The Mass Effect Universe that Exists in Your Imagination is Never Going To Happen

Just a scant few days ago, at time of writing, it was announced that the beloved and foundational RPG developer Bioware was finally being shut down and disbanded by EA. This news was not exactly unexpected, but it was unwelcome nonetheless.

As with any video game related catastrophe, everyone and their aunt started opining on what they thought it was that had struck the killing blow. Many put the blame on EA, long known as a killer of veteran studios, while others blamed EA's recent Saudi takeover to be responsible for ending EA's only outwardly queer-adjacent developer. Others still pointed to the recent string of Bioware titles all underperforming despite their costly production periods. Of course, the internet's biggest brains all knew the real reason was because Bioware had become "woke and gay," though when precisely it was that Bioware became "woke and gay" few could actually agree upon.

Suffice it to say that the news led to an absolute outpouring of bad takes. I saw someone claim that Bioware hadn't made a good game since Dragon Age Origins, which means you'd have to disregard Mass Effect 2 (their most critically well regarded game,) and Inquisition (their best seller.) In the words of Logan Roy, these are not serious people.

1. Come and Take a Look at What You Could Have Won.

I'm not here today, though, to litigate the death of Bioware. Other, more smarter people out there would probably be better at that. Because the story didn't end with Bioware's end. A few days after the closure was announced a leaked trailer for the still in-development Mass Effect 5 (or 4 depending who you ask,) hit social media. After initial speculation that the trailer may have been a convincing fake, despite passing the smell test, it was eventually revealed as being the real deal.

The trailer, for what it is worth, depicts a somewhat generic looking video game protagonist bro entering a seedy bar and having a seductive conversation with a sexy Asari woman, while through flashbacks he relates his tragic backstory of war and banging hot chicks. When things look as though they are about to take a turn, protago-bro is revealed to be working for Shadow Broker Liara, the only returning face from the original games, and then a fight breaks out.

There's action, excitement, and a montage of familiar planets and brand-loyal visuals. There's a couple of mysterious intriguing plot threads dangled, before the trailer finally whacks us over the head with the title. Mass Effect Universe.

All things considered, I thought the trailer was pretty effective. Nearly every Mass Effect trailer usually goes for the lowest-common-denominator sex and violence stuff, while never really advertising the interesting world building and deep character dynamics, so I didn't take it as as anything more than a tone-setter. It definitely looked like they had a handle on what kind of game they were making, even if at times it felt like it was going out of its way to assure the straights that it wasn't going to make them feel gay, like the video game trailer equivalent of that Dan Hentschel sketch.

Were the game actually going to see release, I think this trailer would have reassured me that they were on the right track. My big worry for Mass Effect 5 (4?) was that it was going to bite off more than it could chew, stuck between trying to resurrect Shepard's already concluded story, to trying to please both fans and haters of Andromeda, to forging it's own path and kicking off a new saga.

It knew what it wanted to be, and had a strong sense of its own identity. It didn't feel beholden to the past, or that it was re-treading old ground, instead taking us on a new story with different priorities while still feeling like a Mass Effect game.

The thing is, though, this is only one trailer. One trailer that wasn't even intended for external release. By all accounts we can glean nothing about what the actual quality of the game would be. It was nothing but a scant few moments of a pre-rendered cinematic movie with no gameplay footage in it at all.

But you wouldn't know that from the way some people have been talking about it.

2. We Can Remember it for You Wholesale

As soon as the trailer was known to the public social media was abuzz with outrage over the game's cancellation. Many fans and internet commentators were aghast that a game that was "nearly completed" had been shelved at the last minute. This, despite the fact that nothing about the trailer spoke to the actual stage of development and featured no gameplay footage. All of a sudden folks were acting as though this was a Coyote Vs Acme situation where a finished product had been shelved at completion.

Then came the so-called leaks. Certain individuals who claimed to have worked on the project started passing around supposed details of what the final game would have looked like. Many said that the game was further along in development than fans had expected, which only fanned the flames of people assuming the game was "nearly finished."

As was depressingly inevitable, a petition and campaign was started to "save the game." Fans began circulating the petition on social media, and numerous videos popped up on YouTube declaring that the outpouring of support showed that EA should, no, MUST resume work on the game. They owe it to the fans!

It should come as no surprise that this was all starting to feel dreadfully familiar.

3. You and I are Going to Live Forever.

Mass Effect 3 was released in 2012. It was the culmination of a years long story arc stretching over three games and multiple DLC expansions. Expectations were high. Upon release, while not considered a masterpiece, the general consensus was that the game was a mostly satisfying action RPG that built upon what came before and managed to deliver a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Except for that ending, of course.

The backlash against Mass Effect 3's ending was so severe that it was almost like the entire internet had come down with a case of delusional psychosis. I myself was not immune, and found myself sharing and promoting the "Take Back Mass Effect" campaign that demanded a complete re-write and re-release of the game's ending.

The entire effort was, as mentioned, entirely delusional. The idea that Bioware, a studio that was already being run ragged by its EA taskmasters, was going to go back and basically re-create a brand new ending and work it seamlessly into the game, from scratch, was about as likely as Beyond Good and Evil 2 seeing a release before 2020.

All the campaign achieved was a bunch of mostly blameless devs getting harassed into producing a free DLC that made the endings just a little more palatable, but ultimately didn't change anything. The ending of the Mass Effect trilogy is what we got, and remains so, whether you like it or not.

I bring all this up to point out that video game developers are not restaurants. You can't just send something back if you're dissatisfied and expect them to serve you a fresh new dish. These projects take years of work and huge amounts of manpower and resources, both of which EA has explicitly jettisoned.

EA is not going to look at these petitions and fan manifestos and decide to resume the project. The studio has been closed. The staff have been laid off. They already decided that whatever work was already done it wasn't worth completing. Even if they were going to resume the project it is likely they would farm it out to third party contractors just to get it out of the door. Mass Effect Universe would come out feeling incomplete and unsatisfying.

All of this effort, this self-assured campaigning, is nothing but back-slapping and ego-stroking, in the name of a game that we don't really know anything about.

4. Truth is Usually Just an Excuse for a Lack of Imagination.

What we know so far about Mass Effect Universe is from a trailer and a few titbits the studio revealed here and there. It is possible that it could have been good. It is just as likely it could have been an uneven mess, tonally inconstant with its source material, or overall unfinished and bland.

The way you hear some people talking about the project you'd think that we knew for certain this would have been the second coming of Mass Effect.

Since the trailer dropped, a bunch of folks claiming to have a had a role in the game's development have taken to social media to leak what they know about the game. Naturally these are filled with platitudes of how great the game was going to be. How it was going to win everybody back. How it was going to be everything the Mass Effect fans were waiting for and more.

Such ridiculous levels of hype are obviously exaggerations, but I think what stands out to me the most is all the talk of what the "fans" supposedly want.

I'm not going to put anyone on blast, but I saw a supposed leaker claiming that the game was focussing specifically on "the real fans"(whoever they are) and made a particular effort to draw attention to the fact that the female characters were "cute" and "feminine" and "not unnecessary masculine." No guesses for which side of the culture war our leaker is apparently dog-whistling to here.

The irony, of course, is that said leaker was immediately dog-piled by people saying that the game sounded shit and was going to be a Veilguard-level disaster anyway, mostly around the claim that the plot of Andromeda was not going to be incorporated and that Humanity had supposedly broke away from the Council. I find this aspect particularly funny to already to be considered a deal-breaker, especially over unverified information for a game that hasn't been finished. Still, I think this emphasises that "going back to the fans" is a fool's errand.

More information, however, has come out from more reputable sources, but these are, once again, so vague and non-specific that it can basically mean whatever you want it to mean. There has been much talk of the game having some kind of "timeline" system where players can jump into other player's game-states and experience the story branches differently. It isn't exactly clear how all of this was supposed to work, and if I'm being perfectly honest it sounded like the same kind of high-concept pipe-dream ambition as Andromeda's attempt at procedurally generated planets, which was one of the major factors that contributed to Andromeda's chaotic production cycle.

All things considered, the evidence points to a game that is far from finished, and a lot of the bits and pieces coming out suggest a story and a plot that was still a work in progress.

What I'm trying to say its here that it sounds like Bioware were making enough rope to hang themselves with. It is possible that Mass Effect Universe would have come together and been a satisfying game in the end, though more likely not one that would re-unify the fanbase, but it is just as, if not more, likely that it would have ended up an ambitious disaster, not unlike Andromeda before it.

It's very easy to say how damn good the game would have been when it is now never going to see the light of day.

5. Now Reality Can Be Whatever I Want

In many ways, Mass Effect Universe has become the ultimate game video. It can never disappoint you. It can never offend you. It can always be on your side of the culture war. Most importantly, it will never have an ending.

I'm not here to say that people should stop having fun. I think using the great what-if of Mass Effect Universe to do fan art, fanfic, cosplays and otherwise good-natured speculation is not only healthy, but inspiring. On the other hand, the campaigns, the petitions, the taking every supposed leak at face value, all of this is an unhealthy relationship to have with a piece of media we basically knew nothing about before yesterday.

The simple fact of the matter is that Mass Effect Universe will most likely never see the light of day. We're never going to know if it would have been good or not. We're never going to know if it would have been 'woke' or not (whatever that means to you.) We're never going to know if it would have saved the franchise, undersold, or been a divisive entry with as many defenders as detractors.

So you can spend an inordinate amount of free time exerting huge reserves of emotional energy getting worked up over a game that only exists in your mind, or you can face reality, grieve what could have been and say "Huh. Interesting," about whatever titbit of trivia eventually comes out about the game.

Because I've been through all of this too many times already and I'm not doing it again.

Post Script

I think what has pissed me off more than anything is the people outwardly stating that they only care about the Mass Effect IP and not the developers who worked on it simply because "Bioware died long ago" and that they didn't even like what the studio had been putting out recently. (Why would you even want to resurrect a game when you've have no confidence in the people that created it?)

The sheer callous indifference, as well as the re-writing of history (at time of closing, Bioware still had plenty of veteran devs employed there,) just betrays the self-centred motivations around some of the people involved in these campaigns. It isn't about respecting the work they love, its about wanting to keep getting their treats.

With that in mind, I thought I'd end discussing a more viable, if still unlikely, path to victory here, rather than the proposed fruitless attempt to pressure EA into finishing the game.

Avi Lewis, of Canada's New Democratic Party, has proposed that Bioware should be entitled to a studio buyback. That, if the will is there, the former studio should have the right to reclaim its brand name and IP. The chances of this happening are also pretty unlikely, but if you want to see a finished version of Mass Effect Universe that wouldn't be a chaotic rush-job, this is by far the better path. It also has the added bonus that means at least some of the laid-off devs get to stay in work.

Of course, what Lewis is proposing is a labyrinthine process that would take concerted effort and political pressure, not a fan-petition and a bunch of self-aggrandising YouTube videos, so the chances of getting the public support it needs is pretty unlikely.

Still, who knows, sometimes good things do happen, but as Commander Shepard saw during their fight against the Reapers, sticking your head in the sand and denying reality isn't going to get you anywhere.

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Jack Harvey 2026. Images used under fair use.

Jack's September Update

 Hello folks.

Convention season this year has now concluded. I had a great time, got to meet some interesting people and share my work with the world. Couldn't ask for more really. For the most past it is now time for me to get my head down and get to working on a bunch of projects that have been on the back burner.

With that in mind there isn't a great deal of me to announce in this update, but there are a few things here and there I want to go over.

- I'll be visiting Harrogate Thought Bubble on the 14th and 15th of November. While I won't be exhibiting, I will have some free samples of some of my comics with me that I'll be handing out to anyone interested, so if you happen to see me I'll be happy to offer you some free stuff.

- In case you missed it, I've been cracking on with writing columns over here on various topics that catch my attention. Most recently I wrote about the recent Quake mission pack that was released for its 30th Anniversary.

- Whitehaven Mini-Con is set to return on March 6th 2027. It's a long way off, I know, but its good to see smaller conventions that keep ticking over successfully year after year, and I always like to throw my support behind this one.

Beyond that, all there is for me left to say is that you can find my work at Tumblr, Bluesky and Deviantart. I'm always posting stuff here and there.

Thanks for reading.

Too Dark, Too Deep. Dawn of the Machine and the End of Quake.

 

Quake as a video game has a fascinating and compelling history. It first started life as Id Software's ambitious attempt at developing a fantasy action title, featuring a sprawling, grandiose world, with branching quests and interactive environments. After spending far too long in development, and needing to hit the deadline long before it was even close to completion, the team were forced to retroactively revert the game into a more standard First Person Shooter, with a plot mostly cribbing from their previous game, Doom.

This strange origin gives Quake a very unique identity. A bizarre mismatch of rusty industrial corridors and blocky body armour spliced with bottomless nightmare realms of gothic architecture, dark knights and eldritch creatures. Its story, ostensibly about a marine known as Ranger preventing a demonic incursion into Earth from the elder god Shub-Niggurath, is presented as vague, ambiguous and contradictory. As the game goes on it becomes less and less clear where industrial Earth ends and the nightmare realm begins.

Wrapping it all together is an all time great soundtrack by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. With Quake, what you have, in the end, is more of a surreal dream-logic experience over anything resembling a standard narrative. At times it feels more like you are playing through an interactive music video rather than being told a story.

Despite the game being a cobbled together half-idea, it was a smash hit at its 1996 launch, in part due to the tried-and-tested shareware release that had worked so well for Doom, and in part due to the game landing at the exact moment for online deathmatch to take off.

It is no surprise then that the game would be granted multiple expansions, though these would not be delivered by Id Software themselves, but instead handed off to a rotating roster of lesser studios (which was the style at the time.)

1997 would see the release of Scourge of Armagon by Hipnotic Entertainment. A game that would add in new weapons and enemies, and attempt to weave more of a story around where Quake left off. However, with Quake's base storyline being so vague and unspecific, and with no real narrative threads to grab on to, Hipnotic would have to kind of make things up as they went along, further confusing the story of Quake, and only adding to that strange, dream-logic that the game already had. 1997 would also see another expansion, Dissolution of Eternity, released by Rogue Entertainment, introducing time travel to the whole mix which only confuses the story of Quake further.

The plot of Quake, if it could really be said to have such a thing, would then sit dormant for over twenty years, where Machine Games would contribute to the release of the 2021 remaster and bundle it with two further expansions, 2016's Dimensions of the Past and 2021's Dimension of the Machine. Taking inspiration from two decades worth of a fervent modding scene, Machine Games would only lean further into the surrealism of the series, fully embracing the dream-logic and ambiguous reality that the earlier instalments had cultivated, and using advances in tech and trickery to send the player into sprawling non-euclidean nightmare realms above and beyond where Quake had gone before.

Finally, in 2026, Machine Games would release one further expansion for Quake's 30th anniversary. Dawn of the Machine.

But before we talk about that, we, like Ranger, are going to have to go back in time.

Just as Quake's origins were convoluted and unorthodox, so too were that of Quake 2. Originally planned to be its own title, utterly unconnected from Quake beyond using the same engine, it was decided during development to market the game as a sequel, partly because a lot of the gameplay felt so similar, and partly to capitalise on the popularity of the first game.

However, unlike Quake 1, Quake 2 was not a surrealist adventure through ambiguous nightmare realms. It was instead quite the opposite. A very literalist war-story narrative about space marines fighting alien cyborgs. Nothing is open to interpretation in Quake 2. You embark on a mission to battle trough a war-torn planet and fight the nefarious Strogg, are given orders and updates, and eventually win the day. What you experience through the eyes of your marine is to be taken as gospel and without any room for doubt.

Quake 2's 1997 release would leave a heavy mark on the identity of the First Person Shooter, as well as overshadow any of its predecessors expansions. Quake 2, along with the contemporary release of Duke Nukem 3D, finally cemented the idea of an FPS as a singular narrative, with a beginning, middle and end presented through animation and voice acting over text boxes or supplementary materials. The days of Quake's surreal mood piece were long gone.

Quake 2 would likewise see a series of expansions palmed off to other studios, though thanks to the game's more clear identity and world, these manage to continue the plot with similar, literalist stories about the war against the Strogg.

Despite its impact at the time, Quake 2 didn't really sit in the public consciousness in much the same way Quake did, probably due in no small part to the release of Half-Life overshadowing it as the real heir-apparent to the throne of FPS storytelling. Indeed, this is probably why the next game in the series was not a traditional single-player sequel at all.

1999 would see the release of Quake 3 Arena. A multiplayer focussed title that catapulted from the popularity of the online deathmatch that Quake had helped to inspire. Outside of the game's multiplayer component, however, there is little to really remark upon Quake 3, except in one regard. While it's storyline of cosmic gladiatorial battles was threadbare, it did at least introduce the suggestion that the events of Quake and Quake 2 both take place in the same universe, though it is unclear how seriously were are to take the universe of Quake 3, given that it also suggests that the Doom games take place in the same universe too, raising more questions than it answers.

Outside of the multiplayer community, Quake as a single-player property wouldn't return until 2005, with the release of Quake 4 by Ritual Entertainment. Remembered more nowadays as a misguided attempt to do a soft remake of Quake 2 with the contemporary sensibilities of military shooters like Modern Warfare and the Halo games, Quake 4 did at least make a further attempt at tying the events of Quake and Quake 2 together through a couple of cryptic lines of dialogue.

Ultimately Quake 4 bombed, leaving Ritual's planned story expansions at a dead end. However, the suggestion that it was possibly building towards a shared narrative with Quake stuck in people's minds, leading to a great deal of debate in the years that followed, and indeed, after mostly existing within the multiplayer realm (with Quake Champions further complicating matters by bringing the Wolfenstein games into the equation,) this concept would eventually be touched upon again with Machine Game's aforementioned Quake expansions.

While Dimension of the Machine is mostly a return to the surrealist dream-logic of classic quake, with its physics defying nether-realms and horizon-spanning gothic cities, it nonetheless does drop a few cryptic text logs of additional lore, with some vague hints that the Strogg of Quake 2 and 4 may have some greater connection to Shub-Niggurath's realm of Quake.

Given the success of the Quake remaster, it made perfect sense for Machine Games to give Quake 2 the same treatment, and followed up on the plot crumbs from Dimension of the Machine in a whole new expansion for Quake 2 called Call of the Machine.

Call of the Machine feels like a natural extension to what Dimension of the Machine was trying to do, both mechanically and visually, again using the technological increases of the intervening years to create grander and more detailed environments that Quake 2 wouldn't have been able to do at launch. Indeed, this also means that Machine Games decided to translate some of the ambiguous dream-logic over from Quake, delivering a more vague and surrealist story than Quake 2 was used to, and, ultimately, ending the expansion with an explicit connection to the events of Quake.

The thing about Call of the Machine, though, is that, as a story, it only kind of works. Quake 2 was never intended to be a surrealist fable about things mankind was never meant to know. It was intended to be a straight up space-war story about hardened marines battling cyborgs. There are no elder gods or nightmare realms in Quake 2 or 4, and these elements feel a clumsy fit in Call of the Machine. While an absolute blast to play, Call of the Machine's incorporation of Shub-Niggurath and the realm of Quake feels a little off, and left me not quite sure what to think of the expansion when all was said and done.

My personal take is that this crossover between continuities is something best left as a few cryptic lines to be debated upon in forums and message boards, and not something the games themselves should have explicitly confirmed. Given that the next entry in the series would make no further mention of the Strogg, it seems Machine Games may have agreed.

And so, finally, we get to Dawn of the Machine. Machine Games' third and, for now, final expansion for the original Quake. Despite what the name implies, the expansion has no real connection to either Dimension of the Machine or Call of the Machine, and instead frames itself as our protagonist Ranger's last ditch attempt to escape Quake's never ending nightmare realms. Once again we are back to the surrealist dream-logic where the story just serves as a scene-setter to take us on another adventure around impossible environments.

As far as the visuals and level design goes, this is Machine Games at their absolute peak. The worlds we travel are as ambitious as they are gorgeous, proving there are still new things to be done with a 30 year old engine. The maps are abound with striking and unique visuals, secrets are everywhere, and just when you think you've reached the confines of the zone it will expand out into larger and more complex labyrinths.

What is far more interesting of note, however, is the alterations made to some of the gameplay mechanics. At the beginning of Dawn of the Machine, our health pool is significantly reduced, and upgrade items hidden throughout the campaign must be discovered in order to restore, and later exceed, our maximum health. Upgrades are likewise applied to our ammo pool. In order to find these upgrades, we must not only be on the look out for secret areas, but must also return to previously visited zones, once we have retrieved a series of runes that serve to unlock formerly inaccessible areas.

In some ways this is a subtle change, but it does alter the experience in some fairly significant ways. The early parts of the game must be played much more cautiously, as a single bad sidestep into an Ogre's grenade is capable of killing you outright, and hunting for secrets now goes from an optional to critical side-task. After you've found the lion's share of these upgrades, you become more of a powerhouse, being able to tank more hits with your souped-up heath pool and let loose with lashings of ammo.

Likewise, the expansion introduces a handful of new enemies to fight. While most of these are altered versions of existing enemy types, and fit seamlessly into the world of Quake, one new enemy sticks out like a sore thumb. The nefarious Orb serves as an attempt to add a Cacodemon-type enemy into the game, but their implementation feels clumsy. In part because they serve as such a threat to the player that they become a priority target, dispatched immediately before we can ever really digest their presence, but also in part due to their visual design that has a degree of graphical fidelity just a little too sharp and detailed to go side-by-side with the others.

Now these are all relatively minor complaints, and Dawn of the Machine is otherwise a damn good ride and gets my highest recommendation. However, while Dawn of the Machine feels like a fine little experiment, I can't help but feel these gameplay alterations are foreshadowing Quake's limitations. It has now been thirty years of official expansions and fan-mods, and the changes Dawn of the Machine makes to the gameplay almost feels like an admission that Quake has been pushed about as far as it can go.

It begs the question, how much more Quake can you really make? Has the game finally run its course?

Now this isn't to say that there isn't anything else you can do with Quake. The modding community has been thriving for years and as we all know from Arcane Dimensions to the Quake Brutalist Jam, the Quake mod scene has never been in a better and more creative space. I'm more looking at Quake in an official capacity. Quake as an ever expanding singular piece of art. In another ten years time will Machine Games, or some other custodian of the franchise, release another expansion? If so will it further seek to iterate and distort Quake's classic gameplay loop as Dawn of the Machine did?

Maybe this all sounds indignant to say about what is essentially a free expansion, and I suppose it is, but these thoughts have been rattling around in my head for about a week now and I guess I just had to commit them to text.

So I'll leave you with this. Upon reaching Dawn of the Machine's final boss, it is left available to the player to go back to the level select zone and travel back through the chapters to find further secrets, and, eventually, a final, final secret boss. This is, once again, Shub-Niggurath, from the end of the base game. Quake's infamously indestructible enemy that can only be killed by using the environment to telefrag her.

Here though, at long last, Shub is fought as a traditional boss fight. She spams the player with projectiles, while they in turn riddle her with bullets, shells and lightning bolts, rewarding the player with the kind of grand showdown many wished for all those years ago.

Upon finally destroying Shub, the player is rewarded with one last wall of text. A final reward for the final challenge. The last word for both Ranger, and us. And what does this wall of text impart? More lore connecting the game to Quake 2? The final fate of our protagonist Ranger? The ultimate defeat of the realms of Quake?

No. It simply congratulates the player for their skill, and confirms they have beaten the game.

My interpretation was a little more terminal.

"And when Ranger saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds of Quake left to conquer."

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Jack Harvey 2026. Images used under fair use.

How Do You Fix Necromunda, and Does it Even Need Fixing?

 

On the 26th June 2026 Games Workshop announced that the next major release for their gang-warfare tabletop game, Necromunda, would a complete re-launch of the title. Old rules would be thrown out, new ones would be introduced and new additions and alterations would be made to the core experience.

Within the community many fans had suspected that an updated starter set was a likely release for 2026, with the last general starter set being 2021's Hive War, and the 2024 Secundus boxed set being more of a self-contained spin-off. So most were in agreement that a fresh starter to draw in new players set was well overdue. What many were not expecting was a full system reboot. Given that all through 2025 Necromunda had seen a ream of new releases, including expanding the ranges for the Enforcer and Nomad gangs, the idea that all these new additions were to be immediately thrown out and re-written seemed somewhat inconceivable.

On top of all of this, it has to be said that for the most part, the iteration of Necromunda that was launched in 2017 still felt by the year of 2026 as somewhat unfinished. When the Ash Wastes expansion was launched in 2022, there was a general understanding that each gang was expected to eventually get models and rules for both an exclusive vehicle and mounted units. As of time of writing most gangs are missing either one or both.

Likewise, while there had been a steady release of miniatures over the years for multiple special characters, Hanger's On and "Alliance" detachments, there still remains a lack of official models for a large amount of character types described within the rules. The 2025 release for the Hangers-On boxed set seemed to suggest we'd see more of an up tick of these releases in plastic, but now that may not be the case.

All this is to say that many would agree that there was still places left for the 2017 edition of Necromunda to go, and wiping the slate clean feels surprisingly premature for an edition that has essentially been around for ten years.

Still, as any Necromunda player can tell you, we have to accept the dice as they roll. This is what Games Workshop has decided upon, and this is what we're going to get.

Reactions have been unsurprisingly negative. Other than the aforementioned fact that many players were still expecting model releases and Ash Waste expansions for their respective gangs, there is a worry based on GW's press release that the new edition will be overly simplified. Ask any Necromunda player and they'll tell you that the best part of the game is all the wacky situations you can get into with the expansive rules whacking up against each other.

This is a game for telling stories. It's a game that is tailored towards banking everything on an impossible shot, or the humble canon fodder saving the day. It's a game where using the rules to create a silly gang feels more rewarding than creating an overpowered one.

Yet, a change is coming along, and we're going to have to accept that some things we love from the game may not carry over, but I do think it is premature to start despairing right away. We know almost nothing about the new rules, and internet sleuths trying glean an idea of the changes based on the one announcement article are no closer to paying dividends.

Instead, I thought it would be worth thinking about what changes really ought to be made to Necromunda as it stands, and what alterations, eliminations and conversions the game could benefit from, both in the moment to moment experience and in terms of drawing in new players.

The way I see it, Necromunda has three broad problems:

Power Creep, Campaign Over-focus and Rulebook Bloat.

Power Creep.

When Necromunda first relaunched in 2017, the general load-out of weapons and gear afforded to gangers was fairly limited, and the special abilities of most characters all the way up to the Gang Leaders were moderately balanced. What this meant was that most games played out as a desperate battle of potshots and frantic close combat encounters. Gangers could be wiped out by a lucky hit early in the game, or cling on, struggling all the way to the end.

This all felt very in line with what the game was supposed to represent, a bunch of low-tech roughnecks struggling over meagre territory and resources. Most weapons did modest damage at around 3 - 4 Strength, while Armour Saves at 5+ or 6+ were at best a Hail Mary.

By 2026, Necromunda has become a game where players are fielding multiple instant death machines. Nearly every character is rolling out equipped with armour piercing weapons. Close combat specialists are charging into combat with 5 or more attacks. Most Champions are defended behind Armour Saves of 4+ or 3+.

When Necromunda began I would always sing its praises by claiming that the humble Lasgun is one of its most reliable weapons. By 2026 there are some gang load-outs where a Lasgun is almost incapable of doing any damage at all.

This problem is down to a variety of factors. Gangs with better than average Armour Saves started being introduced as early as the Enforcers in 2019, so the House Gangs were given access to better armour to catch up. More and more special weapon types were being introduced, so gang access to mainstays like Melta-guns and Plasma weapons became standardised. When specialist versions of gang Champions were introduced in the House books, many of these were designed as pure close combat specialists, hitting on 2+ in close combat with so many attacks that the odds were almost always in their favour.

The problem this caused is that games started to feature characters and load-outs that essentially became 'instant death' dealers the moment they got in range. For the person controlling these characters, it felt very cool and exciting, but to the player on the receiving end it was anything but, and not at all fun to be in a situation where you were losing fighters with no counter or recourse.

So, what needs to change to get things back in gear? Some stuff you just can't put back in the box. We can't un-do the special Champion characters, but maybe there are a few thing that can be tweaked to make them less overpowered.

First of all, maybe consider changing all characters with a +2 hit skill, be this Weapons Skill or Ballistic skill, to go up to 3+ instead. This is still a strong ability skill to have, especially with range modifiers, but moves them away from getting guaranteed hits nearly every time.

Likewise, there could be some re-shuffling when it comes to the way close combat works. I've seen some suggestions that a target's Reaction Attack should trigger after the attacker's first attack roll, with multiple reactions playing out concurrently if the target has an Attacks score higher than 1. This gives close combat focussed characters a better chance of survival, giving them the potential to kill their attacker before their full number of attacks can come into effect.

I've also seen suggestions that targets of close combat attacks should have some kind of 'block' mechanic, such as if the attacker has an Attack score of 3, and the defender has an Attack score of 2, then the defender should be able to sacrifice one of their reaction attacks to 'block' one attack, eventually reducing the attacker to 2 attacks.

All good ideas, but I have to say I'm not 100% sure on them. I think personally the entire game could do with a reduction in the amount of close combat attacks characters can have. Bring regular Champions down to 1 attack like a basic ganger, with only Leaders and special Champions having access to 2, and 3 attacks in rare cases for special characters and Brutes.

I think rapid fire weapons could also benefit this way, where the player can choose to fire a single shot, or on 'full auto,' with the player only getting the benefit of the Rapid Fire trait on 'full auto' but with a reduction to their hit roll. This prevents gangs like the Squats from being able to mince opposing players with just their basic weapons.

As for the rest of the power creep, I think there's some pieces of wargear, like Armoured Undersuits, that should be scrapped entirely. To me the game is much better when armour has that 'Hail Mary' factor, and the ability for players to just bump up their save by 1 for a down payment has been a contributing factor to the aforementioned power creep. On a similar note, I'd like to see the removal of Suspensors, bringing Heavy Weapons back to requiring both actions to fire, as well as the removal of scopes and other upgrades like Focussing Crystals that allow players to bump up their chance to hit.

When it comes to absurdly powerful weapons like Meltaguns, or Wargear ripe for abuse like Falsehoods, I think the game could benefit from an 'Exclusive' gear classification. Essentially this would mean that you can still purchase Meltaguns, Plasma guns, whatever, for your gang, but only one 'Exclusive' item could be purchased. So, should a player decide to give one of their Champions a Meltagun, that is their one 'Exclusive' piece of gear allocated to the gang, they cannot then purchase and equip another Weapon or Wargear in this category, so they cannot also, say, equip another ganger with a Plasma Gun, or a Falsehood. If you want one of these absurdly powerful items, you have to pick one, and only one.

I think there's a fair few pieces of gear that would suit being restricted in this category. Displacer Fields, Phase weapons, Rad weapons. I think it would get gangs back to focussing more on modest weapons like Lasguns and Shotguns, and prevent players from trying to build characters around the most broken combinations of Weapons and Wargear that they can.

On that same line of thinking, I'd like to see Tactics Cards get a bit of an overhaul, and some of the more powerful cards removed entirely. I think the more specific, low-scale cards like 'Click' and 'Last Gasp' make the game more interesting and competitive in comparison to cards that can completely turn a game around when used, like the ability to disregard an Out of Action or force an opponent into a Bottle Test.

These changes, as listed, would all be in aid of bringing back the 'tug of war' feeling to the game, over specific, powerful characters dominating the battle.

Campaign Overfocus

Necromunda was designed from the ground up with campaign play in mind. This is a good thing. The appeal of the game is putting the players into the mindset of these wacky and high-concept gangs, being able to watch them grow and evolve and delve more into a role-playing mindset. Campaign play absolutely needs to stay.

What has been a problem with the campaign focus in the past, however, is the fact that so many elements of the game have become exclusively wedded to the campaign mode, with no real ability to use these elements in a quick skirmish. While it certainly works to encourage players to want to dive into the campaign mode, it also has the unfortunate side effect of discouraging skirmish play, and by extension making the game look more off-putting to new players.

As an example, take the Secundus boxed set. This was touted as an independent starter set. It featured two gangs, Malstrain Genestealers and Van Saar Tek Hunters (with Spyres). With the exception of the self-contained scenario that was released with the box, neither of these gangs were legally playable for either standard Skirmish or Regular campaigns. If you bought the set and were completely green to Necromunda, you would still be left without a standard playable gang. The set was very much intended as a base for the Underhells game instead, with the Tek Hunters and Spyres featured as an expansion to existing gangs, and the Genestealers intended as Arbitrator controlled monsters.

As another example, 2025 saw the release of the Palantite Justicars boxed set. To a new player, one would think that this was a brand new gang that one could put together and play right out of the box. Upon further inspection however, you would discover that the Justicars are actually an "Alliance" detachment, that is intended purely to be used in campaign play. While they can be used as the base for an Outcast gang, these are not usually recommended as a starting point for new players.

The current iteration is riddled with instances like this. As it stands there are rules for Alliance gang detachments, which cover Merchant Guilds, Criminal Organisations and Noble Houses. There are rules for special characters known as House Agents, which includes the towering Ozostium Aranthus, the main villain of the recent ongoing storyline. There are multiple rules for Hangers-On, many gang exclusive, which work as permanent gang upgrades in the form of characters that 'might' show up in battle on a bad roll.

All of the above, by their standard rules, can only be used in Campaign play. There are no rules that allow these character types to be used in a skirmish outside of a gaming group's commonly agreed upon house rules.

While, again, this does encourage players to seek out and explore the campaign side of things, it can also make the game look bafflingly impenetrable to outsiders. If a new player likes the look of the Malstrain Genestealers, or the Water Guild Subnautican, or the Haera Helmawr model, they're going to be instantly deflated when told they can't just buy it off the shelf and use it in their first trial game.

On top of all of this is the fact that, in my experience, most people are playing more skirmishes than campaigns. This isn't down to the campaigns being bad, or players not wanting to do campaigns, but the vast majority of Necromunda players are adults in their 30's. Being able to get together with enough constant regularity to run a Necromunda campaign can be quite difficult and as such most of their play time will be one-off skirmishes as and when players are available. I know that speaks to my experience with the game, and I imagine it does to many others.

What I'd like to see is GW take all those rules and models that are exclusive to campaign play and adapt them to be used in skirmish. Give the Alliance detachment a numerical point count so they can be fielded along with a gang as normal, same goes for the House Agents and funky weapons buried away in the Black Market.

If players don't have the time to sink into a campaign, they should at least have the chance to use a lot of this fun stuff whenever they can find the time for it.

Rulebook Bloat.

Even from its launch in 2017 I always felt like Necromunda could be a bit cumbersome and unwieldy. I would frequently refer to Necromunda as "A game of twos," because there were multiple instances of two similar mechanics to keep track of. Ammo Checks and Ammo Rolls. Break Checks and Bottle Tests. Flesh Wounds and Wounds. Even for an experienced player, there was so much to keep track of that it was easy to forget where and when to do various rolls.

Over time, this only got worse with the inclusion of additional mechanics and traits. Gang bonuses, damage over time, extra rolls on 6s. With so much in the air, things easily slipped through the net, while the multitude of extra mechanics meant leafing through rulebooks to double-check how things worked was a common occurrence.

Over the years I've had a bad habit of forgetting to roll a Cool Check when activating a fighter after my gang has Bottled Out. Other players have frequently forgotten when their weapon was out of ammo and fired multiple shots before they remembered to reload. Character abilities have frequently been misinterpreted and incorrectly passed around by word of mouth.

Naturally, not all of these elements can be cleaned up and simplified, but I think the game really could benefit from changes that leave the players with less to keep track of and less rule book consultation.

Some suggestions? How about eliminating the Ammo Check and instead having a weapon automatically go straight out of ammo when the bullet symbol is rolled on the Ammo Dice? How about rolling your Cool Checks on every fighter for a Bottled gang at the start of the round, rather than on activation? How about resolving Blaze the same way as Broken rather than having to mess around with scatter dice?

Likewise, I think a lot of the weapon traits could easily be consolidated. Melta and Sever are basically the same thing, while trying to keep track of the difference between Power, Phase, Shock, Flash, Stun and Seismic makes things easy to mix up. I think the system could really benefit from being stripped down to a group of core, easy to remember traits instead of the dozens of permutations we have now.

On a similar note, I think the descriptions could be shortened to an easily readable statement. The description for the Power trait simply needs to be 'On hit roll, if 6, ignore armour save.' With very brief, straightforward descriptions like this, it would be much easier for the rule books to come with a 'cheat sheet' that fits all of the traits and abilities on one page.

This, I think, comes to the crux of the matter. There simply needs to be a reduction of instances that require constantly going back and checking the rulebook to see how things work. Traits, Abilities and Tactics that require multiple steps should be simplified or removed. When actions are written as, 'roll this, then check this, then roll again, then do this,' it wastes everyone's time and becomes easy to forget. Likewise, Special Abilities and weapon Traits that require rolling on a chart are such a bane on the game and stop the action every time it comes up. They need to go.

All things considered, I think I've made my argument clear. I've nothing against a plethora of traits and special rules, but they need to be easy to remember, follow a similar line of logic, and require as few steps as possible. Abilities like Dodge are great, you just need one roll of the dice on a hit. Abilities like Crushing Blow, where you have to nominate one of your attacks and that results in an extra roll, is cumbersome and easy to mix up.

Everything Else

Beyond all that there are a few more things I'd like to see alterations to, but given that we know so little of the scope of the new edition, it's going to be hard to speculate on what is sticking around and what isn't. I could go into the ways I think they could improve Chem Alchemy for House Escher, for example, but we don't know if House-exclusive mechanics like Chem Alchemy are going to remain in the game in the first place.

I could go on about how I'd like Dome Runners to be given more utility and weirder Wargear like Ratskin Maps and Mung Vases given more focus as campaign rewards. I'd like to see Bounty Hunters become more viable, with maybe the ability to hire them specifically to target troublesome members of opposing Gangs. I'd like to see the Sentries rules re-worked to be a bit more interesting to play and of course I'd like to see the Vehicle rules heavily simplified, because as-is trying to explain Ash Wastes rules to new players is a fucking nightmare.

And don't get me started on Spyrers.

In the end, I'd like Necromunda to thread the needle of streamlining the rules without losing any of its complexity and character. I'd like to see more elements folded into the Skirmish mode without Campaigns losing any of their appeal. I'd like to see the more powerful weapons scaled back without it feeling as though the gangs were being nerfed.

No easy thing, but Necromunda had had nearly a decade of revisions and alterations, so, if nothing else, I'd hope that GW has enough data and experience to make the right calls.

And if they don't, well, we have nearly ten years of content to keep us going if we don't end up liking the new edition, and that ain't bad.

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Jack Harvey 2026

Mechanicus 2 is a Great Game, but Shouldn't Have Been Called Mechanicus 2

 

Having just finished Mechanicus 2, I can safely say that Bulwark Studios' follow up to their surprise 2018 hit is a well crafted tactical experience, an entertaining cyber gothic jaunt, and a worthy entry into the canon of great Warhammer 40'000 video games. You wouldn't know it, however, looking at the average discussions on the Mechanicus game Reddit page, or from its currently mixed review score on Steam.

Truth is, I understand why some players feel sour on Mechanicus 2. It is a very different game from the first, with very different priorities. It zigs where the previous game zags. It focusses its attention elsewhere. If you came out of Mechanicus 1 wanting more Mechanicus 1, then Mechanicus 2 certainly does not deliver on that.

In many respects, the game reminds me of the similar situation Dawn of War 2 found itself in. A very smartly designed game with a lot of depth and creativity, that nonetheless was not what players wanted coming out of Dawn of War 1.

So, let's tackle that, I guess.

Part 1: Just Another Brick in the Wall.

One of the reasons that Mechanicus caught so many people's attention is that despite being a Turn-Based Strategy Game, it was mechanically different from what so many people were used to. Normally TBS games follow the core design popularised by XCOM. Units have a predetermined turn order, a limited pool of 'action points,' and inflicting damage is dictated by an invisible dice roll chance to hit.

Mechanicus, instead, eschewed nearly all of these conventions. You could choose to play your units in any order each round. Instead of having a limited number of actions, your units shared a pool of 'cognition points,' which were accumulated from various power sources across the map, and could theoretically allow units to make as many moves as they wanted. Attacks always hit, though damage could vary and certain abilities could negate it.

The only exception to these rules were secondary support units, which could only move and shoot once per turn, but these very much were supporting players in the fight, with your Tech-Priests in the starring role.

What this did was bring a great degree of tactical depth to the game, and allowed players to focus on a wide variety of strategies. It also allowed for a significant scope of progression. At the start of the campaign, players had to be very careful, as they were limited to only a few cognition points. By the end of the game, your Tech-Priests were running across the length of the entire map in Turn 1 and mauling Necrons in close combat, or firing off multiple shoulder mounted canons to wipe out the enemy before they could even act.

This, naturally, made the game something that obsessive players could easily get addicted to. Your Tech-Priests have a wide variety of skill options to choose from, and they can mix and match them from multiple trees. With some experimentation it is possible to reach some absolutely game-breaking builds, and the re-playability of the campaign meant that there was ample opportunity for such experiments.

What Mechanicus had in mechanical depth, however, it lacked in terms of narrative scope. The plot of the first game is relatively threadbare, with the Imperial war against the Necrons going on entirely in the background, and the missions themselves involving Adeptus Mechanicus strike teams embarking on expeditions to weaken the Necron war effort.

Each expedition works as a sort of Rouge-lite run, where the player has to navigate across the map of a Necron complex, avoiding hazards, and making logistical decisions that can potentially help or hinder the player in the battles proper. The health of the squad persists across these runs, so losing Tech-Priests early can doom one before it has truly begun.

While each run has a specific story conceit from the high ranking Tech-Priest giving the briefing, there are only four types of battles. Kill all enemies. Survive a number of rounds. Reach an extraction point. Kill a Necron boss. Despite all this, the variability of the game means that it never feels stale, and you barely notice the limited number of objectives when playing the game the first time around.

Wrap all of this inside one of the most infectious soundtracks ever committed to a game, and you've got the makings of an absolute cult classic, and that is exactly what it was. Mechanicus got by with very good word of mouth, sold well, and had players eagerly awaiting a sequel for years. When that sequel did arrive, however, it wasn't quite what the fans expected.

Part 2: Welcome to the Machine.

Mechanicus 2, is not Mechanicus 1. Despite sharing similar DNA, and being a narrative sequel to the first game, Mechanicus 2 is otherwise entirely its own thing. Most of the elements that made Mechanicus unique are significantly de-prioritised in the sequel.

The big contributing factor, I feel, was the decision to focus more on the secondary units. Unlike in Mechanicus 1, where most of the action was done by your squad of Tech-Priests, this time only one Tech-Priest partakes in the battle, the bulk of the fighting being done by your force of what were previously secondary units, which, again, may only move and shoot once per turn.

What this does is move the focus away from the cognition point system. Where in the first game your access to cognition points could make or break a battle, here they are primarily used for activating your Tech-Priest's secondary weapons and buffs. This change also transitions over to the Necron campaign, who don't have access to cognition points at all, but instead a 'Dominion' system, where the more damage the Necrons do over the course of a battle, the more powerful abilities they gain access to.

All this puts Mechanicus 2 more square in line with traditional TBS games. While it still has some of the original's more unique elements, you can still activate your units in any order, and attacks (nearly) always hit, the game feels much more designed with a casual player base in mind. If you were the kind of person who bounced off the first game because it was too unorthodox, Mechanicus 2 is being more traditional will likely win you over.

So too do these priorities relate to your character's skill trees. Gone are the sprawling levels of customisation from the first game, instead each character is already specced to perform a particular role, and has a skill tree to accompany that. Most of your points will be spent on expanding your deployment count and buffing your basic troops. There are no game breaking power combos here.

If you've read this far you're probably coming to the conclusion that Mechanicus 2 lacks a lot of the mechanical depth of the first game, and a lot of the unique aspects that made it interesting, and you'd be right. Why then, do I still consider the game great? Well, because I'm judging Mechanicus 2 by what it is, not what it isn't, and what it is is a solid, action packed ride through some of the more lesser explored parts of the Warhammer 40'000 universe.

Part 3: High Hopes.

While Mechanicus 1 had some very interesting characters with quirky personalities, and some great vocal taunts from its Necron villains, it didn't really have much of a plot to speak of. You arrive on the planet, you fight a bunch of Necrons, you beat them, roll credits. By contrast, Mechanicus 2 puts a significant amount of effort into weaving a detailed plot with twists, turns, surprises and betrayals.

Not only does it do this, but it delivers two campaigns that allow you to experience the story from different perspectives. There are mysteries raised in the Adeptus Mechanicus campaign that are resolved in the Necron one, and vice versa. Both campaigns have a sprawling cast of characters, from the cynical and demanding Omnisynnod council of Tech-Priests, to the Necron Phaeron's scheming advisors and generals, to cameo appearances from the Leagues of Votann and the Iron Hands chapter of Space Marines.

This widening of scope and greater priority on story means we get to experience a broader deal of the action this time around. While we don't get to partake in any large scale battles, you won't be commanding any tanks or aircraft here, we will still find ourself fighting on the planet's surface as much as we do in Necron tombs, and we'll even do battle in towering Forge-City spires.

All this is to say that Mechanicus 2's priorities are in a very different place. It wants to take you on more of a roller-coaster ride than the first game, albeit still at the kind of pace you'd expect with Turn-Based combat. This is a game that wants you to be absorbed into the fiction of its world more than that it wants you crunching numbers in order to unlock more powerful combos.

And I know some players are going to have a problem with that. I know many fans who have dedicated hundreds of hours to the first game are going to be disappointed to find that the sequel does not have the same degree of complexity.

It's very clear that Bulwark Studios didn't want to just sit back and do Mechanicus 1 again. They wanted to make a game with a different kind of scope with different priorities, and they absolutely nailed that in my opinion. Narratively, this game digs deeper into the backstory of both of its primary factions in ways that we haven't seen in video games before.

I love the cynical paranoia and duplicity of the Adeptus Mechanicus' senior Tech-Priests. I love the constant schemes and double-crosses that plague the Necron court. I love that the Votann are finally getting a bit of a spotlight. I love that I can joke that Scaevola and Nefershah have a toxic yuri relationship.

Alas, Mechanicus 2 just isn't getting a fair shake, and it is in no small part thanks to it's name.

Part 4: You Know You Just Can't Win.

I honestly reckon if they hadn't called it Mechanicus 2 then the game would have been embraced with open arms. It they'd called it, Warhammer 40'000: Battle for Heketeus IV, or Souls of Steel, or something, then audiences would have been more receptive to the changes. They'd have gone in understanding that the game is entirely its own thing, not something that picking up the baton of Mechanicus 1 and enhancing and evolving its gameplay mechanics.

I understand, though, that doing a name change probably wasn't really an option. In this current era of the digital economy, it is insanely hard to capture people's attention and get the word out. Had Bulwark Studios gone with a different name, they'd have run into the very real possibility that audiences would miss that it was a sequel to Mechanicus. They'd basically have to forgo the word of mouth and good will the first game had got in the hopes they'd find an audience all over again.

They had to call it Mechanicus 2 because brand recognition is the best form of advertising you can get these days. Better to run the risk of being labelled an unworthy sequel than languish at the bottom of the Steam charts on day of release. In a better world, in a more sane one that didn't have such a demented digital distribution process, Bulwark could probably have got away with a name change, but not in this one.

All in all, its a damn shame that Bulwark has found itself between a rock and a hard place. Mechanicus 2 is a great game, of that I have no doubt, but I don't really know what you could do to quell the dissenters. For many, this game is going to be the great disappointment of 2026. For those who spent years tweaking their Tech-Priest's power-sets and experimenting with combos, Mechanicus 2 really does have nothing to offer them.

This, unfortunately, doesn't bring me to an easy conclusion. It is highly likely that in time the opinion of Mechanicus 2 will mellow, but right now that mixed review score on Steam is really going to jeopardize the studio's reputation. I'm really hoping that the rumoured Votann DLC will smooth some things over and really let them reinforce that this is a game focussed on story first and foremost.

Mechanicus 1 hasn't gone anywhere. It is still there. Still available to play. Mechanicus 2 hasn't changed that. As the old adage goes, "Why not both?"

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Jack Harvey 2026

Jack's May Update

 It is, once again, time for a little run-through of where I am with things this year. As mentioned in the previous updates, I'm still working away on projects in the background, with no real solid information about anything up and coming as yet.

That being said, I have been trying to put out a column once a month, sometimes on something topical, or just whatever has been on my mind. The most recent was my thoughts on the Homestuck sequel, Beyond Canon. Right now I'm just figuring out what is resonating with people, so whatever does well I'll probably go back to and explore more in the future.

As for conventions, a few more details regards to those going forwards.

- As you have probably noticed, I was not at the Newcastle Comic Con at Sports Central on May 23rd. This is because there wasn't one on that date. The event has been moved to Sunday 26th July. I still intend to have a table there as normal.

- Which makes my Newcastle Unleashed at the Vertu Motors Arena on Sunday 14th June my first Newcastle convention this year, rather than the second as originally planned.

- After those, I'll be at Carlisle Megacon on Saturday 22nd August at the Richard Rose Centre. It's the convention I've done the most amount of times, so it'll be business as usual. Looking forward to it.

- While my convention season will be at an end in August, I'm planning on heading to Harrogate Thought Bubble in November. Just as a visitor, nothing official, but I'm always up for talking to fellow creators and exploring the possibility of a collaboration. Hope to catch up with some familiar faces.

That's all for now. In the meantime I'm going to be working away on my writing and artwork. As ever you can find more of my casual ramblings and doodles at my Bluesky, Tumblr or Deviantart.

Thanks for reading!