By Ronald Gordon 

Hello and welcome to 2025’s first Roundup, where we gather the news from members & Interns alike to give them a shoutout! The start of 2025 has been grand thanks to the 14th Annual New York Game Awards, which had over 500,000 viewers online and highlighted all the fantastic games we witnessed last year. The event was a fantastic place for our interns and members to meet and greet the many award winners. But now it’s time to prepare for what’s to come on the horizon. What better way to prepare than to read articles about The Night is Grey, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, ‘Twisted Metal’ Season Two, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the DICE Summit 2025, Paramount+ and YouTube TV turmoil, Kendrick Lamar’s Half-Time performance, and so much more! 

Theresa Afful, one of the Circle’s talented High School interns, wrote about The Night is Grey and its deep look into childhood trauma. While some can remember their childhood fondly, the same can’t always be said for others. Childhood is a time of much turmoil, especially since anything you go through in your early stages can stick with you for life. Theresa’s review signals this as she writes, “The storytelling in this game is quite remarkable. It depicts abuse and how it affects children all the way through their adulthood. Graham is one of the victims of abuse as he is abused in his youth by his mother. In between chapters, some messages appear; they are probably what his mother said to him. One of the scarier things was, ‘If you don’t behave, the wolves will come at night. They will take you away as you scream. Do you hear me, you spoiled little brat?'” That’s just one of the many moments where the game focuses on Graham’s constant struggle. 

Founder Harold Goldberg brings us a review from the New York Times about Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, a coming of age story steeped in rebel rock and female empowerment. The story of a band trying to make their big break is a classic, but it hits home even harder when each of the members only really care about each other. To Harold, this makes the story even more enjoyable, “Swann and her friends yearn for more than hanging at the local ice cream stand or watching movies at the multiplex. You can hear it in their words. All they care about is one another, their fleeting summer together, holding hands and making their art. They make fun of condom wrappers and heavy flow days because speaking truth is freeing,” he writes. Being an episodic game, Lost Records may not be complete yet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t keep you on edge for what’s to come: “A “Grey’s Anatomy”-style cliffhanger is moving because it isn’t just the girls who are friends. Invested in their stories and emotions, you’ve become close to them as well. The game’s final episode promises to reveal all mysteries, perhaps violently and supernaturally. True to form, Bloom and Rage sings, ‘I can tell I’ll mess you up — when I see you in hell.; In riot grrrl fashion, they may indeed live their music.”

Christopher Cruz brings news of ‘Twisted Metal’ Season Two, and a big reveal it showcased. ‘Twisted Metal’ has so far been a faithful adaptation of the original games, with fans gushing over the adaptation of Sweet Tooth from the last season. Now, it seems they’re really gearing up to mimic the original framework with the new focus on the Twisted Metal tournament and the reveal of its organizer Calypso. “As in the games, the shows’ version of Calypso is the organizer of the Twisted Metal tournament, wherein competitors fight to the death to have their one true wish granted. In Season One, Calypso was only hinted at as the person pulling the strings behind the plot, which mostly served as a 10-part build up to the tournament at the heart of the games. Like 2021’s Mortal Kombat movie, which also omitted the actual tournament at the core of the source material, the first batch of Twisted Metal’s episodes drifted away from the premise of the games, instead setting up a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic world where society fell apart in the Nineties. The teaser appears to show the series’ deeper commitment to the tenets that made Twisted Metal so popular.” Personally, I’m excited to see what comes about from the show, as Twisted Metal has always been an underappreciated masterpiece of vehicular violence. 

Covering news on the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows game, Deven McClure of ScreenRant isn’t shy about her anticipation of release day by comparing its looks to that of real life. That’s partly due to a junket she was on to historic Kyoto. “Assassin’s Creed Shadows is almost here, and to celebrate the nearing occasion, ScreenRant traveled to Kyoto for a special event ahead of the game’s release.” Taking a trip to the ever beautiful scenery of Kyoto Japan for an event hosted by Ubisoft themselves, Deven and the ScreenRant crew got a firsthand look at everything that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be adapting. “Though there were gameplay stations on-site in Japan, the event wasn’t so much focused on actual gameplay, as press already got extended hands-on time with Shadows earlier this year. Instead, the event focused on celebrating the setting and characters. It took place at Minamiza Theater, and consisted of several parts: a live sumi-e painting and kabuki performance, a sake cask ceremony, a live chat with three of the Japanese voice actors, and a segment where that same trio played the game. The next day, we also traveled to Himeji Castle, one of the main settings in the game.” If you’re equally as excited for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and want to know more about the history the game is meant to portray, then Deven’s article is full of historical tidbits and behind the scenes mentions that are right up your alley! 

Tony Polanco is always looking for more tech built for gamers, and this time around he may have found the Ultimate PC Gaming controller. The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot may seem like your average Xbox/PC gaming controller on its surface, but hidden within are features that would blow other controllers out of the water. “Out of the box, the Stealth Pivot looks virtually identical to the aforementioned Stealth Ultra. However, the analog sticks, D-pad and face buttons reside within modules not found on the Ultra. It’s these modules that provide the Stealth Pivot’s defining characteristic. Flipping two toggles on the controller’s back and twisting the analog sticks inward allows you to flip the modules to reveal a new set of controls and buttons for each. The left-hand module converts from an analog stick and D-pad to a D-pad and two LS and RS buttons. On the right, the right analog stick and face buttons flip to 6 face buttons.” With helpful images, Tony explains how the Stealth Pivot can be shifted into any configuration suits your needs. From controller to fight stick to something in between, Tony’s overview of the controller gives you just enough info before he releases his full thoughts in his future article. 

Giovanni Colantonio brings a somber story with his review of Afterlove EP, a game made to be a memorial for its creator who passed away before it was ever finished. Writes Giovanni, “The new indie game began its life as the brainchild of Mohammad Fahmi, the creative mind behind Coffee Talk. Fahmi founded a new studio, Pikselnesia, to develop the project and it got some high-profile attention out the gate. Afterlove EP was featured in a Nintendo Indie World Showcase circa 2021, setting it up as a tentpole “Nindie” scheduled to launch in 2022. That creative momentum collided with reality when Fahmi died in 2022 at the age of 32. Since then, Pikselnesia vowed to pick up the pieces and finish the project to honor Fahmi’s memory.” Loss is always hard, whether it be because of friends and family left to mourn or because of projects left unfinished and incomplete. Yet in the case of Afterlove EP, the loss of its creator brings a strange connection to the game itself, as the narrative focuses on an important loss as well. “That’s where context becomes crucial; all of this feels more meaningful viewed through the lens of a work of art forged from loss. Any perceived ;holes’ in the project reflect the very real one created by Fahmi’s absence. Afterlove EP almost feels like a game trapped in stasis, forever locked where it was in 2022. It’s a studio stitching together disparate pieces, trying to move on just as Rama struggles to in their story. Like a collection of loose demos salvaged from a lost musician’s tape recorder, it feels like a fuzzed-out sketch of what could have been.” 

Of course, the DICE Summit of 2025 focused on the gaming industry as a whole, but Stephen Totilo walked away with one of the most important tidbits of all: The game industry’s 52 problems and how they dampen creativity within games. Retelling his experience within the DICE Summit, Stephen talked with important CEOs and game devs about all sorts of topics, the quickest one being an wily promotion he wound up walking into. “Near an escalator, I spot Adam Boyes, former PlayStation exec, former co-CEO of Iron Galaxy, and just recently the founder of a Vivrato, a new gaming consultancy firm trying to help studios solve the challenges of game development. Boyes is on his way to attend a roundtable but has a moment to walk-and-talk. He hands me a shrink-wrapped box. It’s labeled: “Deck of Game Industry Challenges 2025.” He had asked industry peers to tell him what the problems were in gaming, and he put the biggest ones on 52 cards, plus two jokers. It’s a clever promotion and a perfect four-suit encapsulation of an industry under stress.” This is just one of many compelling moments he encountered at the DICE Summit. It signals the fact that there are people paying attention to the industry and the way it’s been evolving, and a deck of cards is a fantastic way to grab people’s attention. 

Beyond The Circle

“Kendrick Lamar is the ultimate trickster in his Celine boot-cut jeans, outwitting the problematic American game by employing the lexicon of the rap beef repartee, weaving his coded messages for the intended audience that needed these camouflaged ciphers the most. He is like Harriet Tubman mimicking the hoot of the barred owl as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, guiding freedom seekers away from detection and danger.” So says Tiana Clark of the New York Times in her article about the now world-renowned Kendrick Lamar Half-Time show of Super Bowl 59, including how the celebration was about gamification.

On one of the biggest stages in all of America, Grammy winning artist Kendrick Lamar chose to use the platform to not only highlight his music, but also subtly call out the darker parts of America as a whole. A sentiment that Tiana shares in her article, as she dissects what she can about the 13-minute performance through her recollections, and how his performance shook her understanding of her place within society. “There were, of course, dozens of other references, echoes and allusions in the show. If you didn’t catch or understand all of them, that’s OK. For those of us who did, we got the message, Kendrick Lamar. We heard you. We saw you — loud and clear and abundantly Black. They can try to erase us. But we shall not be moved.”

Ronald Gordon is a New York Videogame Critics Circle Member & Mentor. He was the first of our writers – or any intern anywhere – to complete an internship at Rockstar Games.

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