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Austin Wood

@woodwould.bsky.social
718 followers 1.2K following 469 posts

13-year game journalist. Senior writer at GamesRadar+. Previously: PC Gamer, IGN, Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer. Email: austin(dot)wood(at)futurenet(dot)com

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Reposted by Austin Wood
Rollin Bishop @rollinbishop.com · 29/09/2026
it has been an honor and privilege to field ashley's wild pitches and edit her even wilder copy. in a field full of stellar talent jockeying to be heard, ashley's voice remains absolutely one of a kind. to use her own words, i am fly-swatted to see her go. let our loss be your gain: hire ashley
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Hire Ashley. I'm just learning of this change while on vacation. Ashley was an invaluable part of the GamesRadar+ US news team and regularly contributed outside her byline and to other verticals. The site will be worse without her.
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Rollin Bishop @rollinbishop.com · 27/09/2026
just for context: doing this will get you fired as a games journalist
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This just in: Unspeakable horrors have befallen Discord's mascot after fans responded to the company's age verification with torrential art
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
If I added up every affix on every armor set I ever used in Nioh, Nioh 2, Nioh 3, and Wo Long, the sum still wouldn't make me give a single solitary shit
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Keza MacDonald @mackeza.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Guardian is doing some major hiring right now! If you have 2-3 years' experience in journalism, media and/or content creation, you can apply for the Digital Journalism Scheme - full time roles including 20% training time, £48k pa workwithus.theguardian.com/digital-jour...
workwithus.theguardian.com
Digital Journalist Scheme
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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
hey quick question: who's gonna make those new destiny games
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Evan Lahti @elahti.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Circled the opinion wagons with two other accomplished players to lay out our boldest thoughts on Slay the Spire 2, six months in. www.pcgamer.com/games/card-g... feat. @woodwould.bsky.social
pcgamer.com
After 894 hours in Slay the Spire 2, these are our 12 strongest opinions
Our three editors have hundreds of runs in Slay the Spire 2. These are their verdicts after 6 months with the game.
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Hey Austin, why were you so frustrated with Mortal Shell 2? Well www.gamesradar.com/games/action...
gamesradar.com
The worst experience I've had with a game all year: How catastrophic bugs in Mortal Shell 2 nearly killed it for me
Opinion | It's not me, it's you
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"Over on the Old School RuneScape subreddit, players are celebrating the death of Elderwood like it's an upstart gladiator that just got gutted in the Roman Colosseum after insulting all their mothers." www.gamesradar.com/games/mmo/ch...
gamesradar.com
ChatGPT employee makes a "RuneScape clone," immediately gets slapped by Jagex lawyers, then acts like he's leaving some great legacy behind in a goodbye post surely written by AI
Elderwood died as it lived: quickly
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GamesRadar+ @gamesradarplus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
48% of women say the gaming community and culture do not welcome or represent them www.gamesradar.com/games/48-per...
gamesradar.com
48% of women say the gaming community and culture do not welcome or represent them
Almost half of the women we surveyed don't feel comfortable in gaming spaces
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Mortal Shell 2 was developed and tested in a magical alternate reality where nobody anywhere has vision problems
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ashley bardhan @ashleybardhan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
fromsoftware is going to add PvP romance to the duskbloods, because they said they're making games just for me now actually :) 💓 www.gamesradar.com/games/action...
gamesradar.com
FromSoftware's first-ever player romance builds on "the maidens in Elden Ring," says Hidetaka Miyazaki: "It's a transient, ephemeral love, which is maybe a motif I'm striving for"
Sorry, Ranni, I'm moving on in The Duskbloods
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Jeremy Peel @jeremypeel.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
For @gamesradarplus.bsky.social I wrote about GTA and the constant, quiet negotiation of coupledom: "Neither is a loose cannon in fake-Florida. Instead they're a pair of nunchucks, holding each other steady and reeling each other in." www.gamesradar.com/games/grand-...
gamesradar.com
GTA 6 might be single-player but the coupled-up life changes everything
The power of two
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I did not like The Duskbloods at all, and I was winning: "It's you, two other Bloodsworn, and three summons chucked into a small arena like marbles in a blender. Skill is not high on the list of factors that determine the winner." www.gamesradar.com/games/action...
gamesradar.com
The Duskbloods network test was not good between lag, stuttering, and bad PvP
The Duskbloods is the first FromSoftware game I've immediately disliked
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
My 30s have seen me actively avoid more information + screen time that can o n l y harm me. No value in it, nothing actionable, nothing memorable, no learning to be had, just Bad Shit bleeding in. Your head is not a vessel for all the world's problems but social media so badly wants it to be.
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Haley MacLean @haleyfax.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
All I know is what I see, and what I see is dozens upon dozens of executed publishing agreements w/ anti gen-ai clauses. It's not as accepted as the corps selling the ai tools want us to think. From my perspective, the indie industry is fully anti-ai. (thanks to @woodwould.bsky.social for the chat!)
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I also had a great chat with @haleyfax.bsky.social about her experience with dev/pub contracts and AI clauses, and it certainly lines up with what I've heard from devs www.gamesradar.com/games/echoin...
gamesradar.com
Echoing Palworld dev, video game lawyer says all her clients have anti-AI contracts because gamers hate it and it's a copyright landmine: "I think we're going to see lawsuits"
"Don't touch it. It's not worth the legal liability"
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
And the whole shebang www.gamesradar.com/games/surviv...
gamesradar.com
10 years of No Man's Sky: How Hello Games and Sean Murray keep getting away with it
Interview | In a time of "consumable" games, Hello Games sees "real beauty in keeping those things alive"
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Spoiling the crap out of my favorite interview in ages because I need everyone to read what Sean Murray said about No Man's Sky www.gamesradar.com/games/surviv...
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GamesRadar+ @gamesradarplus.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The Elder Scrolls 6 demo had a surprise guest at Bethesda HQ: a giant inflatable rat set up by protesting employees to watch Xbox execs who oversaw "devastating layoffs" www.gamesradar.com/games/the-el...
gamesradar.com
The Elder Scrolls 6 demo had a surprise guest at Bethesda HQ: a giant inflatable rat set up by protesting employees to watch Xbox execs who oversaw "devastating layoffs"
"It's up to us to stand up for each other and protect the future of our careers and the game industry"
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ashley bardhan @ashleybardhan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
i uninstalled love and deepspace after nearly two years 🐺 it was kind of motivated by infold canceling valko before he got to take his rightful place as my bulgarian wolf husband 😿, and kinda because i'm tired of no one understanding "what women want" www.gamesradar.com/games/rpg/im...
gamesradar.com
I'm boycotting Love and Deepspace for killing my virtual boyfriend, and so are 251,000 other loyal widows
This is the War on Valko
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Granblue Fantasy Relink is just a big grocery store where the only payment that is accepted is whoopass
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Another bucket list interview checked off. More to come here, just had quite a short turnaround with the No Man's Sky 10-year anniversary today. www.gamesradar.com/games/surviv...
gamesradar.com
Sean Murray doesn't care how much money No Man's Sky DLC would've made, and "it doesn't matter" because updates will stay free
"Every player that we have is going to experience this"
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Catsuka @catsuka.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Evangelion walk cycle in the style of James Baxter ❤️ By Kushal Kishore (instagram.com/kushalkishore)
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Imran Khan @imrankhan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
So we found out this morning that everyone - myself included - from Restart's editorial staff has been let go. After like six layoffs in six years, that gif is my unfortunate reaction. Looking! For! Opportunities! I guess I'm open for freelance for a while!
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Jesse Vitelli @mamavitelli.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I was laid off from Restart today, alongside my wonderful and talented co-workers. Sucks to write, but here we are. Lots of ways you can help, but I'm currently live with a lay-off subathon where you can come and chat and sub to keep the timer going to give me some cash Twitch.tv/MamaVitelli
twitch.tv
MamaVitelli - Live on Twitch
I was Laid Off So I'm Doing A Subathon! | Subathon | Cool Content | Variety | Streaming just chatting.
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Corey Brickley * Blight's Hollow Dot Com @coreybrickley.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
sandfall is example #540720 for why we need to fund the arts
Corey Brickley: Now, let's see who exactly is behind this singular, beloved piece of cultural media. Attached is an image of Fred from Scooby Doo unmasking a man in a ghost costume, who has been labeled Government Subsidies
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Saudi Arabia's PIF: accused of using entertainment and sports to launder public image and reputation for human rights violations Saudi Arabia's PIF: "Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF" www.gamesradar.com/games/ea-and...
gamesradar.com
EA and games like The Sims, Dragon Age, and Battlefield are now officially owned by Saudi Arabia and private equity as $55 billion deal closes
The EA deal is done
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
all my homies love to end a story with a quote when they don't know how else to end it
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Quite some debate over whether this image looks better default or flipped
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
A rotating Ascension 10 five streak in Slay the Spire 2 is probably one of my biggest gaming achievements
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Hayes Madsen @solfleet.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Extremely excited to share a massive piece I worked very hard on. I talked to FFXIV’s Naoki Yoshida, Warframe’s Rebecca Ford, and ESO’s Nick Giacomini anout what the future of MMORPGs looks like - and how the live service scene has altered that, if at all www.gamesradar.com/games/mmo/ho...
gamesradar.com
"The desire for a world you can escape to is stronger than ever": How MMORPGs are flourishing in a multiplayer landscape dominated by live-service shooters
The lead developers of Final Fantasy 14, Warframe, and The Elder Scrolls Online take us through the demands and realities of running a successful MMO
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Fellow Traveller @fellowtraveller.games · 24/07/2026
We wouldn't be so vain as to call Titanium Court one of the best games you can play on PC 👑 But if @gamesradarplus.bsky.social says it... 👀 Pick it up below and make sure you check out all the phenomenal games on the list! 💖 🏰 bit.ly/TC-Steam
gamesradar.com
Best PC games: The 30 greatest PC games to play in 2026
Put the best PC games to the test and make the most of your computer, no matter your genre of choice
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AmericanTruckSongs10 @ethangach.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Kotaku is looking for bilingual freelance writers covering gaming who are based in Japan. If that's you or someone you know, please DM me!
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Haley MacLean @haleyfax.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
What if I told you that all of the Publishing Agreements I have reviewed in the last 6 months (several dozen) included a no gen AI provision, wherein the use of gen AI in development is a material breach, but companies like Epic and EA are still trying to convince us the industry is cool with it
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Don't talk to me or my son ever again
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Megan Fox @glassbottommeg.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
This one's still the kicker for me Unreal Nanite? AnimBP? PCG? ControlRig? StateTree? Incredible tech, saved me so much time, I miss it a ton using Godot. Epic sucks! Massively? And I'm still saying this! If GenAI were truly a time savings? You'd have to beat indies off with a stick. And yet,
The proposed upsides of gen AI may appear greater for devs with limited resources, but if anything, the independent developers I spoke to were even more AI-averse than creatives working within large teams. It's perhaps no coincidence that indies, free from the demands and expectations of big publishers and public shareholders operating under the belief that a world of finite resources will allow infinite growth, can more easily ignore AI.
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Colin McInerney @colin.how · 22/07/2026
i said some words in this one too, and they mostly boil down to “genAI and the losers who use it fucking suck”
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Brandon Sheffield @brandon.insertcredit.com · 22/07/2026
I got asked about AI in games again! I think we underestimate how, while AI use is more rampant in the East than the West, our protections against it here are dramatically worse.
From the Gamesradar article: "Necrosoft Games creative director Brandon Sheffield also highlights a cultural divide. "I think we are witnessing an attempted assassination on the very concept of creative work, especially in the West," he says. "While I'm anti AI use everywhere, at least in China and Japan people aren't getting fired with the intention to replace them with AI as that's legally difficult. There it's being used to supplement the work. I've seen Chinese companies express amazement at how Western studios are firing folks in order to have 'fewer devs do more' with AI. Why fire all your good people?"

Sheffield says Necrosoft will never use gen AI. "I feel sick about it frankly," he adds, and he would love to see the tech "be treated like a pariah." In his view, "once you let it infect your studio, [it] creatively bankrupts that studio."

"We've also seen that companies outside of games have had to hire back their engineers because AI couldn't cut it – or they're finding that all their tokens are getting spent by execs on 'convert this PDF to a powerpoint' which is cheaper to just have an intern do! So it may be slightly faster, and a lot worse, but it's also more expensive? Neat ... We're dismantling the entire industry in the interest of short-term shareholder gains and it's just a terrible plan.""
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Reading (and writing) recent headlines re: layoffs, I want to spotlight this quote from Iconoclasts maker Joakim Sandberg @konjak.org , who, in his argument on the dangers of gen AI, also highlights a recurring, destructive mindset among the people overseeing the people who actually make games.
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The Public Deaths of Mormon Husbands @lordofthekevins.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
What do you fucking mean they embroidered all the sprites
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Nina Marotta ☢️💙 @mrschief7.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Idk who needs to hear this but seriously just take the headache medicine there's no valor in pain
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Austin Wood @woodwould.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
He's only gone and written 2,500 more words about how game devs feel about generative AI. Latest piece quotes around two dozen different people with an indie background. When asked how they feel about gen AI, not one, but two devs responded, "Fuck that shit." www.gamesradar.com/games/it-cre...
gamesradar.com
"It creates lesser games": Indie game studios are supposed to love generative AI, so why do the 25 devs I spoke to avoid it?
"So it may be slightly faster, and a lot worse, but it's also more expensive? Neat"
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Gingerspiced @gingerspiced.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*
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Sam Loveridge @samloveridge.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Myself and the wonderful humans at @gamesradarplus.bsky.social have been working on a brand new podcast celebrating female gamers, and challenging v.outdated stereotypes. So here’s the first EP of G+RLS. I hope you enjoy it (new ep every other Friday!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFUU...
youtube.com
What even is a gamer? | G+RLS Podcast Episode 1
YouTube video by GamesRadar
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GamesRadar+ @gamesradarplus.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
A new GamesRadar+ podcast is here - This is G+RLS www.gamesradar.com/games/gamesr...
gamesradar.com
A new GamesRadar+ podcast is here - This is G+RLS
Join us every other Friday for a podcast sharing the stories of women who game and the games that shaped them
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GamesRadar+ @gamesradarplus.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Denshattack dev wakes up, rolls out of bed, finds out their game is one of the highest-rated releases of 2026, and promptly loses their mind www.gamesradar.com/games/action...
gamesradar.com
Denshattack dev wakes up, rolls out of bed, finds out their game is one of the highest-rated releases of 2026, and promptly loses their mind
You love to see it, truly
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matt 🦖 @bigbadbick.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
"...Lies of P which, despite being made by a different company in a different country, is the only Soulslike good and specific enough to be a proper FromSoftware game." Chris is right and he SHOULD say it.
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