"Where is all the good writing about games?"
As we approach the end of the year–err, the Western colonial calendar year at any rate–the discourse of critical games writing naturally makes an annualized turn toward reflection on the bigger picture–be that via industry trends, communities of play, genre shifts, or…
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…
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…
It’s become something of a cliché at this point to quip that we are living in the darkest of a series of possible timelines. Moving beyond this idea’s (arguably well-justified) cynicism, I think this trend is indicative of a renewed impulse toward…