Justin Wagner

Justin Wagner

Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

Latest articles by Justin Wagner

Slay the Spire 2's new mystery character
Mega Crit responds to the panic over Slay the Spire 2's 1st balance pass, saying these changes are 'the first of many': 'No change is necessarily permanent'

By Justin Wagner Published

News No need to break out the pitchforks.

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Dragon Quest X art
That Dragon Quest MMO still isn't coming to the west, but it is getting a Gemini-powered AI slime companion

By Justin Wagner Published

News Chatty Slimey will introduce conversational AI to Dragon Quest X.

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Kliff with an orange cat in his arms, petting it.
Crimson Desert team apologizes after players find AI art in the game: 'Our intention has always been for any such assets to be replaced'

By Justin Wagner Published

News "We also acknowledge that we should have clearly disclosed our use of AI."

37 Comments
News
Baldur's Gate Character Portraits
An ambitious mod management tool for the original Baldur's Gate games just got a massive overhaul

By Justin Wagner Published

News Plan your next playthrough of one of D&D's best videogame adaptations.

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A group of Minecraft villagers mill about a peaceful town.
Minecraft's Diablo-inspired spinoff is getting a surprise sequel this year

By Justin Wagner Published

News "With peace restored, all was well until it wasn't."

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A white cartoon dog smiling
Toby Fox says 'most of the development team has moved on' from Deltarune's fifth chapter, as focus moves to bug fixes and translation

By Justin Wagner Published

News "The actual testing period will last for an indefinite amount of time."

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Steam gets big ups for promoting the human artists behind its latest spring sale graphics: 'Thank you for using real artists and not slop'

By Justin Wagner Published

News Someone has to make all those Points Shop items, you know.

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Lara Croft takes a leap in the Tomb Raider 1-3 remaster.
The remastered collection of the first Tomb Raider games just got a controversial patch with some truly terrible-looking new outfits: 'Lara deserves better than this'

By Justin Wagner Published

News Players have taken to social media to share their disappointment.

23 Comments
News
A parkour runner in first person perspective slides down a sleek hallway.
This indie dev is making a Mirror's Edge-inspired freerunning game, complete with an in-game PDA that looks a lot like a PlayStation Portable

By Justin Wagner Published

News Return to the late aughts.

10 Comments
News
Darktide is getting a new extraction-esque mode where you go outside and try not to die from radiation poisoning: 'If time runs out and you die, you get nothing'

By Justin Wagner Published

News No PvP, but a familiar loop nonetheless.

9 Comments
News
Homer Simpson screams, running through vehicular carnage as part of the box art for The Simpsons: Hit & Run.
Executive producer on The Simpsons says 'never say never' regarding a Hit & Run revival, even if he prefers the 2007 game

By Justin Wagner Published

News There's no accounting for taste.

9 Comments
News
arc raiders medic
Embark CEO says 'a real professional actor is better than AI' after the studio re-records some Arc Raiders dialog with real humans

By Justin Wagner Published

News Embark is not ending its use of generative AI, which it sees "first and foremost as a production tool."

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Art for the Ironclad in Slay the Spire 2
'Even though I threw out my back from overworking, I'm feeling high in spirits': Slay the Spire 2 sold 3 million copies in its first week

By Justin Wagner Published

News Players have attempted over 25 million runs.

24 Comments
News
Ultima Pagan Retrospective YouTube thumbnail
The best CRPG docuseries on YouTube just covered Ultima 8 with a 3-hour retrospective

By Justin Wagner Published

news The wacky adventures of Lord British continue.

14 Comments
news
Voxel sandbox RPG Hytale
Hytale lead says they're pushing for modding in part because they 'hire from the community': 'We're building a scrappy, agile team full of people who actually make things'

By Justin Wagner Published

News "It makes the game bigger than the studio. It helps us discover talent."

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Crazy Taxi, with large objective arrow.
One coder's 'winter madness project' was making the Dreamcast-era cityscapes of Crazy Taxi explorable in our browsers

By Justin Wagner Published

News Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

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A Slay the Spire 2 character dual wielding daggers and preparing to fight
Slay the Spire 2 dev says its Marathon joke turned out 'a bit meaner than expected' in hindsight: 'To be fair I didn't think we'd actually pass Marathon in concurrent users'

By Justin Wagner Published

News "It wasn't supposed to be shade, we were being sarcastic 😭."

27 Comments
News
Scott Pilgrim EX, a pixel art beat 'em up
Scott Pilgrim EX review: Carboloading

By Justin Wagner Published

vs. 🌍 The new golden age of beat 'em ups continues with a lighthearted, snackable brawler.

vs. 🌍
QT from Rollin' Rascal waves and smiles.
One of my favorite Next Fest demos turned out to be this speedrunner's delight modeled after 3D Sonic games, which just added ranked multiplayer races

By Justin Wagner Published

News You're even good enough to be my fake.

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An assembly of anime characters pose in front of a moonlit sky.
Only 50 floppy disks of this prototype Japanese visual novel were ever produced, and one just got destroyed in transit: 'Today, an important piece of history has been lost forever'

By Justin Wagner Published

News Tsukihime Trial Edition was already exceedingly rare, and now it's even rarer.

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Space Marine 2 players are not happy with its new $5 voice lines DLC: 'Just scummy as hell'

By Justin Wagner Published

News Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

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TIE Fighter: Total Conversion
One of the most impressive Star Wars mods in history just got a huge update, and co-op is on the table for the future: 'It has been almost a year-long journey to get to this point'

By Justin Wagner Published

News TIE Fighter: Total Conversion goes from strength to strength.

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Doom: The Dark Ages director says the upcoming DLC is 'basically like a sequel': 'It's just ginormous'

By Justin Wagner Published

News "It's so big."

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AI microprocessor on motherboard computer circuit
One of the biggest ROM sites around calls it quits as RAM prices surge and donations plateau: 'I have been paying more than $6,000 out of pocket every month'

By Justin Wagner Published

News Retro game preservation site Myrient will shut down March 31.

7 Comments
News
Trazyn the Infinite, a necron from Warhammer, glares at a cube with several character silhouettes standing inside it.
Owlcat just teased a new Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader DLC, and it's all about everyone's favorite relic-hoarding necron, Trazyn the Infinite

By Justin Wagner Published

News Trazyn's vault awaits, along with a mysterious new companion.

9 Comments
News
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