The Sunday Papers

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The Sunday Papers is our weekly roundup of great writing about (mostly) videogames from across the web.

Sundays are for setting up a fan fiction writing group with your fellow RPG dungeon masters. You gather in a nice living room that often reminds visitors of the beloved previous tenants, and you write something. It's of indeterminate quality, at least until it's fully formed, mainly because you let it go where it wants as you go, rather than planning out a path ahead of time. It's a wild horse, and sometimes it bucks you off by, for example, having you roll into a metaphor you're unlikely to be able to maintain unless you suddenly write cowboy hats into existence for your gang of would-be masters. The words spill forth, occasionally dripping onto the carpet or being flung towards a metal spitoon in the corner, where they land with a satisfying ftannnggg sound. Sometimes you do just about manage to keep the metaphors going.

Sometimes, other words are posted through the letter box. You wander over and pick them up. The envelopes say to make sure that you introduce them properly. Ok envelopes, chill out, we can probably manage that. Subnautica 2 has hooked Europeanvideogamer's senior guides writer Kelsey Raynor in with an irresistible mystery as they've navigated through the early hours of its early access from, much in the same way our Edwin recently did.

But no matter what fancy tool you've got at your disposal, no matter how much you try and prepare, death feels inevitable in Subnautica 2. As one note left by a previous visitor to Proteus warns, "You are going to die here, and that's all right. Pick the most interesting thing you can see and explore." From the get-go, death looms, but somehow its inevitability doesn't erode the sense of fear this unknown planet instills. It's all around you, in every unfamiliar sound you hear while diving in the deep blue...and there's a lot of them.

Phew, I think we managed it. Uh oh. Another letter. You try to convince one of other members of your little writing gang to read it aloud. They blank you. Thanks lads. Ahem. It's a review of Forza Horizon 6 by Lexi Luddy for Gamer Guides, which highlights some different minor sticking points with Playground's latest racer than I did in my own review.

There are a few elements to Forza Horizon 6’s odd feel, but a lot of it comes back to event spread. Despite the game being set in Japan, maybe the country most associated with street racing in car culture, street races seem strangely secondary to the game’s main focus, off-roading. Don’t get me wrong. I love rally events. Hell, I have put 20 or so hours into DiRT 3 this very year, but it is not what I come to Forza Horizon for, and it’s not exactly what I’d most associate with Japan’s car scene. So, I really can’t figure out why there seem to be more buggy, rally, and jeep races in this game than there are street events where I am racing against unhinged and overtuned Nissan Skylines that look like they have been Ship of Theseus-ed into being supercars.

Another one down. The post won't stop coming. Again, you hold the letter up to your sweaty face. It's a discussion of just how alive game worlds should ideally seek to feel, by Jonathan Fenn for Unwinnable.

The atmosphere and worlds of FromSoftware’s games, Elden Ring included, are so successful in part, because they embrace this incompatibility. There are no real towns or societies left in these crumbling worlds, and even in small settlements like Dark Souls 2’s Majula, any social connections between its inhabitants have been all but severed. It feels right that these characters are rotting away in their own corners of the apocalypse, mindlessly repeating their time-worn phrases as hollowness slowly takes over their minds. Any digital world, after enough exploration, will feel spent, barren and claustrophobic – FromSoftware understand this, and rather than trying to escape it, build this desolation into the very fabric of their worlds – including their inhabitants.

Thunk. A final bit of post sits on the floor. It looks slightly familiar. Ah. It's a piece from Defector's Barry Petchesky on a trade of gorillas between Pittsburgh and Boston zoos.

Star-for-star trades are rare in the zoo world: You may remember Tupi the baby capybara getting sent from San Antonio to Florida for practically nothing but a pig swap. (Insider Ian Bonoboport later reported that Tupi had attitude issues and San Antonio considered the move addition by subtraction.)
But Frankie for Little Joe has the potential to change the power structure of the entire Apesociation. It's being reported as a one-for-one so far, but there may be draft chimpensation involved when it's reported to the league.

You relax a bit. No more post. Oh no.

It's a single piece of paper. On one side, what looks like a photocopier's scan of a man's bottom. On the oth-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigghggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

A picture of Adrian Edmondson's face gurns up at you. Your piss turns weak as you pretentiously collapse into a heap.

One of your fellow writers gets up from the table and kneels over you in concern. "You okay there, miladdo?" asks Jonathan Frakes.