Writing About Games While Everything Sucks

Navigating why I think this is important. And a personal oath to continue, despite it all.

It’s hard to qualify the necessity of games journalism while watching the smoke billow up from Washington DC. I have always suffered from a particular malaise, born of the sideways glances from friends and family, a consternation at what I love to do and its overall importance to a society reeling from yet another rise of fascistic political ideals. Or the razing of Gaza. Or the murder of Michael Brown. Or whatever happens to be transpiring in a world seemingly unable to escape unprecedented times. I started playing Assassin’s Creed: Mirage on October 13th. While streaming I couldn’t escape this pervasive voice telling me what I was doing was dumb. It was genuinely hard to play a game focused on the Arab world and its beauty while simultaneously watching news feeds of Israel marching into Gaza. It took me almost a year to return to Mirage. As I started writing this Donald Trump is in office again, executive orders are shooting out of his mouth like vomit, and he recently stated America would be taking over Gaza to rebuild it with unlimited jobs, or whatever the fuck he actually said.

So how do I make space for writing about games? How do I rectify my shame for not being more politically active with my passion for writing about art and making it accessible to people? Making people think about these things in ways they never have? Turns out avoiding it is useless. So here I am, talking through it. If times are going to continue the way they are, there’s no escaping it anyway. I came across a similar realization a few years ago. I was reeling from the recent death of my grandfather and I couldn’t muster the courage to talk about games in the way they were occurring to me. Everything was a metaphor for my loss, but it felt cheap to lean into it. Then I just leaned into it. The things I wrote became pointed and poignant. And while I can't guarantee I will be as precise now, I know sitting on my hands and not writing isn’t doing my mental health any favors.

I played the shit out of Star Wars: Outlaws last year. I loved it. But I stayed away from writing about it because I couldn’t fathom the strange hatred it was getting from douchey, right-leaning gamers. The reality was and is: Outlaws is a fantastic game. Does it have its flaws? Yes of course it does. But rather than bemoaning some amorphous drop in quality, I can easily draw conclusions from my knowledge of the process of making games in today’s ecosystem. Games are larger than they have ever been. The requirement of labor hours to create open world titles alone has become astronomically high. From fidelity to interactivity, everything takes longer. And while I can't disagree Ubisoft games suffer from bloat and nonsensical checkbox item littering, I am fully capable of seeing treasures buried in the task list. My first experience with this was in my playthrough of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I loved my time with Valhalla, but only after I took a moment to zoom out, look at the map, and tell myself I didn’t have to engage with the things I didn’t like. What do you know? I ignored more than half of the little useless objectives, focused on the ones I enjoyed engaging with, and came away from the game with an appreciation for what I liked.

I feel like I’m rambling, and in a way I am. Over the last few years I can list the number of times I have been able to write my thoughts down on a single hand. I have to teach myself to write again. I have to sharpen my tools again. they gone rusty and dull, hiding in a box surrounded by these fears and doubts.

That’s what this is. That’s what this move to Substack is. It’s me trying to get a grip on writing again. And not just writing about games. I’ve lost my ability to make fiction as well. So as I drum up my motivation, I am peeling back the dust covers on all of my prose. Poetry has been falling out of my head recently, but I understand my poetry has always been an art form predicated on the level of misery I feel in my spirit. Fiction was always my means of manufacturing escape hatches, and unsurprisingly, I have an urge to create more of those recently. But writing about games; diggin into these little boxes of ephemera and distraction has always been about investigating their effects on my busy and troubled brain. I love to wax philosophical about why Stardew Valley eased my brain during covid. I love having conversations about why the Call of Duty campaigns are interesting and also morally ambiguous at best. Why is Lonely Mountains Snow Riders the perfect zen escape? How did playing turn-based tactical games help me realize I actually love Sudokus, puzzles I gave up on in high school because, “ew math”? Games have the ability to help us rewire our brains to better deal with problems in both the real world and the virtual. I miss talking about how. So I’m back.

14 years ago Skyrim kept me from taking my own life. In 2018, FAR Lone Sails helped me push through my grief and Florence helped give me the tools to help my grandmother transition from grief to recovery. A few years ago Citizen Sleeper helped me reconcile my tumultuous relationship with my experiences as a high school athlete. It also gave me a place to use my experience of dealing with my father, of being a father myself, and of making a community out of the people nearest to you. Now the sequel to Citizen Sleeper is out. Last year The Lamplighter’s League helped me contextualize why I dig into tactics games and how the same mindset applies to the way approach certain music and film, and how I apply the same logic to issues I experience in life. I’m not sure if depending on games to help me solve mental crises is ill-fated or “how art works.” Ethan Hawke has a great interview where he explains art as being kinda useless until it isn’t. Madhu Raghavendra’s poem ‘Artist’ closes on the lines “Art is non-essential until it is not”. Games are art, and their ability to soothe my brain is circumstantial, sure. This doesn't make them any less valuable. On the contrary, it makes them invaluable. What will Citizen Sleeper 2 teach me? What will I take away from Eternal Strands?

Games, given the right context, in the right environment, given the proper circumstances, have the power to be vehicles for change. I’d like my writing to serve as a lightning rod for people seeking the same validation. Hunting for answers. Curious about why they think or feel the way they do. So here I am. This is what I am going to try to continue doing. Let’s play some fucking games.