Portfolio - Ana Diaz

Feature Writing & Reporting

As a freelance journalist and culture writer at Polygon, my original reporting investigates the intersections of games, streamer culture, and internet trends on platforms like TikTok and Twitch.

mixed feelings • 17th April 2025

video games are fanfiction's next frontier

welcome to strong feelings! Essays by writers we love, in which they share their most impassioned opinions on a given subject. In today’s strong feelings, writer Ana Diaz explores how fan-made games are pushing the limits of both fanfiction and video games at large.Satoru Gojo, a 2D heartthrob from the anime Jujutsu Kaisen (JJK), put on his best outfit for me in the game, Teacher’s Pet: Winner Takes It All. He’s wearing black-tinted sunglasses and a button up tucked into his pants. It might soun...

Polygon • 8th September 2024

What does the future of Vtubing look like? Cover’s Yagoo has the answer

Motoaki Tanigo: In anime, you don’t really have just one important character, right? You have their friends and their group, and what we learned from that is how we debut our unique characters in a unit. So we have a sense of a unit and community. And one season of animation could be like one generation, one unit.Polygon: What do you think is the most important factor to successfully growing Vtubing in a new place? Is it picking the right talent? Is it finding the right way to bring merch to new...

Polygon • 28th August 2024

I went to a Hololive concert and now I’m convinced VTubers can do anything

As I walk to the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, a line of people wraps around several city blocks, many wearing merch with blown-up fan art of anime girls. I enter the stately theater, with its ornate gilded plasterwork and luxurious stage draperies, and find my chair. A concertgoer holds up an Austrian flag with the orange-haired VTuber Takanashi Kiara printed on it. The crowd breaks into a thunderous roar, with people waving glowing orange light sticks in the air and chanting: “Kiara! Ki...

Polygon • 26th April 2024

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan says Twitch will give her chill ‘creative control’

Best known for playing Devi Vishwakumar, the lead role in the Netflix sitcom Never Have I Ever, Ramakrishnan has shown off her own personality over the years through posts on TikTok and Instagram. And video games are part of it, whether she’s posting from Super Nintendo World or cosplaying as Lisa from Genshin Impact. On Friday evening, the actor will take that interest in a new direction by hosting her first-ever official livestream on Twitch. Polygon caught up with Ramakrishnan to talk about h...

Polygon • 15th December 2023

Tears of the Kingdom devs are amped for Zelda’s post-Switch era

As soon as players had Tears of the Kingdom in hand, they tinkered with Link’s newfound building powers to delightful and chaotic results. Fans constructed mega bridges and skateboards and, if they were skilled enough, even Godzilla-like kaijus. Outside the world of the game, fans dove into Hyrule and its history; they theorized about what would happen and lamented lost romance. If Breath of the Wild set a new gold standard for open-world exploration in games, Tears of the Kingdom proved all ove...

Polygon • 27th October 2023

Inside Magic: The Gathering’s Lost Caverns of Ixalan, a set driven by a love of Latin America

Long before Wizards of the Coast senior art director Ovidio Cartagena and his team of artists conjured up cavernous depths populated with jade merfolk and fungal tyrants, he would ride the bus back and forth to school each day in his hometown in Guatemala. In his day-to-day life, Cartagena saw Mayan pyramids and statues of warriors who fought the conquistadors. Fast forward several years, and he’s now living in the United States, but those experiences live on through the art of Magic: The Gather...

Polygon • 19th October 2023

How Zelda speedrunning inspired cursed Zelda mods

Adding new playthrough rules or modding a game can make even a widely known classic feel exciting, fresh, and, in the best cases, totally new. This is the approach that streamer Eric “PointCrow” Morino has taken. He has made a name for himself playing mega-popular games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokémon with special rules or mods. Polygon spoke to him about his career and his approach to playing some of today’s most popular games in new, creative ways. “One of the earliest...

Polygon • 28th August 2023

Banana Fish, Attack on Titan fandoms created a star

If you also chronically scroll through TikTok, and you’re an anime fan, then you likely know of musician Ricky Montgomery. His songs have commanded enormous audiences, and clips from “Mr. Loverman” and “Line Without a Hook” have been used and reused for trends. TikTok has launched numerous musicians into stardom, and Montgomery took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, around the same time anime and manga fandom intensified online. At the time of publication, his music has surpassed 1 billion strea...

Polygon • 24th August 2023

The King Arthur story that inspired Magic: The Gathering’s Wilds of Eldraine

One of the most political King Arthur stories is the basis for the upcoming Magic: The Gathering expansion, Wilds of Eldraine. Roy Graham, lead writer at Wizards of the Coast, sat down with Polygon at MagicCon Minneapolis to talk about the stories that inspired the new set. He talked about how T.H. White’s The Once and Future King informed both the whimsy and darker sides of the plane of Eldraine. Eldraine couples Arthurian legends with Grimms’ fairy tales and other European fables. Magic player...

Polygon • 10th August 2023

Stray Gods’ superstar cast helped shape its soundtrack

Just a short glance at the credit list from Summerfall Studios’ new game reveals some impressive choices. The cast includes fan favorites like Laura Bailey and Janina Gavankar from Critical Role, as well as English actor Rahul Kohli, who appeared in Netflix’s Midnight Mass. The cast is an obvious flex on the talent front. What’s less obvious are the ways in which these cast members actually shaped the final game. Music director Austin Wintory — the only video game composer whose work (on Journey...

Mn Artists • 14th April 2023

Against the “World Wide Three Places”: A Conversation with Marina Kittaka – Mn Artists

I first encountered Marina Ayano Kittaka’s work at Play/Test, a monthly event hosted by the local games organization Glitch where game developers can demo works in progress. Since meeting Marina in 2018, her video games, writing, and digital projects have helped me, and others, imagine new possibilities for how to exist in the wider video games industry and digital life. Marina Kittaka is a Twin Cities-based game developer and artist, most known for her work at Analgesic Productions, a game deve...

Polygon • 14th March 2023

How QTCinderella became the heart of the streaming community

Last weekend, she put on one of the largest streamer-run events in content creation, The Streamer Awards, in partnership with Twitch. The award show, which hosted over 300 top streamers and garnered over 1.6 million unique viewers, according to a statistic provided to Polygon by Twitch, had its second annual run on Saturday. After the event, QTCinderella sat down with Polygon via video chat to talk about how she created the “Avengers” of content-creation events, and what it was like to plan an a...

Polygon • 2nd March 2023

Disguised Toast is expanding beyond streaming, but it’s coming at a cost

Jeremy Wang, known as Disguised Toast on Twitch, has long been known as a shitposter. The streamer got his start doing trick plays and trolling players on the digital card game Hearthstone. In 2017, he joined OfflineTV, a content creation group co-founded by Pokimane and Scarra. Over time, he amassed some 2.8 million followers on Twitch and 3.7 million on YouTube by streaming games like Among Us alongside other talent like Valkyrae and Corpse Husband. Now, he’s trying something new. He’s the fou...

Polygon • 12th January 2023

Ash Ketchum inspired a generation of Pokémon fans — and his voice actor

After 25 years of adventures, Ash and Pikachu’s time together is about to come to an end. The duo, who have long starred in the anime based on the popular video games, set out with the ultimate goal to become the very best. Now, the two have finally accomplished that goal by winning a world championship in an episode of Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series in late 2022. That winter, The Pokémon Company International announced that Ash and Pikachu’s journey would be coming to an end, and a new s...

Polygon • 22nd December 2022

Pokémon didn’t reinvent itself in 2022, and maybe it shouldn’t have to

Despite this leap in game design, upon reflecting on this year in Pokémon, what struck me was how much the series felt largely the same. For a longtime fan, 2022 was the year Game Freak cemented its dedication to a 25-year-old way of playing the games. This stubborn adherence to form both tested my enjoyment of the series and illuminated the true reasons I continue to play it. These games taught me that even large updates to the game’s design don’t change the fundamental formula — and so I neede...

Polygon • 18th July 2022

Genshin Impact’s sheer size is leaving mobile players behind

If you check the replies to any of the Genshin Impact Twitter account’s new patch pre-download announcements, you’ll see dozens of players anxiously awaiting information on the file size of the update. If it’s relatively small, people will reply with comments saying that they survived another. Other fans will post screenshots of their phone showing how little, or how much, storage they have left. File size is a hot-button issue for fans of the large adventure game. When Genshin Impact came out,...

Polygon • 22nd March 2022

Which slime is the ultimate slime, according to a polymer chemist

If you hear the goopy drip or bouncy spring of a nearby enemy, odds are you might have run into a slime. Known by many names — like Chuchu Jelly in Zelda or Flan in Final Fantasy — slimes have long served as the loyal punching bags of video game heroes everywhere. Whether it’s in the caves of Stardew Valley, or on the sprawling plains of Dragon Quest 11, the gelatinous grunts seem to have a place in many a video game environment. Slimes come in many different forms: goo, jelly, gel, and more. Bu...

Polygon • 12th January 2022

In defense of the JojaMart route in Stardew Valley

To many that play the farming simulator, the JojaMart route appears to contradict a core premise of the game. Stardew Valley kicks off when the protagonist, a disillusioned office worker at JojaMart, inherits their late grandfather’s farm in the small community of Pelican Town. Throughout the process of building your farm, the player is given the choice between buying important upgrades to the town from JojaMart or by rebuilding a community center. To support JojaMart would be to betray your gra...

Polygon • 13th September 2021

Fortnite’s awkward MLK tribute could have learned from this thoughtful history game

This discrepancy wasn’t hard to miss at the March Through Time event which launched inside Fortnite on Aug. 26. Event producers told Time magazine (which partnered with Fortnite creators Epic Games to put on the event) they hoped it would, “teach kids about a vital era in American history via a platform they find familiar and engaging.” But Fortnite’s cartoonish nature largely prompted a wider conversation on what it meant to present history in a game known for battle royale gunfights and virtua...

Polygon • 30th April 2021

Break-ups, porn, and bakas: The legend of the Barnes & Noble manga section

When Heather was 13, she dreamed of meeting a boyfriend. She didn’t want anything too special, just a pretty boy who shared her interests. When she finally entered high school, she thought she’d find the perfect guy — but no such boy arrived. So she started dreaming about bumping into her imaginary crush while out shopping for books, similar to the stories that she used to read in her favorite shojo manga. That’s when she started looking for love in the Barnes & Noble manga section. She fantasiz...

Polygon • 24th April 2021

For some, Wii Fit’s legacy is body shame

Released in 2007, Wii Fit offered a suite of sporty minigames played with a balance board peripheral that you stood on like a weight scale. The minigames had you doing silly antics, such as leaning on the balance board to control a soccer player or jumping on it to mimic a ski jump. The aim wasn’t to transform you into an athlete, but to help you hone your inner balance. A message in Wii Fit warned, “A particularly unbalanced lifestyle could lead to fat accumulation… and even trigger a condition...

Internet Culture & Explainers

I can identify, and help explain the biggest trends happening on the internet -- regardless if they're inspired by movies, games, or even a goofy meme.

Polygon • 9th January 2024

Saltburn’s controversial bits were destined to blow up online — and now they have

Saltburn, the 2023 movie about a young man who slurps up bathtub cum water, has become a surprise flashpoint for internet fandom. The new movie from writer-director Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) follows Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a seemingly docile and underprivileged Oxford University student who spends a summer at the palatial estate of his staggeringly rich, popular classmate Felix (Priscilla star Jacob Elordi). Since its release last November, the movie has become known for its...

Polygon • 27th December 2023

How Kai Cenat broke into stardom in 2023

Since then, his cultural influence has only grown. According to analytics firm Rainmaker.gg, Cenat was the most-viewed streamer on Twitch in 2023, with roughly 109 million hours watched. He’s hosted celebrity guests like 21 Savage and Nicki Minaj, and also danced live on stage with Minaj at a recent concert. His work has inspired entire meme trends and even influenced contemporary slang. Even then, his career has been a tumultuous one marked with controversies in addition to the events at Union...

Polygon • 1st December 2023

No one can escape the Josh Hutcherson ‘Whistle’ edit

In the past two weeks, a fan-made video known as the “Josh Hutcherson ‘Whistle’ edit” has gone viral on social media platforms like TikTok. Originally posted to YouTube in 2014, the video combines photos of Josh Hutcherson with a cover of the song “Whistle” by Flo Rida. Sure, the video looks a bit paltry compared to the snazzy edits of anime characters and K-pop stars you so often seen today. Still, it’s a weirdly important video in the annals of internet history and served as one of the early p...

Polygon • 6th November 2023

Genshin Impact lore secretly inspired a new viral TikTok trend

Genshin Impact has wiggled its way into inspiring another massive trend on TikTok. This time, a character named Neuvillette has inspired people to dance to lines where he is talking about a machine called the Oratrice Mecanique d’Analyse Cardinale. It’s a pretty niche reference, but the trend has taken TikTok by storm and the top videos have as many as 6.4 million views.Each video draws upon a pretty standard format. In it, the videos use an audio track which compiles instances where Neuvillette...

Polygon • 19th October 2023

‘You’re so Skibidi, so Fanum tax,’ and other fun nonsense, explained

Such is the case with what I’m going to call the “Skibidi” song. It’s a tune I have to name, because, well, it’s made up and there is no official term for it. There are multiple versions of the meme, but in the most popular one, a person with a voice that sounds like a prepubescent boy sings, “Sticking out your gyat for the rizzler, you’re so Skibidi, you’re so Fanum tax,” while a video shows a Fortnite character emoting while wearing the Among Us back bling.You definitely don’t need to know the...

Polygon • 23rd January 2023

M&M’s ‘spokescandies’ controversy, explained

On Friday, a spokesperson from Mars Wrigley confirmed to the New York Times that the candy characters would be returning in an ad for the upcoming Super Bowl. The news comes after the company said, on Monday, that it would be pulling the characters from branding “indefinitely” and replacing the characters with the comedian Maya Rudolph.The brand stunt takes advantage of the publicity from an older controversy. About a year ago, Mars Wrigley rebranded some of its M&M characters to be more inclusi...

Polygon • 22nd November 2022

TikTok’s dabloon cat meme, explained

In the throes of cryptocurrencies failing and Twitter bleeding staff, a meme about a fake cat-driven currency is thriving on TikTok. Much like the chokehold of Tumblr’s recent Goncharov (1973) memes, “dabloon” jokes have enraptured TikTok’s giant audience and become a communal bit where people role-play spending and earning a fictional “dabloon” currency. Thousands have joined in on it, as multiple videos exceed a million views. These dabloon memes are playful and absurd in a way that defies eas...

Polygon • 6th July 2022

The ‘GentleMinions’ trend, explained

If you were within spitting distance of a movie theater this weekend, or just scrolling through TikTok, you might have noticed a new Minion-related trend: young adults and teens dressing up in formalwear to watch Minions: The Rise of Gru in theaters. The trend soared to ridiculous heights, with individual videos garnering as many as 24 million views and the “#gentleminions” tag on TikTok exceeding 24 million views as well. The “GentleMinions” trend is fueled by a commitment to shitposting that b...

Video Games Service & Guides

As a service writer at Polygon, I wrote video game guides and service coverage optimized for the largest search trends of the moment. I contributed original service coverage that used first-person experience and fans to produce entertaining, informative articles.

Polygon • 26th April 2025

7 tips from puzzle game developers on how to beat puzzle games

The puzzles of Blue Prince feel less like the gridlike blueprints you draft in the game and more like an intricate web. Even seasoned puzzle lovers might feel tested by its mysteries. In Blue Prince, you explore and construct a sprawling mansion estate room by room from a series of randomized blueprints. Each day (or run), the house will reset, and you must start constructing a new path forward. Both the roguelike elements and the detailed world pose a unique challenge. It’s the kind of game whe...

Polygon • 25th April 2025

How to persuade in Oblivion Remastered

If you successfully persuade an NPC, they can give you valuable information or discounts while bartering. It’s an important part of the game if you want to get intel and lower the price of items.This will bring you to a screen that shows a circular menu displaying the NPC’s disposition number, a value that determines how much that NPCs likes you. The higher their disposition number is, the more that character likes you.Some characters have a minimum threshold for the disposition number that you...

Polygon • 20th April 2025

The best ways to take notes for Blue Prince, according to Blue Prince fans

Here at Polygon, we aren’t strangers to the video game notebook. Handwritten notes can create a physical place that can serve as a guide and aid in our own game experiences. They can also enhance enjoyment of a game. Our staff has created assassination bullet journals and argued that taking notes can make games more fun. Now, Blue Prince — the hottest puzzle game of 2025 — has taken that inclination and set it on fire.In Blue Prince, you explore and construct a sprawling mansion estate room by r...

Polygon • 14th April 2025

How to unlock the time-lock safe in Blue Prince

The time-lock safe is a safe in Blue Prince that you’ll find next to the computer terminal in the Shelter. The computer allows you to schedule when the safe unlocks, but it can be tricky to set up if you don’t know how to figure out the time and date.This guide will show you how to unlock the time-lock safe in Blue Prince plus some tips on how to troubleshoot if it won’t open.To start, you must draft the Shelter as your Outer Room, which itself requires you to open the Garage door and West Gate,...

Polygon • 1st April 2025

How to get an April Fools’ event flamethrower code in Dress to Impress

The April Fools’ Day event in Dress to Impress will only be 24 hours. It started at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, April 1, and will finish at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 2. After that, you won’t be able to access the special April Fools’ Day-related content.The developers of Dress to Impress have added two codes to unlock new items in the April Fools’ Day update. You can use one of them right away without doing the April Fools’ Day event, but you have to do a scavenger hunt t...

Polygon • 28th February 2025

How to unlock layered armor in Monster Hunter Wilds

Layered armor allows you to customize what your equipment looks like in Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s functionally the game’s transmog system.Monster Hunter Wilds is stuffed with loads of cool-looking armor. (The silky layers of the Lala Barina set come to mind, and in the end-game Death Stench armor set.) But sometimes, the armor that will benefit you the most in a certain fight might not be the one you most like the look of.Luckily for players, the layered armor settings allow you to keep the sta...

Polygon • 28th February 2025

Best character design codes in Monster Hunter Wilds

Taking the time to make sure you design a Monster Hunter Wilds character you like is well worth it. Once you start a new save file, you won’t be able to change appearance again unless you use a limited item called a character edit voucher.However a lot of those creators don’t share codes. Instead, many people have shared screenshots of all the settings people can use to remake the character. This can be helpful if you really want to remake a character that someone else has created, however, it c...

Polygon • 10th February 2025

Cyrus is a cruel and vital addition to your Pokémon TCG Pocket deck

Cyrus is a trainer card that’s taken over battles in Pokémon TCG Pocket. In the video games, he’s the big boss of the devious Team Galactic and a major antagonist in the Sinnoh generation. Ever since the Space-Time Smackdown expansion hit TCG Pocket in January, he’s also become a popular card in several decks that follow the game’s meta.Cyrus is a super flexible card and has something to offer loads of decks. This Pokémon TCG Pocket guide explains why we think he’s a solid choice for so many loo...

Reviews & Games Coverage

I can write good old fashioned game reviews, pull out the more interesting detail in a game and ask a developer about it, or cover the unique ways fans play games.

Polygon • 11th March 2025

Minecraft composer C418 talks burnout after making Wanderstop, a game about burnout

Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418, composed a defining soundtrack of a generation when he made the music for Minecraft. As Rosenfeld told Polygon, he’s fine with always being known as “the Minecraft guy,” but on March 11, the composer released something more personal. A game that feels both intimate and emotional, and one that he had a central role in creating. It’s called Wanderstop.Developed by Ivy Road, Wanderstop follows the story of a powerful warrior named Alta who, after being beaten...

Polygon • 14th January 2025

Sea of Stars local co-op revived my love for turn-based RPGs

I was a bit skeptical the first time I heard about the local co-op mode in Sabotage Studio’s Sea of Stars. A turn-based game can feel a bit slow when playing alone, so I couldn’t really imagine how it would work with another person sitting next to me the entire time. However, I played Sea of Stars with my little brother over the holidays, and as it turns out, this co-op mode was just what I needed to revive my interest in turn-based RPGs. Sea of Stars’ secret weapon is the way it mixes real-time...

Polygon • 14th November 2024

Death of the Reprobate combines potty humor with high art

In Death of the Reprobate, I assume the role of a young tyrant named Malcolm the Shit. His father, Immortal John, is dying. Usually, that would be good news for a spoiled heir like him, but his plans to assume the throne hit a snag when his daddy tells him he must perform seven good deeds to earn his right to rule the land. Malcolm, however, is the equivalent of some sort of Renaissance-era fuckboy who likes to order the execution of his subjects. It’s up to me to usher him along on his path to...

Polygon • 1st October 2024

Tiny Glade players are remaking fantasy worlds in astonishing detail

If I’ve learned anything from this job, it’s not to underestimate the cozy gaming community. The fans behind classics like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Minecraft have built some of the most intricate and incredible worlds using the games as their canvases. Now, players of the indie title Tiny Glade are using the adorable building game to recreate fantasy worlds from series like Harry Potter, The Legend of Zelda, and more in incredible detail.Created by Pounce Light, Tiny Glade is a sandbox...

Polygon • 16th September 2024

A new Zelda game is reminding everyone to finish the last one

Nintendo will be releasing Echoes of Wisdom for Nintendo Switch on Sept. 26. While some features of the game — like the fact you can play as Zelda — have fans buzzing with excitement, some players aren’t quite ready to move on to the next Zelda game. That’s because some want to make sure they beat the main storyline of Tears of the Kingdom.The TikTok user just_jaynie shared a video on TikTok that joked about the upcoming release. The video, which as more than 15,400 views, shows sped-up footage...

Polygon • 25th August 2024

Fields of Mistria devs tease romance with its datable dragon

Fields of Mistria, a new farming sim and RPG inspired by the Harvest Moon series and Stardew Valley, contains its fair share of charms. Its world has blossoming pink and purple flowers, a witchy bathhouse decorated with crystals, and a lively cast of characters ready to take you in and help your character get settled. Among the NPCs, one in particular has caught the eye of players. It’s a dragon named Caldarus — and, well, now players want to fuck him.Similar to Stardew Valley, Fields of Mistria...

Polygon • 7th August 2024

We can thank Hideki Naganuma for putting Malcolm X in a Sonic game

I think video game history will remember Hideki Naganuma for many reasons. Fans might lovingly bestow upon him the title of “Twitter weirdo.” Others — especially modern music producers — might cite him as an important influence in video game composition. That’s more than fair; the man is responsible for his fair share of video game bangers. Tracks like Jet Set Radio Future’s “The Concept of Love” — which stuffs warped vocal samples, bright electric guitar riffs, and rushing synthy drums — still...

Polygon • 26th July 2024

Flock shows us a gentler (and smarter) approach to creature collecting

As a child, I owned a little encyclopedia of Pokémon. Each page of this handbook contained an entry for one of the many fictional creatures and shared information about its personality, type, and unique characteristics. I pored over its many factoids and scribbled them on lined binder paper with my number two pencil. In the early days, I gravitated to Pokémon games not just because of the combat, but because I liked to learn about the series’ many creatures. Now, by playing Flock, I’ve found a g...

Polygon • 18th June 2024

More than 10 years later, Nintendo is righting its Zelda and Peach crimes

Princess Zelda will be a playable protagonist in a mainline Legend of Zelda game in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Both as far as game design philosophy goes — Zelda doesn’t wield a sword but a wand that can replicate objects — and the choice to make the princess the main character, the game is looking like it represents a daring next step for the Legend of Zelda franchise as a whole. Between that and the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom last year, it’s a thrilling ti...

Polygon • 22nd May 2024

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes has a tampon because people carry tampons

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes stands out for a lot of reasons. It has deviously difficult puzzles and a distinct ambiance that appears to be inspired by noir filmmaking. You play as a woman named Lorelei who wanders around an extravagant hotel and solves its many mysteries. The game packs in loads of convoluted secrets, but that’s not actually what intrigued me while playing. The biggest enigma from my playthrough involved one unique item: a tampon.Lorelei can store a variety of items in her elegan...

Polygon • 26th March 2024

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth takes a side in the great Tifa and Aerith debate

It might seem silly, but the question of who Cloud should smooch has animated the FF7 fandom for decades. On one side, we have Tifa Lockhart, Cloud’s childhood friend with a warm, generous gaze. On the other, there’s the flower-seller Aerith Gainsborough, who brings a sense of playfulness wherever she goes, and whose powers carry the fate of the world. Fans refer to each pairing as “Cloti” and “Clerith,” respectively. Although a lot of this debate is arguably a matter of opinion, being invested...

Polygon • 19th January 2024

I’m overcoming my fear of everything to play Lethal Company

If I were to categorize myself, I’d fully check the “scaredy cat” box. Jump scares make my heart race. Virtual creepy-crawlies twist my gut up inside. I enjoy a good sense of suspense in a game or movie, but I still struggle with it. (I do watch horror movies, but I break them into three sections to minimize the sense of dread.) Now, against all odds, I’ve found myself thoroughly enjoying Lethal Company. Lethal Company is a first-person co-op horror game in which you play as an employee of an om...

Polygon • 7th October 2023

One of Cocoon’s easiest puzzles was the hardest to design

Cocoon is the puzzle aficionado’s delight. The isometric adventure from Geometric Interactive marries pared-down gameplay with a mind-bending premise where players jump between worlds nestled inside of orbs. Polygon spoke to designer and director Jeppe Carlsen about the making of this world’s curious puzzles. In that conversation, he revealed that for Cocoon, making the hard-to-beat puzzles came easily. Making the easy ones, on the other hand? That was the challenge.In Cocoon, you control a tiny...

Polygon • 15th September 2023

Starfield’s Earth hides a devastating environmentalist lesson

Visiting Earth in Starfield is a rather sad homecoming. I land my ship in the state of Florida and it looks nothing like the state I know. Rather than seeing the open ocean, twisting mangroves, and lush tropical plants, a desert covers the land as far as the eye can see. I, a Xenobiologist, scan the planet and see there’s no flora or fauna left; only basic Earth minerals remain. The planet is quite literally a husk of its former self. Earth’s dismal state doesn’t come as a surprise in the game....

Polygon • 13th September 2023

Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe has gotten better at drawing beds

It might be indulgently silly, but I — and many others in the Stardew Valley community — have a years-long obsession with one particular bed. It’s not some rare item with a low drop rate, nor does it have any special powers. I’m talking about Grandpa’s bed, which is shown in the early cutscenes of the game.For those unfamiliar, Stardew Valley starts off with your grandfather bequeathing you a plot of land where you can build a farm. In one of the early cutscenes, the game shows your grandpa lyin...

Polygon • 17th August 2023

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s blood moon has a secret purpose

The blood moon in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the game’s creepiest moments. Scarlet clouds paint the sky and a ghostly aura reanimates monsters from the dead. The scene is among one of the scarier parts of the game, but beneath its red ooze, this event hides a practical application: The blood moon functions as a way to refresh the game’s memory use and stop Link from pushing the Nintendo Switch to its limits.The regular (non-glitched) blood moon rises every 168 minutes, t...

Polygon • 11th August 2023

Nintendo DS cameras are the best lo-fi photo trend

Sometimes I miss the unique charms of the Nintendo DS and 3DS handhelds. They were weird. I liked the wonky touch controls, and some games featured weird gimmicks with the built-in mic and cameras. Now the family of handhelds has newfound relevance; people are using the cameras on the Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, and other DS consoles to take photos and videos. As it turns out, the cameras are the perfect way to nostalgically capture the low-fidelity look of the 2010s.My first real brush with the...

Polygon • 11th October 2022

I suck at using character creators and that’s OK

When I booted up Elden Ring or Disney Dreamlight Valley for the first time, I got a little tightness in my chest. That’s because these games start with a character creator menu, which overwhelmed and stressed me out. For many, booting up a game to a wide array of character customization options, like hair color and style, body type, and more, is a pivotal and huge aspect of play. It’s like the best parts of dress-up, except it’s way easier to play and experiment with looks. But for me, it’s just...

Polygon • 21st July 2022

Fortnite’s Zero Build mode finally pulled me in, and now I can’t escape

Stupid joke aside, the image of Fortnite without its trademark building mechanic may seem surprising for the popular battle royale game. Harvesting materials and building elaborate structures to help protect against enemies or create the perfect vantage point from which to snipe a target forms such a fundamental part of the game, it’s even in the title.But in March, developer Epic Games axed building mechanics, and then eventually added a separate “Zero Build” mode where you could play without a...

Polygon • 6th July 2022

How roasting marshmallows became the ‘emotional core’ of Outer Wilds

Each time you start a new playthrough in Mobius Digital’s time-loop game Outer Wilds, your character blinks their blurry eyes open to see a night sky and you hear the light crackling of a fire. In the game, you explore a solar system 22 minutes at a time. At the end of each run, the solar system explodes and the game kicks you back to your home planet. And when you restart, the game settles you back into its world with the comforting scene of a four-eyed alien donning hipster garb and roasting a...

Entertainment Writing

As a culture writer, I was a frequent contributor to Polygon's entertainment desk, where I flagged trends on social media platforms and assisted with coverage of anime and manga.