Lincoln Carpenter
Lincoln spent his formative years in World of Warcraft, and hopes to someday recover from the experience. Having earned a Creative Writing degree by convincing professors to accept his papers about Dwarf Fortress, he leverages that expertise in his most important work: judging a videogame’s lore purely by its proper nouns. Lincoln's previously written for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, and spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as News Writer in 2024. He's a sicko for games that act as storytelling toolkits, whether we’re shaping those stories for ourselves or sharing them with others, and will take any opportunity to gush about Monster Hunter.
Latest articles by Lincoln Carpenter
![An elevator ride with Garrus and Tali](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/iKxnvyWMfyHCH9YAG52aRe-320-80.jpg)
Vile treachery: When you 'ran' on the Citadel in Mass Effect, it just changed the FOV to make it look like you were going faster
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Former BioWare dev admits to unforgivable betrayal—we tested it, and it's true.
![Hollow Knight: Silksong's Hornet](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kfix4f5hHteMP5TqDmC9fk-320-80.jpg)
It's been 729 days since the last appearance of Silksong, and the Hollow Knight fans are in a bad way
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News "We're no longer clowns 'cause we don't make people laugh anymore."
![Robot armies clash beneath two large alien krakens in Battle Aces.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/WWYa2ZAye9CWLMzATfDWnc-320-80.jpg)
After playing the deckbuilding RTS just revealed at Summer Game Fest, I believe in better, simpler realtime strategy
By Lincoln Carpenter published
Paradigm shifting With Battle Aces, Uncapped Games is making strides towards an RTS renaissance.
![The Witness, a big cosmic jerk with a bunch of clouds for brains.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/H3mjrtiyF4XTGabCd4v5Jb-320-80.jpg)
Here's the trailer for Destiny 2's new raid, teasing The Final Shape's final showdown with The Witness
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Until weekly raid teams are farming it for cool guns, anyway.
![A new Caves of Qud character enters the home of a village elder in Joppa.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/MXRMn8SsNQ5ufyYWmHFNgc-320-80.jpg)
My favorite roguelike where you can grant a chair the gift of sentience just got a UI update that makes it far more approachable
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Surreal science fantasy roguelike Caves of Qud just tore down its biggest barrier to entry.
![Team Fortress 2 Engineer avatar](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/i3bonQ5rxzT5qB9kbg4WbJ-320-80.jpeg)
Team Fortress 2 plummets to 'Overwhelmingly Negative' on Steam as its biggest fans stoke the righteous flames of anti-bot outrage
By Lincoln Carpenter last updated
News You hate to see it.
![A Baldur's Gate 3, transformed into a cheese wheel, standing next to a mind flayer.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/AdfnP2BWDnGLXZJTMhi42o-320-80.jpg)
Baldur's Gate 3 player gits gouda, beats game as wheel of cheese
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News A dairy-ing feat of player roquefortitude.
![Ultrakill](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/FJmrHuujjhMTEYWPRVtV8i-320-80.jpg)
Ultrakill dev says it's fine to pirate his game if you don't have money to spare: 'Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it'
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Spreading the word about a game you pirated and enjoyed is "at worst an equal trade," Hakita says.
![Geoff Keighley on Twitch for a Q&A session ahead of the 2024 Summer Game Fest.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/UGxnN2gxaKx2dwhvtDjHPS-320-80.jpg)
Summer Game Fest will focus on existing games, so don't hype yourself up for 'games that are years and years out,' says Geoff Keighley
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Expect more already-announced games than first reveals.
![Team Fortress 2](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/sEDaUg7vfWvVmo8oFB6iv9-320-80.jpg)
Team Fortress 2 players gather over 140,000 petition signatures in the latest campaign against the ongoing aimbot menace
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News #SaveTF2 reemerges, hoping to pressure Valve into consistent anti-cheat support.
![Destiny 2 - The Witness](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/zKfznyAMYA3qcocgQYnfpR-320-80.jpg)
Destiny's famed 'lore daddy' releases a 10-hour history recap, with 12,000 people tuning in for the live premiere
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Cancel all my weekend plans. And maybe some of next week's, too.
![A group of Soulmask player characters, wearing presumably ensouled masks.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/ZRh8NTAM27ghXYht9T4XtX-320-80.jpg)
The latest overnight survival game fixation blends a Mesoamerican theme, Bionicle masks, and the occasional Destiny guy
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Soulmask is cashing in on our latent, universal love for early 2000s Lego product lines.
![A trio of Destiny 2 characters wearing Dungeons and Dragons-themed cosmetic armor sets.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/sQsqiVtMXX5aGMUKg3vwvm-320-80.jpg)
Brand synergizing strikes again as Destiny 2 gets D&D crossover cosmetics, and dammit, I do kind of want the owlbear sparrow
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Illithid helmets: a dire new chapter in Warlock fashion.
![Fallout 4 next-gen update screenshot - nail gun](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YJEKDgDRR9FGAFnCEWPJFY-320-80.jpg)
Todd Howard says he's never seen anything like the '4-6x increase in daily players' the Fallout games got from the show: 'It's a really, really unique moment'
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Fallout 76 has piled on 3 million more players since December.
![discord](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/SLNXfeRG64v2G2Ag2p5BiF-320-80.jpg)
After trying to branch out during the pandemic, Discord's refocusing on the 90% of users who play games: 'We've recognized the need to narrow our focus'
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Apologies to all the forums lost along the way.
![The Hall of Legends skin for Ahri from the expensive new League of Legends cosmetic bundles.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/uFWeWb6hiXLy3AV2tCpTLR-320-80.jpg)
Riot celebrates an esports legend with its 'most generous bundles to date' and the best cosmetics will only cost you a measly $500
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News "Riot chose to exploit our love for Faker for their own gain."
![Two Helldivers share a tender moment in Helldivers 2, while Automatons ravage the landscape behind them with explosions.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/iiMg5h9KsvQ3Wtv5xDqLJR-320-80.png)
Helldivers 2 boss turns to the community for an Eagle stratagem brainstorming session: 'This is way more fun than a conference room'
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Give me the drone swarm I deserve, Pilestedt.
![Harvesting a tree in Rust.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kEcHK9oSvLNJokCtJiXBAC-320-80.jpg)
Steam's Open World Survival Crafting Fest offers tree punching at low prices
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News The latest in Steam's genre sales is running all week.
![Helldiver and Astarion](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/n9uXD55H2nCTeWiXCe7LE5-320-80.jpg)
The wild successes of Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 send a clear message: Let devs cook
By Lincoln Carpenter published
Original Sins The studios behind these mega hits spent more than a decade iterating on their favorite design ideas until they went supernova.
![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/XaYvXKFp3WVf8EBCpApwRN-320-80.jpg)
A studio helmed by StarCraft 2's multiplayer lead wants to create an RTS 'paradigm shift' with its unannounced game
By Lincoln Carpenter published
news Tencent studio Uncapped Games hopes to revitalize the RTS genre with a game that's not about "playing the piano as fast as possible."
![Helldivers 2 warbond](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/WpazJyvn3ZULhZHiptkhs7-320-80.jpg)
Bold new era of Helldivers 2 lightning combat short-circuits as Arc Throwers start crashing games
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News Arrowhead's identified the problem, but suggests avoiding arc weapons and Tesla towers until it's fixed.
![Blitzcrank from League of Legends](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kGEtEgLvGHTLr3idZYgWVe-320-80.jpg)
Riot hits the development reset button for its League of Legends MMO: 'The initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today'
By Lincoln Carpenter published
News The studio will be going radio silent about the project "to focus on the incredible amount of work ahead of them."
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