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We're removing some of our old paywalls - here are some of our favorite pieces you can now read for free

Check out some of our most beloved posts on Rogue.site

Ryan Gilliam

• 5 min read
We're removing some of our old paywalls - here are some of our favorite pieces you can now read for free

With all of our great new premium features – which we outlined in our subscriber revamp article – we're excited to be able to remove some of the old paywalls we had on some older articles.

To celebrate this, we wanted to put together some of our favorite paywalled pieces that are now readable completely for free as long as you have a free membership on Rogue.

Below you'll find pieces from Jeff, Cass, and myself. Alice has been our behind-the-scenes person for most of our first six months, and has also conducted some great dev interviews. But those have all been free and public, so she isn't on here because none of her stuff was locked up!

Please enjoy some of these great pieces.

Jeffrey

My favorite Jeff work is always the stuff that is initially pitched as an anti-capitalist rant, but comes in as an anti-capitalist rant that's just really, really well put together. We have a couple of those that are now available to read.

Plus we've got the entirety of Jeff's Project JASPER, which catalogs his journey to build a decent PC near the end of 2025.

Enshittishrinkflation, the mashup no one asked for
Another “tough decision” by a billion-dollar company
RogueJeffrey Parkin
Project JASPER: If I only had a brain
Part 2: Abby Someone
RogueJeffrey Parkin
Cows, cash, and can I even enjoy games anymore?
Ideally, how many animals should die to produce a video game?
RogueJeffrey Parkin

Cass

Cass' incredible cultural pieces are usually free and open to the public, because it feels a little unfair to deprive anyone of those. So when looking for old paid pieces, I was excited to remember these two great AI-related pieces you'll find below. We all feel pretty strongly about AI here, and Cass nails it in both of these pieces.

Probably the most exciting piece on this list is Cass' Helldivers history series. There are several of these that are now available to read, and the one below – Reclamation – is just the latest. Check it out and then go read the others. They're all free now!

Publishers are pushing genAI and hoping gamers will accept the slop
Call of Duty and Arc Raiders are two big games that have been dabbling with AI, but one is much more egregious than the other. What does that mean for gaming?
RogueCass Marshall
AI has spoiled the biggest hobbyist spaces on the Internet
Large hobbyist spaces have been flooded and destroyed by genAI.
RogueCass Marshall
A History of Helldivers 2: The Reclamation
The Automatons had been eradicated from the galaxy... but somehow, they returned.
RogueCass Marshall

Ryan

As for my stuff, I really enjoyed some of the preview and review work I did last year. The Lift is a game I genuinely think about every day, and I've been waiting for the full thing to hit since I first learned about it right around when we launched six months ago. Absolum is also just a rad game from last year that I enjoyed reviewing.

Gaming history stuff is also just some of my favorite pieces to write, so this launch piece on King K. Rool holds a special place in my heart.

Nobody does a final boss fight like King K. Rool
Donkey Kong’s arch nemesis gives Bowser a run for his money as Nintendo’s most menacing reptile
RogueRyan Gilliam
The Lift asks you to be Fix-It-Felix for Control’s Oldest House
Even an interdimensional handyman has to fix The John on occasion
RogueRyan Gilliam
Absolum is a beautiful, slow-progressing, arcade-ass Roguelite
The best looking beat-em-up you’ll find
RogueRyan Gilliam

If you've enjoyed these pieces, please consider supporting Rogue in 2026!