We are very excited to announce our latest Special Issue! In this issue, we focused on the voices and experiences of queer and trans people of colour, and efforts to decolonizing the games studies space. With amazing work by our… Continue Reading
Julie Fukunaga is a recent Sociology grad living on unceded Miwok land (in the Central Valley of California). In their free time, they write about identity and digital media. While in theory, video games offer expanded potential for embodiment… Continue Reading
Oluwatayo Adewole is a critic, poet, and editor. They’re interested in the way that art interacts with and challenges society, while also digging deep into people’s stories and perspectives (especially if they’re marginalised). She also loves to do the absolute… Continue Reading
Olivia Popp is an arts and culture writer with a particular interest in suburbia, queer socialization, Asian America, and speculative worlds. A graduate of Stanford University with a background in feminist technoscience studies, Olivia enjoys longboarding, eating passionfruit, and watching… Continue Reading
Back in July betsy, Chris, and Rob said their farewells and hinted at some changes for the coming year. After some time at the character selection screen, Sabrina, Patrick, and Lia have been chosen to take up the mantle and continue the adventure that FPS started all those years ago. And what better way to start than with some introductions and an unveiling of those changes. Continue Reading
Last year, my friend convinced me to play Nier for the first time. Upon initially booting up the title, it seemed like a typical grimdark male power fantasy with severely floaty controls and a muted, masculine aesthetic. Today, I consider it the only mainstream video game I have played that embodies the trans experience. Over the course of my time with Nier, what at first seemed to be a weak narrative scaffolding attempting to justify fetishized violence transformed into a subversive work of empathic queerness. The game has a series of endings, each building upon the last, culminating in a nuanced network of meaning-making. Through these multiple playthroughs and endings, a cohesive queering of the text emerged in my player experience, with the intersection of my own lived-in qualia of being a trans person and the game’s transgressive body politics acting as the thematic core. What follows is the result of this—a deeply personal close reading of Nier as a triumph of trans narratives. Continue Reading