
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

'Every year they got f***ing chocolates that we didn't': Valve gives a box of sweets to Steam's biggest breadwinners every year, and Peak's devs finally got one after years of jealously watching their Slay the Spire office mates enjoy GabeN confections
By Justin Wagner published
News It's okay, they finally got it.

Deadlock dev teases the community over its favorite hero that was briefly tested and removed: 'We made delicious stock out of his bones and meats'
By Justin Wagner published
News The curious case of Fathom, Deadlock's missing best boy.

'I can finally do the thing I wanted to do in every previous game': Divinity's head of design teases a new mechanic without saying what it is
By Justin Wagner published
News "It stares you right in the face if you think about it."

Valve spent 2025 ripping apart Deadlock and putting it back together, and it delivered better live service than most live service games
By Justin Wagner published
Valve's futuristic MOBA has been figuring itself out on the fly, and I kind of prefer that to a carefully considered roadmap.

Arc Raiders dev says it uses 'aggression-based matchmaking' to pair bloodthirsty, PvP-minded players with each other
By Justin Wagner published
News Kill and be killed.

Quake modders banded together to release the third Brutalist Map Jam, with two campaigns' worth of FPS goodness in 'a megalithic community project more than a year in the making'
By Justin Wagner published
News The Quake Brutalist Jam is back and bigger than ever.

'Yeah, that didn't suck. That was good': Fallout: New Vegas lead writer says the Survivalist's journal in Honest Hearts is 'one of my favorite bits of content that I've written in a game'
By Justin Wagner published
News The Survivalist's diary entries were one of the few writing contributions John Gonzalez made to New Vegas' Honest Hearts DLC before leaving Obsidian.

Fallout: New Vegas lead writer 'loved writing' Yes Man, but thinks his questline may have been a mistake: 'It lets you get through the game without getting your hands dirty'
By Justin Wagner published
news The sycophantic, (mostly) immortal robot made certain design constraints easier to work around, but it allows for a "rebellious, individualistic" player to bypass some tough choices.

'I'm over making other people really wealthy with my own creations': Fallout co-creator Tim Cain isn't interested in making a new IP or a sequel to one of his classic RPGs and, at this point, he's 'exasperated with the question'
By Justin Wagner published
News "I'm still making toys and I love them, and they make me happy."

2025 was so stacked with great games I missed the free, ass-kicking Christmas update to its best singleplayer shooter
By Justin Wagner published
News It's not too late to come home for Cultmas.

'There's a lot of cool things that, if you think too hard about it, they should never have worked': Fallout 3's pathfinding system had to be completely reworked over several months to account for Liberty Prime, but it was worth it because he's 'awesome'
By Justin Wagner published
News One of the most impressive set pieces in Fallout 3 took months of work to get right.

Baba is News: One of the best puzzle games of the last decade just got a major update seven years after release
By Justin Wagner published
News "This will most probably be the final large update for [Baba is You]."

'Happy Gloom Year!': The new Gloomwood update is out, and it includes the game's 'largest, most vertical open area' yet
By Justin Wagner published
News Gloom betide ye.

Pluribus lead Rhea Seehorn's career began as the 'tutorial sorceress' in a Magic The Gathering PC game from 1997
By Justin Wagner published
News As long as we're talking about this—the hive definitely plays mono blue, right?

Dispatch sold over 3 million copies in 2025, and only around five percent of players beat the game without romancing anyone
By Justin Wagner published
News Who's got time for romance? I've got a job to do!

Betty Boop, Blondie, and a slew of Mickey Mouse cartoons are entering the public domain, so let's hope for something better than bargain bin horror games
By Justin Wagner published
News Another year, another grab bag of expired copyrights.

Eric Barone makes $125,000 donation to the C# framework Stardew Valley uses, as well as 'an ongoing monthly commitment' in what the team behind it calls an 'extraordinary show of support'
By Justin Wagner published
News MonoGame has been used to make all sorts of notable games, including Celeste and Bastion.

This indie WarioWare-like released a teaser just to show off its 'game over' music, and after hearing it, I can see why
By Justin Wagner published
News Mindwave is shaping up to be just as groovy as its inspirations.

This sequel to a classic NES beat 'em up is about to be delisted from Steam, but you can get it for a few bucks in the meantime: 'The delisting process is currently underway'
By Justin Wagner published
News River City Ransom: Underground is dirt cheap until it's gone forever.

Some of my favorite childhood platformers are free on Epic for today only, and they've all been updated for better crossplay with Steam owners
By Justin Wagner published
News Trine's a little long in the tooth now, but its co-op antics are no less enjoyable.

Arc Raiders was Steam's best-selling game the week of Christmas, and Battlefield 6 wasn't far behind
By Justin Wagner published
News Casual-friendly shooters ruled the roost this holiday season.

Fallen Aces's second episode won't be out this year, but it will feature a first-person car chase with a tommy gun in both hands and a foot-operated steering wheel
By Justin Wagner published
News Bad news, rad news.

Rainbow Six Siege servers are back after hackers randomly doled out bans, unbans, rare skins and 'billions' in in-game currency
By Justin Wagner published
News Any transactions made with the sudden influx of credits have been rolled back.
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