Dishonored

09 Jul 2026 By Jeremy Peel Wall Week

Dishonored’s Wall of Light is built to control, but teaches you how to be free

We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it… or can we?

Getting directions in a city devastated by plague and gang warfare is an alarming business. Excuse me, sir, how might one reach Holger Square, and the office of the High Overseer?

“It’ll be a rough trip,” says Samuel the boatman. “Used to be you’d go straight up Clavering Boulevard, but now it’s not so easy. City Watch still holds the bigger streets and they’ve set up those Wall of Light checkpoints. A man walks through one of those and he ends up burned to a crisp.”

Good gracious, the things they can do with whale oil these days. Sure enough, a banner hangs above the ancient gate that breaks up the Boulevard: ‘THE BOLDEST MEASURES ARE THE SAFEST’. Beneath it, a 16-beam floodlight illuminates the cobbles. And beneath that, a deceptively clear passage, beset by ominous cables and machinery. Through the gap, the City Watch passes unharmed; anyone else is vaporised instantly.

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30 Apr 2026 By Brendan Caldwell Bits

A love letter to videogame pubs

Pint?

The pub is a haven and a hopeless place. Fantasy RPGs uphold the tavern as the hubworld of society. More than piazzas or busy markets or sturdy fortresses, the pub is where real things happen and where real people spit. It feels natural that it becomes a favourite of game designers. In our boring fleshy world they are both the alcoholic's watering hole and a place of legitimate relaxation and escape. They are a third space where office-cursed ghouls can unwind and complain about corporate, and a buzzing recruitment bazaar where jobs are slyly offered to those who dare to schmooze after a conference. Some of the best ideas happen in the pub, why shouldn't some of the best quests begin there too?

When I think of the game pub, I think first of Skyrim's roadside inns. It is impossible to estimate how much of Skyrim's sense of place is owed to its many thatched rest stops, offering you fireside and food in deep warm contrast to the blizzards outside. There's history in these pubs, even if it is the fictional history of a fantastical realm.