The Backlog Resolute

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a tactical strategy roleplaying game where the player controls a military academy professor tasked with grooming her young students into ardent commanders on the battlefield. The premise is problematic (though it makes for riveting gameplay), but developer Intelligent Systems gets away with it for one simple reason: it knows this is all terrible. It understands the forces it is playing with - politics and hatred, spun into a real, bloody multi-national war - and it does not shirk from making it feel as awful as it truly is.

(Spoilers for the game’s endings ahead.)

A new year is a time to reflect on the old, and what better way is there than to commemorate our most favorite of video games? But this is not a task to be taken alone. I gathered unto myself a team of six lovely men and women to cast forth our nominees and vote - with great authority - on what was truly the most special of all special games to us last year.

Oh, and this list has almost nothing to do with release dates. Instead, it is a recognition of the actual games that spoke to us - and held us together, sometimes quite literally - in 2020.

Crack open that award envelope, and let’s begin!

We examine evil’s anonymity as a weapon, and good’s anonymity as a curse, in Fargo Season 3, and discover if the scales can be tipped after all.

The true horror of Until Dawn isn't the bloodthirsty monsters. It's the reality of being betrayed by and trapped in one's own mind from trauma and mental illness.

Whose avatar am I?

The Witcher 2 asks the player to find meaning in the choice, not the outcome.

How far can game mechanics as level design take us?