Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight I, ZombiePie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the site-related news and best user-created works for your reading pleasure!
The big news this week comes from Colin Hemphill who shared in the Giant Bomb Discord that they have launched an early build of their unofficial Blight Club fan site, Blight Club Unauthorized, compiling facts, trivia, and other interesting tidbits about every single Blight Club series! The site serves as an INCREDIBLE one-stop shop for all of your Blight Club needs.
Another round of thanks for everyone who tuned into the Giant Bomb community streams last weekend as part of the continued effort to raise money towards Giant Bomb's ICE Out - Protect Our Neighbors charity effort for VEAP! The user-run effort ended up pulling off a 24-hour streaming effort that sent about $1,000 to the MinnMax and Giant Bomb page. If you missed it, the charity page will be up for another two months and if you plan to stream on Twitch or YouTube, consider sharing a link to the page to your audience.
And in terms of a bug report, we have a bunch of small tidbits and updates. First, if you noticed a recent Premium Podcast episode titled Screen Time with Jan labeled as an episode of GMM, the issue has been fixed. Nonetheless, if you have premium definitely give that podcast a listen as it provides a peak behind the curtain on how Jan goes about picking voicemails for the dump truck. And speaking of programming additions, look forward to Marry Me Tomodachi, a new premium show that will feature the return of Abby as a guest on the site!
Additionally, you may recall last week Chuck asking for community help to test out new and improved RSS feeds for videos. His experiments have have resulted in some interesting findings, especially when it comes to why the Bombcast RSS feed doesn't seem to play nice with podcast apps like Pocketcasts. This week they shared their final findings about what they think the issues are and what remedies you and I can take to make things better. Long story short, Chuck has implemented a "pub sub" system as a solution and it resolves 90%+ of issues with the new site feeds. Everyone's apps benefited too, because this new program sends fresh stuff within seconds to minutes. For the other 5 to 10% of the problem, it turns out ISPs were blocking Giant Bomb's audio server domain. If you're on Xfinity and experiencing this, turning off their "advanced security" pretty much fixes everything.
Videos & Art
Timelapse Of Upcoming Virtuoso Animation (By: Pickle Giraffe)
With it being Valentine's week, Pickle_Giraffe decided to hit us up with two wonderful creations at the expense of Mike and his growing misery playing Virtuoso. If any of you decide to try and use these works of art as gifts for your partners, I tip my hat to you but suspect you'll be sleeping on the bed tonight.
Community Articles
Indie Game of the Week 454: Viewfinder (By: Mento)
There's a new edition of Mento's "Indie Game of the Week" feature on Giant Bomb and this one is all about Viewfinder by Sad Owl Studios! Read why they were more than pleased by the game and its perspective-altering gameplay!
ZombiePie's Multimedia Mondays - Part 2: Forestia & My Amazing Human Body (By: ZombiePie)
ZombiePie continues to host their own mini-Blight Club on Giant Bomb by checking out the most nightmarish multimedia works from the 90s! This week they played Forestia and My Amazing Human Body! Both games are fairly well known in the creepypasta community, but why? They get to the bottom of it!
What's the Greatest Video Game: Baldur's Gate III (By: imunbeatable801)
I get that this isn't actually a community article, but it felt more than appropriate to treat it as one after the many years imunbeatable was doing their "What's the Greatest Video Game" series on the old site and when you read about why they lost their old account, I think it's more than appropriate to fudge the rules here.
Nonetheless, they are back applying science to all of the best and greatest video games! To start things off, they looked at Baldur's Gate III and tried to see if the hype matched up with their enjoyment of the game and its fairly diverse cast.
Forum Posts Worth Checking Out
Announcements
Let's Test The Video RSS Feed For Grubbsnax Premium! +
Site Update 02 - RSS & Email! (By: chucktowski)
Want to help out Chuck test the Video RSS Feed for Grubbsnax Premium to make sure the premium RSS Feeds are working as designed? Drop by this thread if that sounds like something that interests you!
Next, if you missed the latest site update video and thread, use the middle link and after you watch Chuck's video using the YouTube link, feel free to share any additional input you may have about the future of the site.
General Discussion
Temperature Check: Feb '26 State of Play (By: Mento)
Now that the dust has settled, what are your overall impressions of Sony's February 2026 State of Play? What were the highlights? What were the lowlights? Anyone else surprised at the return of Konami as a proper video game developer and publisher?
The GB Album Club 105 - "Heroes" by David Bowie (By: unclejam23)
After an extended hiatus, the Giant Bomb Album of the Week Club is BACK BAYBEE! To start things off, the club is listening to a BANGER in the form of "Heroes" by David Bowie! As many of you already know, this is considered one of Bowie's greatest works and the album club is busy trying to determine is that really is the case.
Riot Games Has Reduced The Size Of The 2XKO Team. Does The Game Have A Countdown Timer? (By: ZombiePie)
What do you make of the news of Riot reducing the size of the 2XKO team shortly after the release of the game? Is there a timer on 2XKO? Is the future for 2XKO as dim or bad as Highguard? And do you think the inclusion of a single player mode would have helped 2XKO?
Welp, Looks Like Highguard Will Be Dead Soon (By: baltmatrix)
Speaking of Highguard, things look bad for Highguard. Most of the development team has apparently been laid off just two weeks after the game launched. Do you think the game is doomed? Was it always doomed? Share away in the thread your reaction to this news.
What Would Be The Best Form Of Age Verification For Social Media (By: mafuchi)
In light of the recent Discord news and controversy, what do you envision as the best form of age verification for social media? And related, but what are your thoughts about Discord's shockingly bad messaging about their ID verification changes or reforms?
Voice Acting In Games Rarely Does Anything For Me (By: laughingman)
So, we all do it, but under what circumstances will you skip voice acting after reading the text box they are speaking faster than the VO can speak it? Why do you think we do it? Is it a lack of interest in voice acting? Join the conversation in this thread.
Favorite Leveling Mechanics in RPGs? (By: mjhicks88)
What are everyone's favorite levelling systems in RPGs? Do you like your RPG levelling systems to be transparent or opaque systems? Do you like equipment or item-based levelling systems? Where are all my sphere grid sickos at?
In The US, Gamers Are Getting Older (By: monkeyking1969)
It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, but a new study from the ESA reports that the average age of a US gamer is 36 which is a 7 to 8 year jump in age. Do you buy this finding and whether you do or don't do you think it's a bad thing that gaming might be getting older?
Diablo II Gets A New Character Class 25 Years After Its Last Expansion (By: laughingman)
Diablo II is getting a new character class, the Warlock, to mark the game's 30th anniversary! Is this enough to get you to return to Diablo II: Resurrected? Also, this "expansion" which only includes one new class is being sold for $40.
Uwe Boll Is Crowdfunding An Unofficial Sequel To His House Of The Dead Movie (By: bigsocrates)
Do any of you want to talk about Uwe Boll's effort to crowdfund an unofficial sequel to his House of the Dead movie? Seems like a good old fashioned grift, right? Also, who wants to watch that episode of TANG for old time's sake?
What Are You Playing/Finishing/Abandoning This Week (February 8, 2026 Edition) (By: laughingman)
Do any of you have any gaming plans aligned with this being the week of Valentine's Day? Can you think of any that fit the theme? Fire away with your game targets and plans during this rather romantic week in this thread
Premium-Only
Grubbsnax Question Thread (By: jeffgrubb)
For those of you with Premium subs, you can head on over to the Premium-Only board and possibly get a question answered during Grubbsnax if you write and post it in this thread. Huge props to Grubb for taking the time to engage with the forums to whip up some community engagement!
Discord Alternatives for Giant Bomb (By: kopcikx)
In light of recent events, have you checked out any of the chatting alternatives to Discord? Is libera.chat any good? Are there any others you recommend? Is now the time to revive the old Giant Bomb IRC and party like it's 2008? Also, be aware that this is just a community-led discussion and has no bearing or impact as of now on the staff's direction.
Suggestions & Bug Box
Logged Out on the Frontpage, Logged In to the Forums [Answered/Resolved] (By: undeadpool)
A user shared that while they were logged out of the frontpage when they tried to click Login, it took them to the sign-in page and didn't allow them to go any further. To add to their confusion, they were still logged into the forums and could still write Community Articles. Chuck and the user discovered there was an issue with the login from the front page and if this ever impacts you, use https://giantbomb.com/logout.
Filter For Just The Premium Shows On The All Videos Page? [Answered/Planned For The Future] (By: srirachachili)
With the return of premium only shows a handful of users have asked if a filter that shows only premium content was in the works and Chuck has confirmed that it is but their list of site priorities is fairly long so they can't provide an exact ETA on when you can expect to see it pop up. But rest assured, this is coming.
Issues On Chrome [Answered/In Progress] (By: gyratyne)
Have you been seeing error messages when using the site on Chrome? Have you seen the front page or any page for that matter not load properly and whole videos and comments are missing? First, if you have any browser guard extensions, consider turning them off when logging in and also consider flushing your Chrome cache as another measure. And if both of those steps still don't work, please consider dropping a comment in this thread.
Lists
My Ranking of Metroids (By: MajorMitch)
MajorMitch joins Jeff Grubb and Mike in solidarity by ranking Metroid Prime 4: Beyond near the bottom of their rankings of every Metroid game ever made. See how everything else in the franchise ranked, including their top three games, by clicking the link above!
Most Anticipated Games of 2026 (By: epicbenjamin)
Following Sony and Microsoft's showcases, epicbenjamin decided to update their "Most Anticipated Games" list on the site to include some new announcements. With both events now behind us, did any new games announced the past few months rocket to the top of your "Must Play" list? Consider updating your Most Anticipated list if that's the case and don't hesitate to make one in the first place if you haven't already done so!
User Reviews
Undeadpool's review of Silent Hill f
Undeadpool makes a return to writing reviews on Giant Bomb and this week shares their review of Silent Hill f! Read why they think "it asks for so much, and gives so much more" and why they were mostly impressed by this Silent Hill outing.