Feature
Metal Gear Solid was ahead of its time
Why I Love: Sumo Digital designer Emily Knox explores how the PSone classic shaped and inspired her childhood self
Why I Love (Page 4)
Opinion
Homeworld: Sideswiped by a Story
Why I Love: Snowcastle Games' Thomas French reflects on how Relic's deep space RTS provided a strong narrative through mechanics
Opinion
Portal was a classic from out of nowhere
Why I Love: YoYo Games' Russell Kay remembers how The Orange Box toss-in stole the whole Half-Life show
Opinion
The Darkness, or "How I learned to leave the Sun and Love the Nordics"
3rd Eye Studios' Gregory Louden finds inspiration in Starbreeze's first-person shooter that lets players inhabit the protagonist for quiet moments as well as firefights
Opinion
Coming full circle with Halo
Why I Love: The TrailerFarm's Tony Porter shares how Bungie's shooter completed a journey he'd begun as a child playing hooky with his father
Opinion
Uncharted 4's commitment to making every moment matter
Why I Love: The TrailerFarm's Dan Porter says every aspect of Naughty Dog's blockbuster is evidence of an ambitious dev team fully invested in the project
Opinion
Monster Hunter redefined big game hunting
Why I Love: Infinite State Games' Charlie Scott-Skinner explains how Capcom's PS2 classic precisely targeted his personal soft spots
Opinion
The joys of living in a Bubble (Bobble)
Why I Love: Infinite State Games' Mike Daw shares how the Taito arcade classic inspired his own career in score attack games
Opinion
What makes Dark Souls work?
Why I Love: Over the Moon's John Warner examines how From Software's modern classic invites players to make themselves at home
Opinion
Thinking outside the cube
Why I Love: Portal was a classic, but Sperasoft's Steven Thornton says Portal 2 is a fresh and brave sequel, outshining the brilliance of its predecessor
Opinion
Tenchu: No prescription needed
Why I Love: Solar Sail's Tancred Dyke-Wells finds freedom in an overshadowed PSone ninja game
Feature
Location, locomotion, morality, and imagination
Why I Love: Skydance devs describe what they took from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Pathologic, NetHack, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Feature
Monsters, mundanity, history, and high school
Why I Love: Skydance Interactive devs on Monster Hunter: World, Every Day the Same Dream, Europa Universalis IV, and Persona 4 Golden
News
Dune II and the three rules of a good licensed game
Why I Love: Auroch Digital design director Tomas Rawlings examines what made the seminal real-time strategy game such a massively influential success
Feature
Hellblade's simple twist of fate
Why I Love: Caledonia's Nels Anderson sees Senua reflected in the doomed gods of her Viking enemies
Feature
Epic story, sublime design, and controller support
Why I Love: The Ghost Story Games crew on what won them over in Dota 2, Doom, Kerbal Space Program, and Final Fantasies X and XIV
Feature
The magic of Loom
Why I Love: Eidos Montreal's Rayna Anderson explores how LucasFilm Games bucked convention for a project that "felt like a conversation with the game's creators"
Opinion
Ultima Underworld and the freedom to make bad choices
Why I Love: Quantum Soup's Chris Payne gets lost in the many innovations of The Stygian Abyss
Opinion
Falling under Siege's spell
Why I Love: Raconteur Games' Nicholas Laborde takes aim at the many virtues of the latest entry in the Rainbow Six series
Opinion
How ICO flipped the script
Why I Love: Last Day of June's Massimo Guarini discusses how Fumito Ueda's classic changed the way he thinks about games
Feature
World of Warcraft, world of inspiration
Why I Love: Lightseekers senior designer Ana Steiner traces her history with the MMO that convinced her to pursue a career in games
Feature
Magic: The Gathering is Sesame Street
Why I Love: Voyageur developer Bruno Dias says that 25 years on, the collectible card game is transitioning from a popular product to a cultural fixture
Opinion
It's what's Inside that counts
Why I Love: Playdead's platformer is visually striking, but inXile's Brian Fargo was taken by its elegant and thoughtful design
Feature
ZX Spectrum: An enduring legacy
Why I Love: The Oliver Twins share how they went from nearly missing the boat on the computer to building Blitz Games off a library of 17 Spectrum games
Opinion
Make Your Own Mario Kart
Why I Love: Playtonic studio director Gavin Price explains how the Super Nintendo classic got him into game dev in the first place