In terms of big projects, the Horus Heresy is more or less complete. There is a very long structural analysis that may or may not ever be finished, and there was one final essay I was going to write about the last book in the series, The End and the Death, vol III – we’ll see if I get back to it.

In the meantime, I had a new project in the wings – I was starting a review of the Call of Duty games in the ten-year block from 2007 to 2017. I’ve had some trouble getting Infinite Warfare working on my computer, sadly, so that’s temporarily shelved, and I’m working on another new project instead (help) – a review of video game narrative between 2000 and 2025.

This one’s an introduction to video game narrative in the period at hand. It’s not the best or most important games – it’s a starter pack, a survey of key themes and ideas throughout the period. There will be some major titles in there, as well as some indie games that just touch on these ideas in a really interesting way. It’ll be a block of 25 games, roughly one from each year. They’ll all be released for free on the blog, and then at the end I’ll compile them into one document and pdf it up.

I’ve actually already started releasing these essays – the first one was the Halo article in December. They’ll be marked openly going forward. They’re a little longer, the tone’s a little more elevated – I think it’ll come together well.

Otherwise, things will continue as normal – one essay each week, around 1500-2000 words, on some aspect of video games or narrative more broadly. I really like the Culture section, I’m proud of that this past year. I do think if you’re writing about video games, you should also be able to write about Nijinsky or Gertrude Stein or whoever – video games are an art among arts, and if we’re not accustomed with the breadth of the arts, that’s a limit to our criticism.

It would be nice to do a bit more work with some nineteenth-century literature as well – I’ve been reading Moby Dick over Christmas and it’s got me thinking – we’ll see how we go, with everything else, but I enjoyed the seventeenth-century stuff last year (Pilgrim’s Progress, Paradise Lost and so on), and it might be nice to work more in that area. No promises, but possibilities.