Greetings Witchers, and welcome back to The Path! To celebrate the successful launch of our 2024 coverage, on the first of each month we’ll be releasing a newsletter containing updates, a recap of the previous month’s coverage, a best-of-three Editor’s Picks from our articles in the previous month, and a brief summary of what you can expect in the upcoming month. Each month we will release ten articles: 9 features or reviews and one “Editor’s View” where Benjamin comments on an overarching trend in The Witcher, Cyberpunk, the sci-fi/fantasy industry, or other franchises. You probably caught the first of those here. Without further ado, let’s look at our content schedule from last month and get into what you can expect in February.
Recap of January
The Path returned with “Diversity Didn’t Ruin Fantasy. Bad Writing Did.” A take on the dangers of performativity in inclusive casting and a rebuke to those who argue diversity produces bad art. Next Benjamin followed this up with “Female V And The Silver Fox Samurai”, a defense of playing V as a woman in Cyberpunk 2077 and why she should’ve been able to hookup with Goro Takemura. After this came Luis’ foray into rock biography with the excellent “The Aspirations of a Rebel Rockstar”, an in-depth portrait of Keanu himself, Cyberpunk 2077‘s Johnny Silverhand. Frankie returned with two complimentary articles on the “found-parent” adoption trope in The Witcher and elsewhere: “The Witcher, The Last of Us, and Found Fatherhood” and “Yennefer: Chaos And Motherhood”. Luis then pivoted to The Witcher with his analysis of the deeper resonances behind the short story “A Little Sacrifice” in “The Emotional Depths of A Little Sacrifice”. “A Little Sacrifice”, from 1992’s Sword of Destiny, is the source material for Netflix’ upcoming Witcher anime Sirens of the Deep. Next, Benjamin continued our nascent Cyberpunk 2077 coverage with his essay Never Fade Away: Death and Dying in Cyberpunk 2077, Pt. 1, with the remainder of the series set to be released in February and March. Luis got meta with his philosophical discussion on the implications of engrams for our understanding of the soul in “The Haunted Ghost of a Samurai” and Benjamin and Frankie closed out this month’s coverage with a discussion of the resurgence of Cyberpunk 2077 via Edgerunners and a meditation on the ruthless technical dynamics of Cyberpunk Red. This month’s Editor’s Picks for each writer are:
- “Female V And The Silver Fox Samurai”
- “The Aspirations of a Rebel Rockstar”
- “I Cast Gun!! Dungeons and Dragons and Cyberpunk Red”
Now on to next month:
February Content
Benjamin will be writing about the gig economy and its hold on modern fantasy in our Editor’s View, “Will Kill For Coin: How Fantasy Came To Love The Freelance Mercenary”, (week 1) while continuing Never Fade Away parts 2 and 3 (weeks 2-3) and ending the month on a lighter note with a discussion of that insane string of “Aguilar” quests in Phantom Liberty, “The Eyes of Havana” (week 4).
Luis will be conducting an in-depth analysis of The Witcher short story “A Shard of Ice” in week 2 with “A Love Colder Than A Shard Of Ice”, then engage in an exploration of Gilbert Ryle’s philosophy across Cyberpunk, Altered Carbon, and Blade Runner in “The Ghost in the Machine” (week 3). He’ll finish out his coverage with an essay answering the question – “Why do players keep coming back for more?” in “The Enduring Allure of The Witcher 3” (week 4).
Frankie will consider “What defines the cyberpunk aesthetic and why is it so appealing?” in “The Cyberpunk Aesthetic And It’s Appeal” (week 2) and The Last of Us and how it resonates with a post-covid world in “Surviving The Last of Us: Post-COVID” (week 3). She’ll end our coverage for the month on a comparison between Tolkien’s Elves and Sapkowski’s Elves in “A Tale of Two Authors: Galadhrim and Scoia’tael” (week 4).
Well, that does it for this month’s newsletter. Be sure to subscribe and catch the first article of February this Friday!