"Where is all the good writing about games?"
This week’s roundup is (almost) all about failures: failures of game design, failures of fandom, the failures in the material world which are in turn reflected by the games we produce and consume, and more. I find it’s the kind of writing…
Happy December, readers. Has it really been three months already? There’s a whole lot of quality writing this week on Red Dead 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. This doesn’t come as a surprise to me: both have been out for a few…
It’s been a busy week for games criticism, and that’s rad. Fallout 76 and Pokémon: Let’s Go! are among the big recent releases making their way through the critical circuit, and while there’s plenty of writing out there on each, the discourse…
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about my editorial voice, and how to try and use it for good. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how to balance the level-headed approach I believe curating quality games criticism demands with the subjectivity I…
Where is all the good writing about games? That’s Critical Distance’s slogan, prominently displayed on the website, just beneath the title. Our ongoing project, which I work my absolute hardest to honour, is to answer that question in an inclusive and accessible…
CALL FOR PITCHES NOW CLOSED Thank you to everyone who submitted! If you weren’t one of our five Critical Compilations this time, we’ll be reaching out the next time we open a CFP! Hey! Did you know Critical Distance is turning 10…
It feels like we’ve gotten here too quickly. 2018 is on the way out, and it’s we’re not far away from the new year. In addition to holidays just around the corner, this month is National Novel Writing Month for the writers…
This is the first week in a while where there hasn’t been a big-banner Triple-A release trying to take up all the critical oxygen in the room. Well, I suppose Square Enix did send The Quiet Man out to die this week,…
So apparently Red Dead Redemption II came out this week or something, but I honestly don’t have a whole lot of writing on the subject to share for this roundup. I did read an alarming number of worryingly uncritical reviews on the…
The conversation on labour in games continues with undiminished momentum, in part because Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has volunteered himself to be the one to really step in it this week. There’s no positive way to spin 100-hour weeks, period, but I’m…