Ashley Bardhan
Hi! :~) I write about video games, women, and horror, usually. I value beautiful and accessible writing, and I have worked with publications like Rolling Stone, Vulture, and IGN to put more of it into the world. I was most recently a senior writer at GamesRadar+, and I used to quote Spinoza as a Kotaku staff writer. I also write the experimental video game blog Plant or Beast. Otherwise, I like baby's breath flowers and clip art of little mice wearing hats.
Elden Ring’s Malenia Tells The Fairytale I Always Wanted To Hear, kotaku.com
August, 2022
Appearing to you naked and maimed, deceptively tender and feminine, she’s reduced to her true, brutal nature. “But she whose hours of tenderness were gone / had neither hope nor fear,” William Butler Yeats writes.
TikTok's Final Girl,
vulture.com
December, 2023
I recognize her trepidation, the way she hunches over her steel-pipe weapon. It’s how I instinctively shrivel when men stare at me on the train. I’m moving against the unfair world, reminding myself to sit up straight.
Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY
December, 2025
I've always known there's no outrunning what's inside. Silent Hill f's multiple endings suggest that Hinako learns the same lesson – anger and avoidance only ever spreads sadness, like trying to mop up a spill with tissues you've already used while crying.
Princess Peach: Showtime! review,
eurogamer.net
March, 2024
Outside of the castle, there's more space to be gentle. "There was / a peach in a wicker basket / There was a bowl of fruit," writes Louise Glück in the 2001 poem "Ripe Peach." "Fifty years. Such a long walk / from the door to the table." Finally, Peach gets to rule.
Alice Madness Returns creator American McGee is making a spiritual successor, and he's not worried about EA
March, 2026
March, 2021
Contact
ashleybardhan(at)gmail(dot)com