Zack Zwiezen
Zack Zwiezen is a longtime staff writer at Kotaku whose work connects breaking industry news, platform strategy, and offbeat gaming stories with a consistent focus on small, telling details in games and game culture. His author bio describes a remit that runs from big industry developments to small community stories, alongside reviews, previews, and visual contributions to the site. Across news pieces, reviews, lists, and recurring features, his coverage stands out for treating both major corporate decisions and niche curiosities with the same direct, conversational scrutiny.
Studio decisions, delays, and platform strategy
Zwiezen regularly covers the human and business sides of studio and publisher decisions, including stories such as a Halo developer who was promoted and laid off in the same week. His archive includes reporting on delays to major releases, such as the announcement that LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga would miss its planned spring 2021 window, situating schedule changes within broader patterns of development strain. He tracks platform moves and port announcements, like Ori and the Will of the Wisps arriving on Nintendo Switch, treating hardware and ecosystem shifts as news that matters to everyday players. Console strategy and hardware value are a recurring focus, with pieces questioning the appeal of a pricey and powerful PlayStation 5 Pro in 2025 and assessing a year when Xbox had strong games but broader performance that he characterizes as “bad, bad, bad, bad.”
Taken together, these pieces show a reporter who covers industry and platform news with clear judgments about how corporate decisions affect people who make and play games.
Reviews anchored in quirks and small details
Zwiezen’s own description of his work emphasizes a love of “weird stuff or small details in games,” and that sensibility runs through his reviews and critiques. He writes full game reviews such as his piece on Highguard, where he contrasts “boring visuals” and an overabundance of ideas with praise for the shooter’s excellent combat, foregrounding specific design choices rather than abstract scores.
In Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced: The Kotaku Review, he revisits a familiar blockbuster through the lens of what has changed and how it feels to play now, rather than treating it as a simple remaster checklist. His archive also includes unconventional reviews, like a full assessment of an automatic pizza vending machine in the Detroit airport, applying the same structured, critical approach to a novelty as he does to games. Collaborative features such as “The Bests,” co-bylined with Claire Jackson, show him contributing to ranked or curated lists that highlight standout titles or experiences from across the medium.
This mix of traditional reviews, re-reviews, and oddball critiques defines a sub-beat where format is flexible but close attention to texture and detail is constant.
Weekend voice, diaries, and comics curation
Zwiezen has served as Kotaku’s weekend editor, introducing himself to readers in a letter that set out his role and approach to weekend coverage.
His archive shows him anchoring recurring weekend features such as Sunday Comics, a weekly roundup of notable webcomics that brings together humor, storytelling, and fan culture from beyond mainstream games. He also contributes to culture-focused Game Diary entries, which emphasize personal play experiences and reflections rather than pure news, adding a more introspective layer to his beat.
The combination of letters to readers, diaries, and comics roundups gives him a distinct weekend voice that blends curation, commentary, and conversational updates.
Lists, guides, and release calendars
Beyond straight news and reviews, Zwiezen writes structured lists and calendars that map upcoming releases and trends for players. His work includes pieces like a rundown of every game launching in September and October before Grand Theft Auto 6, organizing a crowded release window around one blockbuster and highlighting titles that might otherwise be overlooked. His archive indicates contributions to tips and guides alongside reviews and year-in-review features, suggesting a comfort with service journalism that helps readers decide what to play and when.
Across these formats, his lists are framed in plain language and anchored to specific dates, platforms, and examples rather than generic hype.
4 more gaming journalists.
Adam Bankhurst
Adam Bankhurst covers the busiest crossroads of gaming and entertainment for IGN, with a focus on breaking news, live event roundups, and franchise guides. He reports on releases, updates, hardware, films, anime, and major fan universes including Disney, Star Wars, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Nintendo, Final Fantasy, and Mass Effect. He has covered events such as E3 and PAX, and has written The Game Awards 2020: All the Winners and X-Men Movies in Order: The Full Timeline. His work turns announcements, shows, and timelines into clear, digestible stories. He leads with dates, decisions, platforms, prices, and viewing or playing order. He also helps manage IGN’s homepage and contributes news, reviews, previews, features, commerce, and wiki content.
Alejandro Josan
Alejandro Josan specialises in turning complex, high‑information subjects into concise, usable narratives with facts first and minimal opinion. He writes guides, lists, and features for GameTyrant, focusing on step‑by‑step instructions, completion times, and whether in‑game systems are worth a player’s time. His work on titles like Rhapsody in Scarlet, Harvest Moon: Echoes of Teradea, and High on Life 2 explains progression, mechanics, systems, and different completion paths with clear numeric framing. He also breaks down layered systems in games such as Palworld and Infinite Craft into short, direct explanations. Outside GameTyrant, he has an extended track record on live‑service games, especially Destiny 2, covering tier lists, seasonal content, weapon “god rolls,” patch changes, and build optimisation. At Suggest, he is a resident crime expert reporting on breaking crime news and rare medical cases with clear timelines and careful use of official information.
Alex Van Aken
Alex Van Aken is a multimedia video game journalist who specializes in long-form documentaries, developer profiles, and weekly conversation-driven coverage of major releases and industry trends. He is senior video editor at Game Informer, where he leads the video team, travels for cover stories and studio visits, and hosts The Game Informer Show podcast. His reporting centers on cover story features and developer-focused coverage that highlight how games are designed and produced, often anchored to tentpole titles like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and World of Warcraft. Van Aken also writes previews, impressions, and reviews across action-adventure franchises, live-service expansions, and racing games. He builds independent game documentaries, appears on major industry platforms, and cites consulting experience on notable series, grounding his work in visual and audio storytelling and direct access to creators.
Alexander Lee
Alexander Lee covers how games, platforms and creators intersect with business. He leads news coverage at GamesBeat across gaming, entertainment, technology, the creator economy and the future of media. His core beat is platform strategy, live services and new game models, with close attention to Roblox, creator tools, monetization, communication features, safety and emerging technology. He also covers esports, content creators, regulation, accessibility and how design choices affect players and developers. Before GamesBeat, he covered gaming, esports and creators through advertising and marketing. His reporting connects product changes and policy decisions to their effects on companies, creators and audiences. He reports from industry events, uses participant voices to show business impact and analyzes longer-term strategy. He also hosts and joins podcast conversations with industry leaders.