Samuel Tolbert

Happy birthday Brian!

Former PlayStation Studios chairman Shawn Layden, former Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, and former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, back when they all stood together at The Game Awards.

And that's number three. Whatever else can/should/will be said, it's officially the end of an era.

Goes without saying for today as well, evidently.

Wow.

I'm still putting together my personal work plans, but it goes without saying that if anyone at Bluepoint/PlayStation wants to chat, I can be reached via Signal and guarantee anonymity.

Unfathomable. Bluepoint was one of the best remake-focused studios ever. RIP.

Pulling up like this youtu.be/pijNEGhhfRY?...

"How do I feel in this moment?" I just keep asking myself that over and over. I weigh those moments, big and small, good and bad.

Truly disappointed to see this happen.

I had a phenomenal experience freelancing for Inverse's gaming team back in 2023.

Hayes and the rest of the team deserved better than this.

Hayes is a wonderful friend and a phenomenally skilled interviewer that any games site would benefit from. Hire Hayes.

Happy birthday!!

Good, good.

Jeeez I'm sorry Cade.

Congrats dude!!

Extremely underrated, I really enjoyed it!

A glass of prosecco. The first of many I will consume.

2025 was the highest highs and the lowest lows.

Let's see what 2026 brings.

A Hanukkiah with all nine candles lit.

Final night of Hanukkah 2025. Strenuous, challenging time, for myself and others, but I always find comfort in these lights.

Appreciate it Brian, seriously.

Well, not an update I wanted to give.

Starting in January, I'll be looking for work. I'll do some longer threads, plan, and look back a bit then. For now, please keep me in mind for your games reporting and writing needs. I'm also open to PR and narrative game dev roles, as well as mock reviews.

An electric Hanukkiah with two candles lit, while a candle of remembrance is lit to the side.

Hanukkah Sameach.

Turkey that is in the process of being carved.

Various Thanksgiving dishes, including sweet potato casserole and cornbread stuffing.

A plate of Thanksgiving food.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Yes.

Me, dressed as the vampire Remmick from Sinners. My face is covered in faux blood.

"I heard tale of a party. Drink, music, fellowship and the like."

Sinners became one of my favorite films ever the moment I saw it, I had to dress up as Remmick when I got the chance.

Happy Halloween, y'all.

Obsidian didn't add this cool feature to The Outer Worlds 2 until the game was well into development — here's how it happened The Rifts are a huge threat in The Outer Worlds 2, but Obsidian didn't actually have them as part of the gameplay at first.

Spoke with The Outer Worlds 2 directors about what went into making the sequel a bigger game with more to explore.

One fun tidbit that came out of our convo: The Rifts (a pretty big feature) wasn't originally planned for players to be able to interact with.

www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/...

I feel like a sleeper agent code that's been activated any time I see Bionicles, I wish they would brought back in a big way.

Waiting for more episodes to launch before I jump on but what I've seen looks fantastic.

List of everything new in Halo: Campaign Evolved — missions, weapons, and more Halo: Campaign Evolved introduces a number of changes to make it more consistent with other games in the series, as well as some entirely-new missions.

Because it's a remake and there are so many changes (mostly small, a few big) I'm keeping a running tab on everything new in some way. Not all the new weapons have been confirmed, for example, so this will be updated when those are official.

www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/...

A plasma grenade exploding in Halo: Campaign Evolved.

The art direction is far more faithful to the original game than the 2011 remaster was, and it looks great. Small thing, but I'm happy it's bloody again, something that was really watered down over the years.

www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/...