Julian Benson

Julian Benson is a games journalist and editor whose work links day-to-day PC play, critical writing, and the overall direction of Rock Paper Shotgun’s coverage. He focuses on videogames as played, discussed, and designed, moving between frontline writing and shaping how the masthead talks about games. His coverage stands out for combining hands-on criticism with an emphasis on the player community and the editorial voice of a long-running PC gaming site.

From the desk of the Editorial Director of Rock Paper Shotgun

Benson serves as Editorial Director at Rock Paper Shotgun, the PC gaming publication within the IGN Entertainment family. In his introductory note “From the desk of the Editorial Director of Rock Paper Shotgun: ‘Ahoy hoy’,” he sets out a role centred on supporting the site’s writers and acting as a point of contact on the publication’s direction. He presents the job as guiding a team to do their best work rather than imposing a rigid agenda, which reflects a management style rooted in collaboration and trust in the existing voice of the masthead. That piece positions him in the middle of readers, staff, and publisher, emphasising that he will listen to feedback and keep the site’s focus on strong writing about PC games.

The appointment builds on more than a decade in games media, including senior editorial roles at other gaming brands and work across news, features, and reviews.

Coverage of his move to Rock Paper Shotgun describes him as a veteran games journalist with over 13 years of experience at influential outlets in the gaming press. These accounts highlight his track record leading TechRadar Gaming as editor-in-chief and holding deputy and news editor roles at PC-focused publications, which gives him a background in day-to-day site management as well as hands-on reporting.

His current position therefore sits at the intersection of editorial strategy and practical coverage of PC gaming, with responsibility both for the big-picture agenda and the tone of individual pieces.

What are we all playing this weekend?

Alongside directing the masthead’s output, Benson writes pieces such as “What are we all playing this weekend?”, which centre on the games people are playing right now.[anchor] The title signals an interest in the lived experience of play, treating weekend gaming as a shared activity rather than a purely consumer choice.[anchor] This kind of article fits with Rock Paper Shotgun’s focus on PC games as part of everyday life, drawing out what staff and readers have on their minds and machines at a given moment.[anchor] It shows Benson using the platform not just to review or announce games, but to keep up a running conversation about current play, discovery, and habits.[anchor]

That conversational approach is consistent with his wider career across news and features, where he has written for outlets that cover both the business and culture of videogames. Listings of his work describe contributions to publications such as Eurogamer, PC Gamer, Wired, and GamesMaster, alongside more general press titles like The Guardian and GQ. The mix of specialist and broader audiences indicates flexibility in how he talks about games, from in-depth coverage for dedicated PC players to more explanatory pieces for mainstream readerships. In both contexts, the weekend-play format suggests he keeps a close eye on what people are actually loading up and how that shapes the stories worth telling.[anchor]

The Invincible review: missteps hold back this (space)walking sim

Benson’s author page at Rock Paper Shotgun includes “The Invincible review: missteps hold back this (space)walking sim,” a review that signals a critical approach grounded in mechanics and pacing. The headline points to a focus on how a game’s structure and design decisions affect the experience of moving through its world, not just its premise or visuals. By naming “missteps” and specifying the subgenre as a “(space)walking sim,” he locates the game within a lineage of exploratory titles and evaluates it against the expectations of that form.

This kind of review work shows him engaging directly with individual releases while still situating them inside wider trends in PC game design and narrative.

Outside Rock Paper Shotgun, Benson has a long record of reviews and features for major gaming outlets, including work on PC-focused magazines and sites. His career includes roles as deputy editor and news editor at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, as well as editing and writing for TechRadar Gaming and GAMINGBible. He has also contributed reviews and longer pieces to PC Gamer and Wired, and written features for publications such as The Guardian, GQ, Eurogamer, Edge, and The Huffington Post. Profiles of his work describe him not only as a journalist but also as a writer, editor, and game design consultant for developers and publishers, which underlines a perspective that takes into account both how games are played and how they are made. This combination of critical writing and design-focused consulting feeds into his current role, where he oversees coverage, contributes his own reviews, and maintains a line of communication between the masthead, its audience, and the wider games industry.