As video games have grown in scope, creativity and immersiveness, so too has our relationship with them as players. Once widely viewed as infantile trash, video games now fuel TV megahits and become university course subjects; the industry makes more money than film and music combined. And yet there’s still a dearth in anthropological writing on gaming that its rival mediums enjoy – indicative of its unshiftable, lowly place in cultural criticism, even today. 

This is briefly touched on in editor Carmen Maria Machado’s foreward for Critical Hits: Writers On Gaming and the Alternate Worlds We Inhabit, described as “the first [book] of its kind” (as far as she and co-editor J. Robert Lennon can tell). The anthology collects the essays, poetry, and even one comic, of 18 writer-gamers, covering hugely popular titles like Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim, Fallout 76, The Last Of Us and Final Fantasy, alongside slightly deeper cuts like Disco Elysium, Leisure Suit Larry and Jade Empire.

From discovering one’s gender identity through Hollow Knight to diving into the portal fantasy genre during the pandemic, each of these thinkpieces are constructed and angled very differently but the quality of writing remains accessible – superbly lyrical, in places – throughout: “Stories can point to what’s possible,” writes Max Delsohn in Thinking Like The Knight, “but they can’t get inside your hands and show you how to move.”

Being a gamer is not a requisite to understand or relate to these experiences and ideas – not every Critical Hits contributor self-defines as such – and there’s certainly not a trace of ‘gatekeeping’ tone or parlance to be found. However, as you might imagine, familiarity with this world will enhance your reading: the quiet intimacy of learning control systems with a partner, the comforting serotonin hits from completing repetitive tasks successfully, the addicting grind to beat a boss, the double-edged sword of escapism and suppression within an all-consuming pixelated world.

Those who’ve never thought about video games in a critical, introspective light before may never play them the same way again after reading Critical Hits. For those who have, this is the book you’ve been waiting for.