Kirk Hamilton

That was like just all of games journalism was that for like weeks of our lives like that because it was like, OK, we really need to consider this very strongly.

Whereas now it's like, it's just not, it's very different.

The conversations are really different and way more nuanced and cool and interesting.

And that's such a relief to me that we can talk about games in a different way that is more specific to who these characters are and what they represent in the story.

That's a good point.

And Control is doing it too.

Control 2 has Jesse's brother in it.

So it's actually trendy now to have a male protagonist.

That was so underrepresented.

Very true.

And after, much as I love Jesse, I can understand how they'd be like, we want to make a character who plays totally different.

He's going to be really melee forward and look different and have a different personality.

I love this story.

I don't have a great example of this.

Except to say that obviously I didn't try Dark Souls until relatively late in life.

And I think some of that was me assuming it would be too hard for me.

And I think there's like a piece of that in Kate's message where maybe she wouldn't have actually found these games too hard in her 20s.

I know she thinks that, but I don't know if that's really true or if that her personality and philosophy and patience changed over the years.

And that was the thing that made the difference.

And I feel like that's been true of me.