Stealing hearts like Cupid, haunting me with her lovely music
If you’re a fan of videogames, you’re a fan of secrets. Treasure chests nestled behind waterfalls, cheat codes passed on by word of mouth, devilish shortcuts designed to help you get ahead. There’s a special thrill in knowing something that very few others do. It’s a compulsion that we at Edge like to encourage in our readers within these pages each month that goes by – there are messages everywhere, if you look closely enough. It’s a lyric from a song that tells the full story, something hidden in the more monotonous bit of our flannel panel – even, occasionally, an acrostic in an editor’s letter from someone who got their break in the industry via the same flashy trick in a job application.
For now, we’ll park the sentimental anecdotes and discuss the mysteries of the issue before you. First, you’ll see that the annual Edge awards are rather different this year: during a heated debate over how we’d order each of the past year’s most brilliant, against-all-odds achievements, we very quickly realised that slapping numbers on things felt callous. When every videogame released in 2020 deserves equal appreciation, why rank any of them? Instead, we celebrate their effect on our lives and work. Even though some may call some of our picks unorthodox, we know our devoted readers will recognise many: we’re always vocal evangelists of games such as these, where we know the future of interactive entertainment truly lies.
Team Cherry, by contrast, has been keeping quiet for a long while now. Its breakout game, Hollow Knight, catapulted it to cult stardom – and its legacy seemed assured even before the devs granted us a world-exclusive interview and demo of the sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong. Its creators are doubtless the real masters of secret-keeping, but the series’ army of insatiable fans should be well pleased with what we’ve managed to excavate from this intoxicating new world. The story begins on p48.