This article discusses death and personal bereavement
I never intended to make videogames about my brother. He died in May last year, standing in the crowded lobby of the Manchester Arena, at the hands of the radicalised young man who d walked into the building and detonated a homemade explosive. I learned later, while numbly standing with a police officer in middle of the cavernous, shrapnel-damaged space, that he was standing approximately seven feet away from the bomber, and was killed instantly. His name was Martyn, and he was 29.
Going through something like that completely altered my trajectory as a person. But, over time, I realised that I d quietly changed as an artist and games designer too — everything I was working on had stopped, and games had unexpectedly become the outlet through which I began to process it all. With this came a changed perspective: that games should be depicting the honest reality of death, because it can be incredibly helpful when they do.
