Games · Gamescom 2026 · 4 September 2026 · 6 min read
At Gamescom, ‘The Alters’ actor Alex Jordan explained how one word can separate two versions of the same man — and why the voice jobs disappearing to AI matter far beyond adverts and TV announcements.
Gamescom 2026 · 3 September 2026 · 6 min read
At Gamescom, VP Production co-founder Ruslana Kruchek explained what happens when indie studios remember audio after the budget is already gone. Audio branding paid for her ticket to tell me about it.
Games · Gamescom 2026 · 3 September 2026 · 5 min read
At Gamescom, Runoi Games founder Jussi Meriläinen showed me a visual novel where character trouble reaches the hex grid. Unfortunately, Gamescom is also where a game like that gets about ten seconds before somebody has to be in Hall 7.
Games · 4 August 2026 · 8 min read
Before Gamescom 2026 opened, its sold-out halls were already carrying an industry that had spent the summer laying off thousands. A pre-show essay on the reset behind the spectacle.
Games · Revival · 31 July 2026 · 3 min read
Europe never received Nintendo’s red 3D machine. Thirty years later, its lost games arrive with a subscription and some assembly required.
Screens · Revival · 27 July 2026 · 4 min read
Rick Moranis came back, Mel Brooks found the money, and 'Spaceballs' arrived at Comic-Con with an eleven-phase cinematic universe. The flamethrower now looks restrained.
Screens · Argument · 24 July 2026 · 3 min read
The Stuart spinoff premiered at San Diego Comic-Con in July with the laughter gone at last. The return gets a fair hearing here. The old show has run out of appeals.
Essays · Argument · 21 July 2026 · 9 min read
A true story about the moonwalk, Tom Bombadil, the layoff at the end of the universe, and why you're on the clock right now.
Games · Argument · 17 July 2026 · 3 min read
'Denshattack!' launched to some of the best reviews of 2026 after every publisher who saw it spent a year saying no. On the industry's most reliable instinct: rejecting the only ideas anyone remembers.
Games · Ledger · 16 July 2026 · 4 min read
Developers marched at six Xbox studios at once against the one Microsoft product that never slips its date. On the layoff as an annual release, the accounting that files hits as losses, and the $190 billion going to AI instead.
Games · Ledger · 15 July 2026 · 4 min read
Twenty-two months into Nintendo's lawsuit, 'Palworld' put the same game into Steam's all-time top 15 for the second time. One analyst puts the realistic remaining payout at about $30,000.
Screens · Revival · 10 July 2026 · 4 min read
Disney's live-action 'Moana' opened in July 2026 to a mid-thirties Rotten Tomatoes score. Seen from a country where no film called 'Moana' has ever existed, the ten-year turnaround looks stranger still.
Essays · Argument · 8 July 2026 · 7 min read
Duolingo staged a funeral for its owl and an offboarding for its translators. Only one got a resurrection. The streak explains why nobody left.
Games · Love Letter · 6 July 2026 · 4 min read
Summer Games Done Quick 2026 ran for a week of round-the-clock speedrunning for Doctors Without Borders. From Stockholm, the best seats were the ones an ocean away.
Essays · Drugs, Frankly · 1 July 2026 · 9 min read
I ordered sleep gummies that were legal in the Netherlands when I bought them, and earned my first criminal record at forty-eight. On Sweden's drug-policy problem, and the cocaine its lawmakers can't keep out of their own parliament.
Essays · Love Letter · 29 June 2026 · 12 min read
In Germany they were the Hero Turtles, the censored cut with the nunchaku edited out. A love letter to the Turtles and the 1990 film, and a wary eye on the 2028 reboot.
Machines · Ledger · 25 June 2026 · 7 min read
I bought both Steam Decks on day one, so the misgiving comes from inside the cult. The Steam Machine's price is not about games. It is about who is bidding against you for memory.
Screens · Ledger · 22 June 2026 · 3 min read
A free YouTube cartoon topped cinema charts across Europe, then posted its finale online for nothing. How The Amazing Digital Circus beat the studios at their own game.
Games · Futures · 22 June 2026 · 6 min read
Grand Theft Auto VI is the most valuable entertainment product of the decade, and it does not exist yet. How anticipation became an asset class you can bet on.
Screens · Handover · 17 June 2026 · 3 min read
The villain of 'Toy Story 5' is a tablet. The studio warning your kids about screens is the one that taught a generation to sit still and watch.
Games · Anniversary · 15 June 2026 · 3 min read
Dead by Daylight turned ten and is bigger than ever, the live-service game that lived while the blockbusters died. On how a cheap horror game outlasted Bungie and Concord by renting everyone else's monsters.
Screens · Handover · 12 June 2026 · 3 min read
Martin Scorsese has become an adviser to the German AI firm Black Forest Labs, and the film unions are furious. A note on what a famous name actually buys.
Games · Revival · 10 June 2026 · 4 min read
Nintendo announced an 'Ocarina of Time' remake for Switch 2. A note on why remaking the game with a Metacritic 99 is a different kind of risk entirely.
Pages · Argument · 8 June 2026 · 3 min read
A lost Tolkien work has surfaced in the Bodleian: an unpaid translation of an 800-year-old sermon, done for no one, and worth more than another saleable myth.
Essays · Argument · 5 June 2026 · 7 min read
EA cut staff at DICE in Stockholm months after 'Battlefield 6' topped US sales. How the games industry turned the promise of AI into an alibi for layoffs.
Games · Festival Dispatch · 4 June 2026
The games industry replaced E3 with eighteen showcases in eight days, clustered around Los Angeles hours. What Summer Game Fest fixed, and the one thing it quietly broke.
Games · Ledger · 3 June 2026 · 3 min read
'Balatro's publisher has been sold to the private-equity group that also owns Metacritic. What happens when the people who keep the score start owning the games.
Games · Ledger · 28 May 2026 · 3 min read
Electronic Arts is now owned by a consortium led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. What the $55 billion takeover means for 'EA Sports FC', the most-played football game on earth.
Screens · Argument · 26 May 2026 · 5 min read
Sebastian Stan refused to laugh at a Trump question on Tuesday. Four days later, his director Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or for “left-wing fundamentalism.” On what Cannes chose to crown.
Essays · Argument · 25 May 2026 · 10 min read
Elon Musk called the finale of 'The Boys' "pathetic." He didn't notice it was about him. On a century-old Black American word the anti-woke crowd wears as a costume.
Pages · Essay · 22 May 2026 · 6 min read
On reading 'The Lord of the Rings' the way the slow-reading communities now read it, and what the book does that adaptations cannot.
Screens · Review · 20 May 2026 · 4 min read
A review of Sam Raimi’s 'Send Help': the first one in twenty years where his actual signatures are back.
Essays · Argument · 18 May 2026 · 10 min read
How franchises spent twenty years building the exact pipeline generative AI now walks straight into. An essay on why nostalgia was always the first test case.
Games · Festival Dispatch · 13 May 2026 · 4 min read
Festival dispatch from London Games Festival 2026: five indie games from New Game Plus that stuck three weeks later.
Essays · Manifesto · 12 May 2026 · 8 min read
The Popkulturist manifesto: why pop culture criticism needs less hype and more honesty, from a European critic who still loves the stuff.