Horror
It can be surprisingly tricky to spot a folk horror game in the wild. Sometimes, you may catch a glimpse of a game that looks just like one, only to realise that the similarity doesn’t extend beyond an earthy aesthetic or shared iconography of wicker dolls and horned masks.
Game Cosmology
This is the 6th article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Content note: This article touches on issues like depression, nihilism and self-destructive urges. It also contains major spoilers for Baldur’s Gate III. In Part
Game Cosmology
This is the 5th article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Content note: This article touches on issues like depression, nihilism and self-destructive urges. It also contains major spoilers for Baldur’s Gate III. After several
Much to my own surprise, Mash X to Muse has been around for an entire decade and more than a quarter of my life—not a lot on a cosmological scale, but a significant amount for a humble blog, and to me personally. It's a very different place
This article was originally published by Eurogamer on January 30 2018. This republished version includes some minor changes. Humans have gazed up at the sky and wondered about their place in the cosmos since the very beginning. Do the same in a game like, say, Breath of the Wild, and
This is the 4th article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Spoiler warning for Pentiment. Pentiment’s ambition keeps spilling over the margins of its seemingly humble frame. The entirety of the game’s narrative takes
This is the 2nd article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Spoiler warning for The Excavation of Hob's Barrow. There's something strange lurking at the heart of The Excavation of Hob'
This is the intro to the Video Game Cosmology series. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Chances are you are reading these words on a machine fixed by gravity to the surface of a planet called Earth. You maybe use that same machine to conjure make-belief
Niche Game Criticism on Cosmology, History, Folklore and the Occult
This article was originally published by Eurogamer on January 30 2018. This republished version includes some minor changes. Humans have gazed up at the sky and wondered about their place in the cosmos since the very beginning. Do the same in a game like, say, Breath of the Wild, and
This is the 4th article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Spoiler warning for Pentiment. Pentiment’s ambition keeps spilling over the margins of its seemingly humble frame. The entirety of the game’s narrative takes
This is the 3rd article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here, and the first piece on Gnostic influences in games here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Spoiler warning for NORCO. "My child. I understand that you wish to remain here
This is the 2nd article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Spoiler warning for The Excavation of Hob's Barrow. There's something strange lurking at the heart of The Excavation of Hob'
This is the first article in the Video Game Cosmology series. Read the intro here. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! From the moment we step under Elden Ring’s sky, we spend most of our time in the shadow of the colossal, luminous Erdtree; a
This is the intro to the Video Game Cosmology series. If you like my work, consider supporting me on Patreon! Chances are you are reading these words on a machine fixed by gravity to the surface of a planet called Earth. You maybe use that same machine to conjure make-belief
This article was originally published by Kotaku UK on October 10 2018. This republished version includes some minor changes. Gwyn, Lord of Cinder and former Lord of Sunlight, sits at the centre of the tangled labyrinth that is Dark Souls. The harmful consequences of his presence spread through every capillary
This article was originally published by Kotaku UK on March 24 2017. This republished version includes some minor changes. Video games usually have an easy answer to the question “What does it mean to be a hero?” It’s an opportunity for excitement and adventure, to enter a virtual world
This article was originally published by Kotaku UK on August 18 2017. With all its morbid decadence, the richly-layered Gothic imagination and cosmic horror of Bloodborne tends to overshadow some of its more (post)modern influences. Bloodborne isn’t a traditionalist, after all, but a punk: or to be more
The Arthurian worlds of Inkle’s tactical narrative game Pendragon and the movie The Green Knight have one thing in common: the grand, pathetic ruins of castles, monasteries, and chapels. In The Green Knight, a castle in ruins is the first landmark Gawain passes as he sets out on his
This article was originally published by Kotaku UK on December 9 2016. This republished version includes some minor changes. Even as you are beaten to a bloody pulp by some horrific creature, you can’t help but notice the beauty in From Software’s action RPGs. Whether you’re playing
contains spoilers for the Epic of Gilgamesh! (also Disco Elysium) It’s an old story. The oldest we know of, in fact: The Epic of Gilgamesh. Having been confronted with the terrible reality of death, our archetypal hero Gilgamesh embarks on a quest for the legendary figure of Utnapishtim, who