Journalism

TheGamer • 18th April 2025

“I Don’t Want Other People To Know Us As Frauds”: Steam Is Banning Chinese Indie Games Without Reason

“There's an old saying in Chinese. People will not give you fire when you are cold. But when you are cosy and when you are flourishing, people tend to give you all the luxury stuff.” Ningkun Dai is recalling the “darkest moment” of Leap Studio, where he is founder and CEO. When his debut game, Realm of Ink, was delisted on Steam, he thought he’d lost everything. He’d certainly lost his only source of income, but he was adamant not to let over three years of work go to waste. Realm of Ink i...

TheGamer • 14th April 2025

Disco Elysium Without Shivers Is Nothing

North, a writer sits on a second-hand sofa. His laptop warms his legs as it struggles to run the video game that reflects off his face in the evening darkness. He’s deeply engrossed in what he reads and doesn’t notice the hands on the clock spinning quicker and quicker, the night growing darker, the cold setting in. Outside, an owl calls to its mate. A delivery driver hands a pizza to a neighbour, steam dissipating into the night. All goes unnoticed as the writer clicks, reads, clicks, reads....

TheGamer • 2nd September 2022

How The Rings Of Power’s Harfoots Were Realised On Screen

As soon as the Harfoots appear on screen in The Rings of Power, you recognise that they’re Hobbits… sort of. There’s something different about them, a creepiness, a little edge. During the opening episode you learn that they, too, love their food, protect one another, and (for the most part) warn against adventure of any kind. But then that eerie edge returns, as the Harfoots hint at something darker, as if village elder Sadoc (Sir Lenny Henry) had divined it from the stars himself. “Their en...

TheGamer • 7th September 2024

How Xalavier Nelson Jr. Fought The Indie Game Dev System, And Won

“Strange Scaffold is not built to make five-year magnum opuses. It is built to try to find what may be your next favourite game every six months.” Xalavier Nelson Jr. is a titan of independent game development. He reckons he’s worked on nearly 100 games throughout his career, and Strange Scaffold, the studio he founded and shepherds as creative director, makes some of the weirdest and most wonderful games you’ve ever played. And you will have played them....

TheGamer • 21st March 2025

Atomfall Review: Keep Calm And Carry Guns

Atomfall has encouraged comparison to Fallout ever since its reveal, thanks to its satirical take on retro culture in a post-apocalyptic setting. However, whenever anyone has got their hands on the game, it has forcibly resisted such comparisons like an unfortunate baker trying to fight back against the soldiers who’ve locked down her bakery. The aesthetic is very much British Fallout. It’s a clever twist on the most famous post-apocalyptic setting in gaming which not only turns the American...

TheGamer • 27th February 2025

Citizen Sleeper 2 Sends The Message Of Hope We Need In 2025

Citizen Sleeper creator Gareth Damian Martin has a particular quirk when developing games; they write a single word on a post-it note and refer back to it while shaping the narrative. For Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, this word was ‘entropy’, although they told me that it changed once during development. I can’t help but wonder what that other word was. A not insignificant part of me believes it may have been ‘hope’. That’s the word that threw itself at me as I roamed the Starward Belt...

TheGamer • 10th September 2023

Exclusive: Behind The Scenes Look At The ALGS Championship

I’m watching the ALGS Championship from a truck, but that might be underselling it. Sure, from the outside, it looks like the rear section of an articulated truck, emblazoned with the Apex Legends Global Series logo. Inside, it’s a NASA control centre. Two producers watch over 20 screens, cutting between the POVs at the perfect moment as directions and responses are shouted along the interior. Five observers sit a little further down, nestled among yet more monitors. It’s precise chaos, it’s cle...

TheGamer • 24th March 2025

The Trench Crusadification Of Warhammer 40K

Many wargamers have suggested that Games Workshop has recently been taking inspiration from Trench Crusade, an indie skirmish game that enjoyed a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024. The fact that a multi-billion dollar company would be so insecure that it would need to steal ideas from crowdfunded wargames is a little far-fetched, but Trench Crusade’s popularity has players drawing more connections than the New York Times puzzle page. It started with the Death Korps of Krieg. Thes...