Papers, Please Features

FeatureLucas Pope on life after Papers, Please

The long road to the Return of the Obra Dinn.

Lucas Pope turned down Uncharted 3. He found a seat at Naughty Dog during the development of the first Uncharted and stuck around for Uncharted 2, but when Drake's third outing rocked up, he left the studio because he wanted to experiment with smaller, weirder games. Those experiments would eventually lead to Papers, Please, one of the finest games of 2013 and, to most people, Pope's first name. His last name is guy.

FeatureThe importance of games in difficult times

Alexis Kennedy on games, empathy and happiness.

I was halfway through a piece on poetic game mechanics as allegory, but then Trump won the US election, and I just didn't have the heart. So you're excused that until next month, at which point I'll probably do, like, a Christmas Pumpkin Spice column anyway.

FeatureGames of 2013: Papers, Please

Cause no trouble.

Even if Lucas Pope had had one million dollars to develop Papers, Please, even if he'd had an army of engineers, animators and producers at his disposal, even if he'd had all the time in the world, he wouldn't have produced a better Papers, Please than the one he did all by himself.