Author: Nat Mesnard

Essays

Role-Playing Queer Assemblages Amidst Capitalist Ruins

Nat Mesnard’s new game, Assemblage, allows players to build and role-play an imaginary multispecies universe. Even more interesting than the creatures themselves: the stunning meditation they elicit on extinction, grief, and collaborative, queer survival in the Anthropocene.

Three smokestacks with black smoke, mountains in the background. Video game still.

Essays

Finding Connection and Resisting Extraction in Quarantine Gaming

During the COVID-19 pandemic, video games offered Nat Mesnard and many others an escape from isolation. But the false promise of endless productivity in factory building games like Satisfactory ensnared them in a myth of capitalist “progress.”