PSA: Every Gamer Should Read Edge Magazine Issue 345

With over 5.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the globe, the pandemic continues to have a powerful impact on the lives of people all around the world. When quarantine orders began to become widespread around the end of March, it brought a great deal of challenge to a number of different industries. This included everything from manufacturing to producing a magazine—such was the case for the UK publication Edge. Edge is a magazine devoted to video game news coverage, reviews, and analysis. At nearly 30 years of active publishing, Edge has been a mainstay of the industry, but in March the magazine and its staff learned that the upcoming issue 345 would experience some major changes as a result of everyone being told to shelter in place.

As a regular reader of the publication, I found out in early April that the only way I’d be able to lay hands on the upcoming issue was if I mail ordered a copy. Now, at the end of May, I’ve finally received the issue in the mail, but I was stunned by what was inside. No news. No reviews. Barely any ads. What was going on? The letter from the editor revealed all—here’s part of what they had to say:

First, we hope you and yours are keeping well. The Edge team, currently at least, is in fine health. But in these trying times, our publisher has reacted as you’d expect: first we were told we’d have to cut our pagination for this issue, then that we’d have to make it with less money, and finally that we’d not be printing retail copies until some kind of normal order was restored. We’d have to do it all while cooped up at home, fretting about the health of our loved ones, no longer a team of mere magazine makers but suddenly also carers, childminders and schoolteachers. We weren’t sure we could make an issue of Edge under these conditions. So we decided to make something different instead.

The letter goes on to say that as the staff worked remotely, a friend had become overcome with anxiety as a result of the quarantine and the current dilemma of the pandemic. In an effort to help ease this person’s weariness, a series of games were suggested. All of the games had the common thread of being non-confrontational and/or non-violent—games that went beyond the rather rote mechanics of pulling triggers. Inspired, Edge decided to expand what began as a group chat and turn it into the entirety of issue 345 of the magazine.

Thumbing through its pages, it was striking reading the staff describe game after game from across countless different consoles and genres extolled for the pure joy that they bring to the people who play them. Really, that’s a big part of why people play games in the first place. Some of it comes down to cathartic release, but it’s also often about the experience of a game; the story, the characters, the mechanics, and so on. As a celebration of the healing power of video games, issue 345 of Edge is unlike anything I’ve come across in a video game magazine. The circumstances that surround its creation are harrowing, but during this dark time in the collective history of humanity, it’s really powerful to see people come together and produce something that so earnestly wants to provide a guiding and encouraging ray of light.

The cover of Edge 345 depicts an apartment full of countless video game characters with a sky-written message proclaiming “feel better.” I really believe that many of you reading this might indeed feel better after giving the issue a look. Thankfully, Edge has returned to its usual format with issue 346, but if you can find a copy of 345 I really recommend giving it a purchase. For one thing, I’m a huge proponent of publications like Edge, which does a really fine job with its reporting, but for another I also believe that something this special deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible. So, thank you to the staff of Edge for this incredibly touching tribute. Let’s hope that as the world works to adjust to an uncertain future that people continue to come together as they did here.