. What beauty there is in the world.

Wallace@exalclaw.com · last mo.

Needed to reshare bc picture wouldn't appear, anyway Big Walk poem: exalclaw.com/odsd-big-wal...

If you call me in the morning and wake me from my slumber, I’m going to use bene gesserit voice to make you believe I’ve been awake for hours

I think this is maybe the most important article this year, and one of the reasons I subscribed to Defector. Have a gift link! defector.com/finding-frie...

Finding Friends, Legacy, And Leather Sluts At New Jersey’s Finest Holiday Inn | Defector

In 2011, a Princeton Borough police officer gave me a public urination ticket as I was on my way to go drinking. I went home with someone that night and forgot about the ticket in my crumpled pants po...

defector.com

Guess I scribble about sports sometimes now stevetown.blog/posts/so-i-g...

So I Guess I’m Into Sports Now - STEVE TOWN

Man, I’m just saying shit now, aren’t I? AI slopification means nothing feels real, leadership in all aspects of society is asleep at the wheel, and standards for competent art and literacy are at an ...

stevetown.blog

Tag yourself I’m “SolidBottom”

Maddy Thorson@maddymakesgames.com · 2mo ago

why are collision bitmasks so satisfying

Happy bday Final Fantasy X, a game that is incredibly important to my deconstruction from Catholicism.

The headline here belies the fact that this is perhaps my favorite bit of games writing this year. It's not specifically the point of the piece, but I feel there's a clear eyed view into the heart of what feels wrong with the current landscape as a creator, consumer and critic.

Jake Steinberg@jakesteinberg.substack.com · 3mo ago

🚀 Why does Star Fox 64 keep getting remade? It's not because players NEED to start here or that Nintendo can't make a better on-rails shooter. It's definitely not 'dev practice' Star Fox is a game about replaying and seeing something familiar from a new angle! MY CRUSH: kotaku.com/my-crush-on-...

remembering that i used phrase "HAND OF GOD" in a knicks post a few weeks ago. blogging is the lathe of heaven

i don't want to give a talk at a game dev conference or write a manifesto or anything but if i did at this point in my career i think the topic would be "we all seriously need to start diversifying our inspirations"

AI and its users are such a ridiculous insult to creativity and the intelligence of the people that they think they're fooling with it. pay an artist to draw your damn disney duck. are we already at the point where huge companies churn out junk like the melting backgrounds in the larger

Tracker_TD@tracker-td.bsky.social · 4mo ago

that KH Switch collection pack thing sure has some interesting cover art interesting choice to give Donald a mismatched number of fingers on each hand, and a beak that absorbs into itself

:bisexual_flag:

Shane ValShane@shanemcpartlin.bsky.social · 2y ago

Please read both of these blogs. The last part here has some of the most incisive writing about game journalism I've read since this piece: unwinnable.com/2026/02/11/a... (they go together imo!)

A Dialogue with Austin Walker - Unwinnable

Austin Walker is a writer, game developer, and a prolific podcast host.

unwinnable.com

madeline!@mads.haus · 4mo ago

in the 2nd part, we get macro - the state of writing about games, if games criticism is dead, and offer some insights into our all-time favorites. read Cind’s blog. follow my Patreon. we’ll be back in two shakes.