https://gamestudies.org The international journal of computer game research Chaz Evans https://gamestudies.org/2501/articles/chaz_evans This essay compares Blizzard’s Overwatch and Somewhere by Studio Oleomingus to illustrate the limits of representation in mass-market video games and the importance of opacity in small-scale video game production. Mateusz Felczak https://gamestudies.org/2501/articles/mateusz_felczak This article offers an assessment of FromSoftware’s Elden Ring and its challenges in relation to the so- called “git gud” discourse present within the YouTube and Reddit gaming communities. The analysis implements a tool-assisted frequency analysis and implied designer theory. Oliver Rendle,Amber Pasternack https://gamestudies.org/2501/articles/rendle_pasternack This article demonstrates how Elden Ring represents a shift away from the nostalgic heroism popularised by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In the face of increasingly insistent socio-political crises, Elden Ring offers a timely critique of the glorification of the past and outdated notions of individualistic entitlement. Kevin Wong https://gamestudies.org/2501/articles/wong This article examines how Final Fantasy XIV taps into some of the narrative possibilities unique to MMORPGs, given the genre’s extended time frame and focus on player sociality. It does so by tracing the diegetic arc, development history and player reception of the Tam-Tara Deepcroft questline -- the game’s most distinctive horror story. Mayshu (Meixu) Zhan https://gamestudies.org/2501/articles/zhan This article explores how the Chinese indie game Laughing to Die (2022) uses procedural rhetoric and audiovisual design to critique gendered violence, navigating censorship while amplifying marginalized voices. It investigates the ways indie games in non-Western contexts resist ideological control and foster social realism through critical design.