Julian Benson
Julian Benson is a technology and games journalist at Rock Paper Shotgun who focuses on the rhythm of the PC release calendar and what makes new games worth a player’s time. His work stands out for turning routine listings into vivid, tightly written rundowns that link together big-budget launches and unusual independent projects under a clear weekly theme. He writes with a light, playful voice, but always with enough concrete detail that a reader can quickly grasp what each game is about and how it feels to play.
This week in PC games
Benson’s signature work at Rock Paper Shotgun is his recurring “This week in PC games” column, a curated survey of the most notable titles landing on PC in a given week. In one installment built around “Tokyo-drifting in Forza Horizon 6, communist grifting in Disco Elysium follow-up Zero Parades, or dystopia tifting in puzzle game Phonopolis,” he anchors the week around three sharply contrasted games and then builds out a broader release snapshot from there. He uses that structure to give equal footing to a headline-driving racing sequel, a politically sharp narrative follow-up, and an artful puzzle dystopia, signalling that his coverage is led by ideas and playstyles rather than marketing tiers.
Within this format he does more than list titles and dates. Each pick gets a short, concrete description that captures its core hook — whether that is a specific driving fantasy, a strain of political storytelling, or a distinctive visual and mechanical conceit. The result is a column that functions as both a release calendar and a recommendation engine, highlighting not just what is new on PC, but what is interesting about it.
Balancing blockbusters and indies
A consistent thread in Benson’s coverage is the balance between high-profile franchises and smaller, more experimental projects. By pairing a series like Forza Horizon with a follow-up to Disco Elysium and a stylised puzzle title such as Phonopolis in the same weekly frame, he treats them as peers in a shared landscape rather than separate tiers of coverage. This approach helps surface games that might otherwise be crowded out by marquee releases, while still accounting for the big titles that define a week for many PC players.
He writes about each game in similar, matter-of-fact terms, describing setting, mechanics, and tone without inflating one over another. That parity in treatment is a defining feature of his work: the scale of a project is less important than whether it offers a clear, distinctive experience that is worth pointing out to a PC audience.
Highlighting inventive PC game worlds
Benson gravitates toward games with strong, unusual concepts or worlds and makes those concepts the entry point to his coverage. References to “communist grifting” in a Disco Elysium follow-up or “dystopia tifting” in a puzzle game show how he compresses a game’s political or thematic angle into a memorable phrase. That emphasis on premise and atmosphere helps communications and development teams understand that what will interest him most is not just a feature checklist, but the specific worldview, narrative angle, or mechanical twist that sets a PC game apart.
Across his writing, this focus on inventive worlds and clear hooks is matched by clean, concise prose. He explains what a player will do, where they will do it, and why it matters in just a few lines, making his pieces well suited to readers who want to scan a week’s releases yet still come away with a strong sense of which games match their tastes.
4 more technology journalists.
Alex Co
Alex Co is a video game technology reporter at MP1st who specializes in live-service systems and online titles, with patch coverage as the core of his work. He tracks game updates in real time, documenting patch numbers, download sizes, platform differences, full or near-full patch notes, and the changes that affect everyday play. He also reports on server status, outages, and maintenance windows so players know if issues are local or on the developer’s end. His beat extends to console exclusives, PC ports, subscription services, and cross-platform features, with an emphasis on implementation details and player impact. He focuses heavily on multiplayer shooters and competitive balance, and also covers live-service calendars, seasonal events, and multiplayer stability, always prioritizing precise, timely, and actionable information for active players.
Alex Perry
Alex Perry stands out for turning consumer technology news into practical help for people using the hardware they already own. They cover consumer technology for the masthead, focusing on software support changes, platform policies, device updates, apps, streaming platforms, and online services. Their reporting shows what changes on screen, which settings matter, what stops working, and what workarounds remain. Perry writes in a direct, utility-first style and often treats news as a service problem to solve. They are especially attentive to aging devices, including older Kindles, and explain cutoff dates, affected models, offline use, sideloading, and account changes in plain language. Their work appears in quick news reactions, guides, and longer explainers, always aimed at readers who want clear, step-by-step answers.
Ali Hashmi
Ali Hashmi covers technology through the lens of video games, using individual titles to show how interactive systems feel and function for players. He writes for Prima Games. His work sits where game design, visual presentation, and user experience meet, with a focus on what it is like to inhabit the worlds that new releases create. He treats game criticism as a way into technology, breaking down how it appears in games instead of doing standalone hardware reviews. He looks at how technical choices support pacing, control, and readability on screen, weighing mechanics, performance, and audiovisual style together. In his “REPLACED” review, framed as “Tears in the Rain,” he shows how animation, lighting, and input responsiveness shape mood, storytelling, and immersion. Across his work, his through-line is the player’s moment-to-moment experience with the technology in front of them.
Andrew Agress
Andrew Agress stands out for covering technology through the lens of video games, with a focus on how new titles actually play rather than how they are pitched. He writes for The Outerhaven and works in a preview-driven format that foregrounds direct time with a game. His coverage of The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales shows his beat: hands-on previews of upcoming titles, with attention to combat, exploration, storytelling, pacing, controls, and presentation. He uses clear genre touchstones and straightforward comparisons, calling the game “Chrono Trigger meets classic Zelda” to place it in context. His reporting stays grounded in player experience and explains what a game feels like moment to moment, not just what features it lists.