A link between worlds

As true section-intro connoisseurs will be aware, we often use this page to try to locate a common thread among the issue’s selection of review games. With

Remedy’s Alan Wake 2 in mind, we could perhaps discuss the nature of shared

or connected universes – a potential jumping-off point to discuss Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, with The Invincible also teasing the tantalising notion of the Stanislaw Lem Expanded Universe. Or perhaps we could focus instead on metatextuality (though in calling attention to this process, we’re sort of doing that already).

But what ultimately defines the next two dozen pages is range. Consider the breadth of genres: alongside puzzlers (existential firstperson and word-based) and narrative adventures (one set on a distant planet, the other in the Scottish Highlands), other categories include survival horror, FPS, turn-based tactics, realtime strategy, action RPG, narrative adventure and city-builder. Then there’s the category-defying Thirsty Suitors, which mashes up turn-based RPG battles with arcade-style skating and QTE-powered cookery.

That particular game – from a creative team whose director is based in Seattle but hails from Sri Lanka and whose lead writer was born in Bangalore but operates out of London – brings about another realisation. The US and Japan, the two dominant territories throughout the history of videogames, are represented here, yes. But we also have games from Finland, Czechia, Poland, Croatia, Sweden, Australia and the UK – many of which, of course, rely on contractors spread across the globe. It’s worth remembering, when end-of-year industry shindigs might suggest otherwise, that this medium is a broad church rather than a narrow clique, and that such diversity is worth celebrating. That’s the kind of connected universe that most interests us.