The bloody battle between kings Harold and Harald at Stamford Bridge is often considered the unofficially official “end” of the Viking Age. By that benchmark, it has been approximately 956 years since the era of longships, warhammers (not that type), and wolfish drengs. So why, in 2022, are we witnessing such a vibrant resurgence of Viking craft? The answer, it seems, has to do with the not-very-Viking internet. 

To gain some much-needed insight into this phenomenon, I tracked down three blacksmiths who practice the art of Viking smithing: Joe Hallisey of Metal Abyss, Phillip Anderson of West Wolf Renaissance, and Faydwynn Morningstar of The Path of Fire. All three of these modern Viking merchants predominantly focus on forging millennium-old weapons using period techniques, resurrecting and honing a skill that has been largely absent from the world for almost 1,000 years.

But why now? As it turns out, thanks to ad revenue from services like YouTube and Twitch, as well as the ability to sell specialty items via trade websites like Etsy, Viking smithing has become a legitimately viable way of earning money for the first time since the 11th century. That doesn’t mean operating the bellows makes for an easy life, though — the dedication required to properly make something of this vocation is immense.

All three blacksmiths have been fascinated with Viking culture from a very young age. Hallisey was always interested in general “warrior culture,” although gradually developed a particular affinity for all things Vikings and samurai, which he notes are “both so different in culture and beliefs, yet when boiled down very similar in ferocity and fearlessness.” Anderson, meanwhile, has Scandinavian ancestry. He grew up hearing stories of Odin, Thor, Loki, and ice giants, all of whom have directly influenced his craft since. And Morningstar states that the northern Germanic cultures have always been a part of her life. When she was a child, her father would read her the sagas as she drifted into dreams of longships and Jomsvikings. 

“What makes it special to people is it harkens back to a time that is so removed from our social media and cellphone days, when our hours were focused on the basics instead of all this nonsense we deal with today,” Morningstar says. “It’s nice to mentally go back to when tools were not running off electricity [and] when our water was clean.” This sentiment is echoed by the other blacksmiths. They firmly believe that contemporary interest in Viking culture is largely driven by a desire to be transported back in time. It’s therefore somewhat ironic to see that desire being actively facilitated by the internet.  

“It all boils down to the fact there is a primal instinct in all of us, a need to go back to our true nature, our roots,” says Hallisey. “The Viking Age was not an easy time to be alive, but their closeness to nature and the gods is what I think people in this day and age are sorely lacking. We couldn’t be further away from nature. Deep down, many of us see that the fast-paced, materialistic side of modern life is doing nothing to make us happy. It’s going back to the ways of our ancestors that helps make our spirits whole.”

It is precisely because of how ubiquitous Norse mythology has become in pop culture that people have started to recognize and act on that instinct. While Vikings certainly catapulted interest in the era from 2013 onwards, there has also been an abundance of video games that focus on Norse culture, from blockbusters like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and God of War to critical indie darlings like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. That’s not to mention films like Robert Eggers’ widely lauded The Northman.

At the same time, this interest can be fleeting. In Morningstar’s eyes, the day-to-day business of contemporary Viking smiths depends on a lot more than a random guy who decides to buy a hammer because he really liked Thor: Ragnarok. She reckons the temporary uptick in Spartan interest post-300 is directly comparable to how fascinated people are by Ragnar Lothbrok today — people like it now, but will they care in 10 years? It’s hard to tell.

This isn’t helped by the fact it’s an extremely difficult gig to get into. To start, you need to brush up on your history, learning smithing techniques from as early as the 8th century. There’s no point in forging a sword with modern technology and calling it a “Viking blade” just because. Without authenticity, the entire endeavor becomes worthless. 

“There’s always room for real dedicated people who want to learn the science — yes science — of this craft,” says Morningstar. “It takes discipline. It takes hard work. Those two things right there will stop 90 percent of people. You can’t Amazon Prime this. There is no shortcut. It’s hard — that’s why it’s worthy. If it was easy it would be common and no one would care about it.”

For those who do have the willpower necessary to learn a trade as revered as this, though, there will always be a niche but dedicated audience to keep them afloat. Viking smithing isn’t just a trend to them, it’s part of an all-encompassing way of life. Hallisey says these are the folks they really cater to: collectors, re-enactors, and people who maintain an interest in ancient Norse spirituality. People like these can acknowledge the fact that every single piece forged by an expert smith is imbued with deep, individualistic meaning, which is reflected in the actual process of crafting them.

“Many of our weapon designs are directly based on archeological finds from around Scandinavia, Ireland, England, and so forth,” says Hallisey. “All weapons are hand-forged from quality steel, meaning that each one is unique. Just as a blacksmith from the Viking Age would forge a weapon for each individual warrior, so do we. There is a certain something that cannot be expressed in words when a weapon is forged solely for a single person — an intent, a blessing from the gods. This is what we try to do for our customers, to instill the warrior spirit into every piece in the hope they can battle their way through life with good luck and success.”

Morningstar is intrigued by the relationship between wielder and smith, too. In the stories her father read to her when she was a child, there was always a hero who, after finding their sword, discovered the power lying dormant within them: Sigurd and Gram; Arthur and Caledfwlch; Aragorn and Anduril. 

“These people would be much less without their legendary blades, so I learned very early on that the great warrior is nothing without the great smith, the giver of power,” says Morningstar. “During my time making blades and other items, I have gone across many cultures, but I’ve always come home to my roots in the Germanic traditions. The migration era to the pre-Christian indoctrination of Scandinavia had the greatest collection of warrior art the world has ever seen: blades that were decorated with gold and garnets; carved sheaths of finely worked wood; handles of silver and horn; folded steel blades whose patterns reach across the ages and still inspire people to lean close to the protective glass that covers their greatness and makes the onlooker exhale with wonder. Nothing else haunts my dreams or keeps my waking thoughts more occupied than their crafts — I’ve been doing this for 20 years now and I don’t see myself changing my mind anytime soon.”

It’s important to note that this is how all of the smiths I spoke to feel — this is their passion, their one true calling in life. What’s more, it isn’t a particularly lucrative profession, meaning that it’s almost entirely driven by the love they feel for practicing it. Hallisey says that most of what he’s achieved so far is attributable to luck. “I will be the first to admit I am not good at business,” he says. “I’m sure I could be doubly successful if I knew what I was doing and not just taking shots in the dark — but, such is life.”

Anderson agrees. While he is able to recognize that much of his success has come from his own hard work and persistence, it would be remiss to claim luck hasn’t also played a part. “I started doing my thing when early eBay and internet sales were really taking off,” he says. “So I recognized the rise of online sales and decided that was the perfect timing for my creative and business aspirations. 

“There’s always room for people to be creative and explore their interests. My business filled a unique niche in the online selling marketplace for many years. But even though there’s now more people than ever before making and selling similar items, my business is continuing to grow and expand. So we need more people doing what they enjoy and following their interests. The world would be a better and much happier place.”

Morningstar can speak to this idea with a wealth of experience. She’s been doing this for two decades, and for most of that time, she had barely any followers. That didn’t, and still doesn’t, influence how likely she is to continue dedicating her life to the art of smithing. 

“Most men see a woman making anything and they instantly assume she is crap,” she says. “I’ve dealt with every horrible comment you can imagine. Once the lockdown happened in March of 2020 and people were at home, I think people found my YouTube and thought, ‘Huh, a very juggy redhead forging awesome blades and shooting cinematic videos? Count me in.’ But I don’t think I am any more than a novelty at the moment. Once people forget about me and this quick burst of spotlight fades, I’ll still be making these items until I’m dust.”

Morningstar has also hit some bumps along the way, which further compounds her point about passion superseding all else. While she is able to earn money from her craft, her revenue streams are more limited than most. She no longer earns any income from YouTube or TikTok — her guess is that this is because of how she dresses — although still sees the platforms as valuable ways to advertise her other work streams like commercial smithing and modeling. 

But as with most online endeavors these days, even existing on these platforms presents an opportunity cost of having to endure toxicity from people who resent your successes.

“Every guy who is mad that their low-level work doesn’t take off just screams that I’m a sellout or I’m only a pair of boobs, but every other person I’ve coached on social media, I’ve told them they have to show their face with what they want to get seen. It’s how the algorithm works.”

It’s pretty evident that Morningstar knows her stuff, both in terms of managing her online presence and crafting incredible Viking weapons. While the vast majority of her material performs well, her most popular video — in which she hand-forges a 750-layer sword — has raked in millions of views.

“I had all of these big strong men telling me it can’t be done without a power hammer, even though there are literal pattern-welded swords in museums from times before power hammers,” she explains. “I didn’t want to shock them too much, so I did it with great ease. It only has four million views on YouTube.”

It’s worth looking at the exact type of Viking heritage that’s being celebrated, too. It’s not all just replicas of Mjolnir — Hallisey once spent hours engraving custom runes into the molten fuller (the line down the middle) of a blade for a woman who wanted to propose to her boyfriend with it. He also crafted a seax that a father wanted to pass down to his son as an heirloom, which would then be integrated into the family as something that could potentially be gifted and regifted to each generation of children for centuries to come. “To many people, including me, these are far beyond just steel, leather, and wood,” he explains. “They have deep spiritual meaning.”

“Some of the coolest and most interesting projects I’ve done over the years have been custom shields for people,” says Anderson. “I’ve painted some intricate masterpieces for individuals going through divorces and difficult times that wanted to portray their ex-husband or wife as horrific monsters out of myth and legend. I guess they wanted something epic to hang on the wall to commemorate their rough experience.”

It should be obvious from the examples above how valued the work of these smiths truly is. While they’re not rolling in money for their commitment, Hallisey points out that Viking smiths from a millennium ago weren’t particularly rich or esteemed either — just like their modern counterparts, they were mainly driven by a love for the craft. 

Still, it is thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of the almost ancient metalworkers who first practiced the art of Viking smithing that we are where we are today. As Hallisey puts it, a profession this niche and passion-driven is rarely about money. It’s about honoring where we come from as craftspeople. That, more so than anything else, is why it is the duty of people interested in the subject to offer their support to it.

“The Etsy marketplace has become the ultimate place to do this,” Anderson says. “While we have a large number of items available in our West Wolf Renaissance shop, we’re still a small team employing just a few friends and family members. Many other makers on the Etsy platform are one-man operations. So whenever possible we should close that Amazon or Walmart tab in our browser and maybe look instead to Etsy and independent craftspeople for special gifts and unique items. It’s important to support people following their interests, whatever that may be.”

“While I do make money from the business, I would be homeless if I relied on that income,” Hallisey says. “As cliche as it sounds, I get a ton of fulfillment from making custom weapons for customers and hearing how much they like them. That makes it worth my time and is more valuable than money in the end. My favorite stanza in Hávamál says something like, ‘Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self must also die. One thing that does not die is the reputation of every man.’”

As one of the most unanimously beloved video games of all time, it’s difficult to imagine The Witcher 3 as anything other than what it emphatically is: a sprawling, gorgeous, third-person RPG spearheaded by a gruff old man who’s best pals with his horse. Geralt also likes collecting cards and betting on races, both of which are hobbies he practices while he’s supposed to be looking for his missing daughter. That’s not to mention his fondness for fisticuffs.

Aside from all of the above, part of what has made CD Projekt Red’s behemoth role-playing game so enduring is how reliably fans can recall its stinky swamps, snow-laden sierras, and repugnant little rotfiends, all of which we’ve come to know through a third-person lens. But ever since 2016, fan-made first-person mods for The Witcher 3 have existed — though they’ve never been on par with official support for the game and have since been hidden on Nexus, the internet’s largest modding hub. For the most part, these projects have felt like proof-of-concept experiments far more so than actionable add-ons designed to change flow, pacing, or functionality in the game. 

That was until Gervant First Person, a 2021 mod that blows all previous attempts at converting The Witcher 3 into a first-person RPG out of the water. While it’s technically almost a year old, its main file was updated just last month, evidence of its continuous progress as it attempts to reimagine not just general exploration or perspective but cutscenes, combat, and everything in between.

“I just wanted to fight some nekkers in first person and didn’t find a suitable mod for that,” crthdr, the mod’s enigmatic creator, tells The Verge. “First person isn’t ‘better,’ but that’s how I prefer to play computer games.” Crthdr spent around a year developing the mod with tools like Witcher Script Studio, Ghidra, and Rust, among others. They then tested it by partially playing through the game four separate times to ensure it worked consistently. “Good thing I also made the Skip Dialogue mod,” crthdr says. 

Crthdr’s blasé response is indicative of a wider disregard for how their work is perceived by others. They don’t have much of a social media footprint — they’re not on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and their YouTube channel doesn’t include any contact information. When I reached out to ask for an interview, they explained that they would discuss the mod and nothing else, and given that English is not their first language, their answers would be short and to the point. In their eyes, the mod was never designed so they could talk about it — it was designed so they and others like them could see through Geralt’s eyes instead of over his shoulder.

And so it became apparent that to properly engage with this mod, I’d need to install it myself. If you’re already acquainted with The Witcher 3’s modding scene, installation should be a breeze. The only mods necessary for running Gervant First Person are Community Patch – Base and Community Patch – Shared Imports, both of which are fairly standard for any mods designed for versions 1.31 or 1.32 (it’s worth noting that these versions are essentially the same, given that the latter just adds support for Simplified Chinese). Manual installation can be a pain, but launching it via The Witcher 3 Mod Manager automatically merges all of the necessary scripts. Provided you’re not messing around with dozens of other mods, you can get GFP up and running pretty painlessly.

Once you get started, you’ll notice the mod supports both first- and third-person perspectives, allowing you to easily flit between the two after selecting a custom key binding for flipping the camera. The third-person option is exactly the same as it is in the vanilla version, but changing to a first-person view instigates radical change, converting the experience into something that feels like a bona fide Elder Scrolls adventure. If you’ve ever wondered what The Witcher 3: Wild Skyrim would look like, this is the mod for you.

The transition between perspectives isn’t exactly seamless, and it’s often obvious that the world was never designed to facilitate first-person play. For example, characters who should be off-screen occasionally teleport around cutscenes, while issues with lighting become significantly more prominent once the camera is fully unlocked. Similar problems arise in combat, which is initially unintuitive but eventually grows on you, especially if you’re playing with a gamepad instead of a mouse and keyboard. While dodging can be tough, combining swords and signs feels great in the first person — there’s a real weight to your witchering that makes it slightly more tangible. 

While there are obviously many minor complications that arise from playing a blockbuster game in a way it was never intended to be played, the fact that a single person made this mod is remarkable and presents the strongest case yet for a first-person Witcher game. Sure, Cyberpunk 2077 is an FPS built using REDEngine, the same engine that powers The Witcher 3. But GFP allows you to explore Velen, Novigrad, and Skellige in first person to your heart’s content. It’s definitely janky, but what else could you expect from a solo developer who built this in his spare time, for free, just so he could beat up a bunch of nekkers? Not everything needs to be polished to be a worthwhile experiment. 

Issues be damned, there are some aspects of GFP that actively improve on The Witcher 3. It’s no exaggeration to suggest that this is one of the most gorgeous game worlds to have ever existed, so having the ability to disable various HUD widgets and explore its stunning sets in first person gives you the perfect opportunity to really drink in the splendor of it all — as a Witcher photography simulator, GFP is unmatched. It also highlights some of the mostly hidden functions that subtly texture the world of The Witcher 3: you can closely study supply lines, patrol routes, and wolves forming packs to close in on a carcass. It’s clear that this world wasn’t designed with first person in mind, but its ability to incorporate it nonetheless is a real testament to how magnificent it is.

In the interest of providing clear context, it’s worth noting that, at the time of writing, I have slain the griffin in White Orchard and cleared several side quests like “A Frying Pan, Spick and Span” and “On Death’s Bed.” The introductory sequence in Kaer Morhen is bugged as a result of the tutorial prompts interfering with first-person actions, which means it’s highly advised to complete it in third person. But as soon as you wake up next to Vesemir, you gain unrestricted access to a full-fledged version of The Witcher 3 as a first-person adventure game. 

Perhaps one of the weightiest arguments for why seasoned witchers should give this mod a whirl is that it is extremely easy to get lost. The world feels fundamentally different in first person — it looks more dense, for one thing, but it also enjoys immense draw distance, creating a massive atmosphere where towns and towers can be seen from miles away. This scale can be further compounded by turning the HUD off, transforming places like Velen and Skellige into whole new areas that retain all the warmth and familiarity of the originals. It’s obviously not as professionally designed as the actual game’s third-person view — but that’s not what’s important here. GFP makes a compelling case for why implementing the kind of first-person / third-person hybridity you might expect to find in a Bethesda RPG into The Witcher could work; it’s probably the first project of its kind to attempt that and emerge successful. 

There are multiple clear examples of this too, which indicate both CDPR’s attention to detail and crthdr’s vision when it comes to converting that to first person. For example, when you swim, you’ll notice that Geralt pops his head up to inhale every two or three strokes. Witcher senses feel more palpable in first person, too, particularly when you’re following tracks or scent trails. It simply does not matter whether this mod feels polished or janky. (For the record, it oscillates between the two). The important thing here is that it accentuates how refined this world is while simultaneously acting as an unofficial prototype for how a future, better one might look. 

Despite all of this, crthdr is far too modest to admit how radical the project is. “The mod is made for Witcher 3 fans who like first-person games,” they explain. “Those guys like the mod. The rest don’t care. Technically, of course CDPR could have done it better and faster. It just wasn’t on their to-do list at all. Most people don’t care about first-person, and doing hybrid first person / third person is probably considered too much work. I personally prefer first person.”

While crthdr themselves might reckon their work is no big deal, anyone who engages with GFP will likely come away thinking the exact opposite. This is the kind of unofficial project that’s sufficiently well-considered to prompt real introspection within actual official ones. 

The Witcher 3’s upcoming new-gen patch provides a more-than-worthy reason for avid monster slayers to return to The Continent — but if you want a completely different experience in this world, you should make a point to check out GFP, too.

You’ve been on horseback for quite some time. Hawks circle above these humanless plains, steeped in an overwhelming sense of despondency. As you inch your way toward the mountain’s peak, drawing ever nearer to the blistering sun high above, something begins to happen. The summit is in sight, has been reached, has been conquered. And there it is: sublimity. Before you is the colossus, roaming round and round below, perfectly blissful and decidedly uninterested in you. 

It’s tragic. This docile wonder exists in a world of its own, self-contained and ambivalent toward anything outside the small ecosystem it has fostered. You, however, parasitic human that you are, must slay it. It’s an intrusion on quiet, innocuous solemnity, and it will haunt your thoughts pervasively and perpetually thereafter. The stone leviathan felled, you leave this modest haven behind deprived of the awe it once knew, once inherently held. Lonelier than ever, the introspection kicks in: what have you just killed, and for what reason — at what cost?

Shadow of the Colossus is perhaps Team Ico’s most universally beloved game and is often regarded as director Fumito Ueda’s magnum opus. Released in 2005, it shares a long history with the PS2, and has since become recognized as one of the most significant games ever to fall under Sony’s umbrella. It’s one of just three games Team Ico has released over the last 18 years — so what makes it such a revered studio in PlayStation history?

It’s easy to compare games based on differences instead of similarities. At first glance, 2001’s Ico seems totally different to Shadow in both premise and scale, but the two were mined from the same vein of minimalism and melancholy. Ueda famously conceived and created Ico in tandem with self-described principles of subtraction, seeking to remove clutter that interfered with the team’s vision for the narrative and story. It was a game stripped back to raw ideas, beautifully designed and meticulously implemented. 

The results were incredible. Ico pairs you, an ostracized boy locked away in a tower, with Yorda, a princess due to be sacrificed in exchange for her mother’s eternal youth. Together you attempt to escape the fortress you’re imprisoned in, and although your bond grows as you progress through the game, the sublime layer of sadness is never fully removed. The story is propelled almost entirely without dialogue, and the colors used throughout naturally invite you to become absorbed by the wistfulness the game is founded upon. Although the two children find solace in one another, they grew up alone, deprived, unseen — and now, even as they try to run away, these feelings lurk in the shadows behind them, always in hot pursuit, refusing to soften their grip.

Like Shadow after it, Ico asks you to give free rein to emotion. However, it does so without overt exposition, or mechanical complexity, or any other structure championed in most successful games. Its simplicity is what makes it special, and its nonchalant skew away from dialogic sequences allows it to evoke this emotion in other, more primally sensory ways. In many respects, Ico set the stage Shadow performed on — and perform Shadow did, earning itself an ovation still standing 14 years later. 

Both Ico and Shadow became staples of the PS2 era, and have since been assimilated into Sony’s oeuvre of iconic games. Each game received the remaster treatment, with Shadow in particular being the subject of a mass overhaul for Bluepoint’s ambitious remake — Shadow was even labeled as a greatest hit for the PS2. However, Team Ico wanted a last hurrah before the generation’s ephemeral run was up. One more game to complete the trifecta of melancholic masterpieces on the bestselling console of all time: The Last Guardian.

It didn’t happen. In fact, The Last Guardian remained in purgatory so long that the entire PS3 era passed it by. When it finally launched in 2016, 11 years had elapsed since Shadow first garnered the studio global attention. In an interview with The Verge from 2016, Ueda largely attributed this to the difficulties in bestial cat / bird / dog Trico’s technical design. Although he originally sought to create a character that wasn’t “very high maintenance from a technical standpoint,” the character’s evolution grew in direct proportion to his technical demands. 

To make matters worse, the reception to The Last Guardian was, at least initially, lukewarm at best. Critics damned the game’s clunkiness, mostly citing mechanical issues related to Trico, even despite his makeup being the primary reason for the game’s many delays. And yet The Last Guardian is perhaps the greatest achievement in emotional evocation that video games have ever known. 

Consider the scene that opened this piece: you climb the mountain, witness a wonder, and slaughter it dead. Now take that scene, strip away its worldliness, condemn it to fractured chambers lying deep beneath any semblance of civilization, and assign it a ruler so devoid of humanity that the existence of this world within our own begins to revel in its own lack of sense, absence of purpose. The Last Guardian isn’t sad or lonely because you, a young boy stolen away from his village in the dead of night, are imprisoned here. The Last Guardian is steeped in sadness and solitude because you form a strange bond with the most unlikely of mythological curios deep within this dark recess, and that bond is strained, wrenched into arrest, torn apart, sewn together again, and ultimately smashed into smithereens so fine they dissipate into thin air, still existing but never to be seen again. 

Trico is the symbol of what a Team Ico game fundamentally is: a hopeless search for connection in a world devoid of meaning. That’s what imbues these games with the magic they’ve become known for. At all times you’re utterly absorbed by the links you form with the world around you, with the single soul you share your journey with — Yorda in Ico, your trusty horse Agro in Shadow, and Trico in Guardian — while simultaneously being swallowed whole by somber pondering on the nothingness in front of you. To put it more accurately: the wonder in front of you that is relegated to nothingness because it is unrealized by humanity, doomed to exist in perpetual beauty without acknowledgement. If something is sublime, but unseen, is it truly sublime? In aesthetic, yes, objectively so — in essence, however, not even a little bit. 

Eighteen years have transpired since Team Ico joined Sony’s roster. In that time, the studio has become a titan in the industry, but not a conventional one. A fine thread has been woven throughout its three games, spiritually linking them to one another without ever acknowledging interconnectivity. Perhaps it’s better to say that the only acknowledgement of sameness is strictly thematic: hopelessness, isolation, defeat — hope, connection, triumph. 

Interestingly, these powerful juxtapositions have gone on to influence a variety of artistically ambitious indie titles since. Journey boasts a minimalistic art style not unlike that of a Team Ico game, whereas Fez designer Phil Fish once told Gamasutra: “From Ico, I wanted to replicate that feel of a nostalgic, lonely isolation … it’s really about walking around and smelling the flowers.”

These wordless worlds remain vivid in the mind’s eye of those who vicariously inhabit them. Impossible to forget, their watercolor grace both belies and accentuates the poignancy at their core. It’s beautiful, but there are charged emotions held deep within the hues.

Consider Trico’s eyes. When hijacked by the Master’s control rooms, they burn an effulgent pink, so overbearingly bright that they become mesmerizing. While this seems to convey a sense of rage unleashed, there’s much more to these commandeered pupils. The glow is delicately designed, meticulously colored. At their phosphorescent core, they are pale — they are pathetic. This is rage forcefully imposed on Trico, not rage truly felt. Behind those frenzied eyes lie fear, guilt, and powerlessness. 

Now consider them when they’re emerald green: at their core, they are natural, trusting, and utterly sublime. But the fact remains that both shades exist, and shades between them, too. That’s one of the most extraordinary things these games have brought to PlayStation: for every shade of green, or pink, or atomic tangerine, there are ephemeral, ever-changing tints beneath them. The only constant is loneliness — and yet, at the same time, there is comfort and connection. And as these opposite states flirt with one another, they wrench your curiosity and heartstrings, drawing you nearer to these worlds and fixing a knot that keeps you bound to them forever — to their melancholy, their beauty, their yet-to-be paralleled sublimity.

As we approach the end of this console generation, it’s impossible to consider Team Ico as anything other than one of the most intrinsically important and artistically singular studios Sony has ever been fortunate enough to work with. And although Fumito Ueda left Sony midway through developing The Last Guardian (he stayed on as a contract employee to finish the project), it’s likely that his new studio, GenDesign, will carry the torch Team Ico left behind.

In fact, it has already been announced that GenDesign is working on a new game — if Ueda’s past work is anything to go by, this fourth contribution to PlayStation history is sure to fall in thematic line with the three monumental games for which he’s known.

Pokemon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, having amassed $90 billion in revenue since its creation in 1995. Despite this, the games tend to evolve at a glacial pace, rarely making major shifts from one entry to the next. That’s why it’s so exciting that the series’s newest games, Pokemon Sword and Shield, are set to change up Pokémon’s formula in a big way. There’s a new Wild Area kitted out with a rotational camera and online support, the National Dex is no more, and instead of mechanics like Z-moves and Mega Evolutions, pokémon can now be Dynamaxed in stadiums, causing them to grow in size and take on brand-new forms. 

While these changes are drastic for a slow-moving franchise like Pokémon, they’re not quite as ambitious as those of Crystal Clear, a ROM hack designed by a modder who goes by the name ShockSlayer. Crystal Clear built upon 2000’s Pokémon Crystal in order to prioritize player freedom by implementing a range of new mechanics that drastically improved upon the vanilla game. Late-game species could be encountered almost immediately after starting, trainers could challenge gyms in whatever order they pleased, and even the bothersome “evolve via trade” mechanic was rectified by introducing a brand-new NPC known as the Tradeback Guy.

ShockSlayer started modding as a young kid and was primarily focused on hardware and “portablizing stuff,” which is modder lingo for making things portable. He got into programming to supplement that. “CC was originally made as a Christmas present for a community completely outside of romhacking,” he explains. “I’d say it’s my first real software project.” 

ShockSlayer started on Crystal Clear in June 2017 and mostly worked on it alone until its v1.0 release in December that year. He was determined to launch it before Christmas and for it to be fully playable, with as few bugs as possible and all the key features intact. “I basically had to learn how to program as I went, and there was a lot of data that needed to be created,” ShockSlayer tells me. There were 16 datasets for every trainer class, and ShockSlayer entered a substantial amount of that by hand. “I did the gyms first, following the same format that was already in-game,” he says. “The trainers just have species and levels, but the leaders have custom movesets.”

That aspect introduces one of the most intriguing paradigms of Crystal Clear’s ambition. Trainers all across Johto automatically scale with your level, which is important given that Crystal Clear allows you to take on all 16 Gyms across Kanto and Johto in whatever order you like. “With the outside trainers, I used a formula to automatically generate the levels,” ShockSlayer explains. “I also kept their levels lower, so that trainers wouldn’t ambush you with the same strength a gym leader would.”

On top of this, HM barriers like trees requiring “cut” are removed, while trainers along routes have their levels synced based on how many badges you’ve earned. But it goes further: although this alone turns a linear game into a sandbox, ShockSlayer has added a range of side quests and extra non-playable characters (NPCs), attaching significance to the narrative outside of your Indigo Plateau aspirations. 

In particular, ShockSlayer has received a lot of positive feedback about the quest involving a Suicune-obsessed NPC named Eusine. However, his favorite additions have to do with arbitrary characters in the overworld. “One interaction I’m fond of is the receptionist in the Pewter Museum,” he tells me. “If the player doesn’t have enough money to get in, she’ll take pity on you and pretend to be distracted — ‘Wow, a FOSSIL! I’m so distracted from my job right now!’ I like to think that she wouldn’t want to deny a kid higher scientific learning because of financial limitations, so she lets them sneak in.”

Perhaps the most well-received addition, however, is the aforementioned Tradeback Guy. Back in the days of link cables, filling out your pokédex was a nightmare because some species only evolve when traded. The Tradeback Guy rectifies this, allowing you to quickly trade whatever pokémon you want before instantly getting it back, fully evolved. “A lot of hacks change evolution requirements, which I think distances the player because it drops the immersion,” ShockSlayer explains. “But with the Tradeback Guy, you have the vanilla requirements without requiring additional hardware or setup.”

Interestingly, the Tradeback Guy’s code is a mess. This was one of the first features ShockSlayer implemented into Crystal Clear, and he’s had to update it regularly since the game launched. “I really like making NPCs with a lot of dialogue,” ShockSlayer says. “For example, if you try to trade while holding an Everstone he’ll be like, ‘Dude, it won’t work, trust me.’”

Crystal Clear also ensures that you can get almost any species early in the game, which is something ShockSlayer is particularly passionate about. “I had to resort to cheating to skip Sudowoodo and unlock Eevee early, or start the game with Swinub, Larvitar or Misdreavus,” he explains. “They weren’t available to the player until after eight or 16 badges, which was too far into the game to be fun to use.” 

In fact, Crystal Clear eschews Suicune as its mascot for a Swinub named Pigy. One time, ShockSlayer streamed his follower update, during which Pigy was accidentally made to do all sorts of strange things. “I was trying to get a script to work, but something went awry and his colors started to flip out at high speed,” ShockSlayer tells me. “It looked like he was at a rave — it’s actually the inspiration behind one of the Discord emotes.”

ShockSlayer is still hard at work on Crystal Clear, and he has decided that the next point of order is to introduce new narrative strands. “It’ll take me a long time to do properly, because ‘ROM hack’ and ‘good story’ seldom go together,” he explains. “Plus I want to avoid any common tropes or themes so that it’s not predictable.” In particular, he wants to remove any “chosen one” tropes. “That’s something I worked really hard to remove from CC in the first place,” he continues. “Part of being able to get lost in a world is having it not revolve around the player, and instead have its own things going on.”

At this point, even fans have gotten involved with updating Crystal Clear. The last update gifted players the ability to upload their own sprites, which they could map onto the main character — a customization option the mainline series has yet to offer. “It’s been a blast to see all the different varieties,” ShockSlayer explains. “There are some really talented artists out there and I’m glad they’re able to see their creations in the game. It’s nice to have built a community where people genuinely want to help each other improve.” 

There have been some funny hiccups along the way. For example, the person ShockSlayer originally worked on Crystal Clear with visited him early in development. “One of the things we did was work on the game together, and he wanted to make a ferry service to help the player get around bodies of water without having to ‘surf,’” Shockslayer explains. Like the removal of ‘cut’ trees, this was to help with HM-less open-world traversal.

“After a lot of effort getting the boat’s animation to load properly, he started working on getting it to go the opposite way,” ShockSlayer continues. “Eventually he got the code to compile, and both of us watched as the boat went across the water… facing backwards. It was hilarious to see it working so horribly, and we joked about the boat’s captain telling the player, ‘Hold my beer!’ and then going across the ocean in reverse. Those are some pretty warm memories for me.” In fact, there’s an out-of-bounds sailor in one of the ferry maps that references this mishap. But according to ShockSlayer, nobody has found him yet. 

Crystal Clear revamped the highest-grossing entertainment franchise in the world and added a plethora of details fans have been clamoring for. While Sword and Shield will be kitted out with a range of their own changes, they’re not quite as ambitious as ShockSlayer’s ROM hack, which has become illustrious within the community at large and produced a genuine sandbox experience focused on player freedom. Although Crystal Clear 1.0 was finished almost two years ago, ShockSlayer doesn’t plan on stopping yet.

“It has a special place in my heart,” ShockSlayer explains. “Hopefully I can continue to work on it until it reaches a natural conclusion. Even though thousands of people are playing CC, in my heart I’m working on all this stuff for the people who’re around me.”

The Wii is Nintendo’s most popular home console, selling upwards of 100 million units since its launch in 2006. Of those millions of consoles, 82 million came equipped with one specific game: Wii Sports. Wii Sports and the complementary Wii Fit functioned as a riposte against the generational stigma attached to games, largely dismantling the idea that video games were exclusively tied to a younger demographic. The Wii has even become a valuable asset in nursing homes, where elderly people can hit home runs in baseball, score strikes in bowling, and, sink holes-in-one in the hugely popular Wii Sports Golf. 

Wii Sports is generally remembered as a fun-oriented game, something light to play with friends and family. That’s why it’s strange to consider the bizarre speedrunning scene attached to Wii Sports Golf where players compete to finish a round as quickly as possible using a variety of different techniques. In this category, players who go by the handles Dannyh09 and Alaskaxp2 hold world records for first and second place, respectively. 

“I started to speedrun ‘Golf 9 Hole’ in Wii Sports so I could practice specific things for my ‘All Sports’ runs,” Alaska, a 15-year-old from North Carolina, tells me. All Sports is another category in the Wii Sports speedrunning scene in which runners attempt to finish every game in the Wii Sports oeuvre as quickly as possible. However, Alaska quickly realized that the world record at the time was beatable. In their words, it wasn’t “optimized,” meaning that it didn’t represent a perfect run with zero mistakes. Since then, the record has been surpassed by almost an entire minute.

“I grinded out a couple hundred attempts and beat it by less than a second on August 19th,” Alaska says. However, after several months as top dog, Alaska lost their spot to a new kid on the block. “A top Super Mario Maker creator named DannyH09 came into the community and found his game really quickly,” they say. “That’s when I started to get worried, and the community began to center around 9 Hole, making for several new runners and a lot of strategy development.” 

“Wii Sports is the game I first played on the Nintendo Wii because it came with it,” says current world record holder Danny, a 21-year-old from England. Danny always enjoyed Wii Sports Golf the most, possessing an adroitness for the game since he was nine years old. He revisited it in 2018 out of nostalgia and immediately realized that he could storm through 9 Hole quickly and accurately, despite only playing for fun.

“After timing a 9 Hole run at 5:20, I discovered that the world record was 5:18 on speedrun.com,” Danny says. “I found the Wii Series speedrunning Discord server and met a bunch of other people speedrunning golf. I managed to obtain world records in the 9 Hole Golf and 3 Hole Golf categories which still remain unbeaten.” Danny’s current time sits at 4:36:70, roughly 43.3 seconds faster than the record Alaska originally set out to beat in August 2018. Alongside this, Danny also has world records in 18 Hole Golf and “a bunch of the 3 Hole categories.”

“Back when I was really speedrunning in 2018, there were five or six active runners who were all pretty much equally skilled,” Alaska says. This surge in popularity occurred after Alaska broke a record that went unbeaten for several months. Once people realized the scene was on the rise again, Wii Sports Golf became more popular than ever. However, Danny’s records don’t look like they’ll be beaten anytime soon. “Golf isn’t as competitive as it used to be now the world records are optimized,” Danny explains. According to Alaska, only one person has a personal best within 20 seconds of Danny’s 4:36. As a result, 9 Hole — originally the most competitive Wii Sports Golf run — is essentially dead.

That’s not to say the whole scene is dead. Although Danny started out with Wii Sports Golf, he has since become invested in the wider Wii Sports scene. “[Golf] is definitely challenging but the All Sports category is the most challenging,” he notes, mentioning that baseball is particularly tough. “I have attempted All Sports ‘No Baseball,’ which is a popular category within the community.” However, according to Danny, All Sports proper has become the most prestigious run in the community in recent years.

The fact remains that these runners resurrected a dead and bizarre speedrunning category in order to shave almost an entire minute off the world record over a relatively short period of time. As a community, these runners devised and perfected strategies for skipping animations, speeding up shots, and all sorts of other techniques designed for the sole purpose of saving time. “In Golf, we do a no-backswing drive to start each hole,” Danny says. “I use no backswing on every shot, even putting.” In order to pull this off, you need to press and hold A and immediately swing the controller forward, which makes for a much faster shot. 

Meanwhile, according to Alaska, a technique known as the “Driver flag shot” is the whole reason why the world record ever dropped below five minutes. “It saves four to seven seconds on any hole and involves using a driver and smacking it into a flag so that the ball rolls off and drops into the hole,” they say. “Another thing is using non-recommended clubs in order to make shots bounce less.” Some runners even purposely forfeit on the eighth hole in order to eliminate the luck factor involved in potentially scoring a birdie. “This costs about three to four seconds from a good birdie but saves four to six [seconds] if the birdie’s missed for a par.”

Danny uses the driver flag shot, too, specifically mentioning that it saves a massive amount of time if used from the bunker on the second hole. “Judgment is key in putting,” he adds. “Knowing how far left or right to aim depending on how the green slopes seems to come naturally to myself and other speedrunners of this category.”

Along with being weird and wonderful, the Wii Sports Golf scene is wide and wild. The sequel, Wii Sports Resort, operates according to completely different strategies. “Wii Sports Resort Golf is totally different because we play to not chip-in or land too close to the hole,” Danny says. “This triggers a replay and we lose a ton of time — using backspin is key with north winds to land on the green and get the ball to stop rolling and save a few seconds.”

It’s strange to consider how Wii Sports Golf speedrunning came into play. Runners from all over the world gradually converted this family-friendly game into a surprisingly intense competitive scene, to the extent that they exhausted it almost as quickly as they brought it into being. Some communities persist for years before a world record is set in stone, and even still, they are reinvigorated with the launch of a new patch or the rise of a new player.

Wii Sports Golf is now a bizarre relic of the past, immortalized on speedrun.com as a testament to the community that brought it back from the dead and championed it as a truly competitive speedrunning scene.