Deleted Saves #1 - Winter 2025
Every time is someone's golden age, even this one.
I find the personal power of nostalgia in games, and nostalgia for games, very compelling. Video games defined my childhood, and so I have maintained an unbreakable link with them through time and space. In that sense, they house my past. They are the cultural artifacts through which I primarily see and interact with popular culture. I hope to share them with my child. In that sense, they house my dreams.
In Capitalist Realism, the philosopher Mark Fisher wrote about the “slow cancellation of the future”: as the cultural present is recycled and resold to us, our capacity for imagining the new is shut down. The creative and cultural future is replaced with an “everlasting present” of remakes and sequels. Video games got totally fucked, coming of age during the ascendance of shareholder capitalism which prioritizes the predictability of proven formulae over risky innovation.
The games industry certainly seems caught in this riptide, and this inaugural issue of Deleted Saves is an attempt to reconcile the nostalgia we feel for some games with the “slow cancellation of the future” of games writ large. Wallace Truesdale of Exalclaw contrasts games that seek to monopolize our time with a game from his childhood that asks only a couple hours, which he finds himself revisiting repeatedly. Artemis Octavio of Stop Caring writes about the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3, and the shortcomings of high-fidelity graphics in storytelling. I write about returning to Don't Starve Together yearly – how it has shaped my relationships, and how I hope it will shape new ones.
Deleted Saves will be a quarterly publication that showcases long-form critical essays about games, from emerging and established writers alike. It is open to everyone. In his signoff from the Rock Paper Shotgun Sunday Papers, Graham Smith advised publications to “hire really fine writers, give them the platform to do what they want, and they will go together.” I think for now this is a guiding light for this publication, and we will find connection and motif where they present themselves. A lot of us out here seem to think and write about the same things at the same times anyway, as we seek to capture some zeitgeist. By establishing a quarterly cadence, I hope to attract the slower-burning thoughts and reflections that can be drowned out by the daily gaming news.
Why do this now? Games media is in dire straits, by many accounts. It's kind of taken as a given that games criticism — analyzing themes and understanding where they fit in with the broader culture — isn't a commercially viable or valuable venture. Games journalism — reporting the facts of the industry, and reviews — is increasingly a marketing function to sell games. The field is full of fantastic writers that are able to weave critical analysis into their journalism, and do this work even at outlets that are primarily advertising vehicles. Yet, the amount of work is shrinking. The number of publications is shrinking. Those that survive, still shrink. At this time, choosing to write critical essays about video games is a radical act of love and optimism. It has to be, because it's all that's left. I grew up having my mind expanded by Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Alec Meer, John Walker, and Tim Rogers in the late aughts — that was my golden age. Every time is someone's golden age, even this one. That's why now.
So, here is Deleted Saves, an outpost on the borderlands of a wide-ranging, rugged landscape, beautiful in its desolation. Come, help us build something here.
