Polygon’s Year in Review: essays reflecting on the games of 2017

We daydream about an alternate universe where literary magazines and the book reviews of national newspapers write about games with sophistication, rather than as gee-whiz curiosities or alien invaders. Why can’t we live in that timeline? The one where game developers write about their peers’ work in the way that novelists do, and where novelists and art critics write about the games they play, instead of concealing their habit in the blue glow of midnight?

For a week, Polygon set out to make this fantasy universe into the real one. We’ve invited a few of our favorite game developers and game-playing writers to reflect on the games we played in 2017.