Unwinnable Monthly – December 2025
This is a reprint of the letter from the editor in Unwinnable Monthly Issue 194. You can buy Issue 194 now, or purchase a monthly subscription to make sure you never miss an issue!
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Dear Reader,
Last issue of the year. In classic Unwinnable form, we’ve prepared a basically entirely normal issue for you with a few kind-of wrap-up pieces here and there. Thank you all for a wonderful 2025, love any year where we get to take all of you lovely people on a little critical journey with us. Especially when we get to make a lot of new friends along the way.
A little preview for next year, we’ll have new columnists, the Final Fantasy x Politics issue and a few other themes and treats. Stick with us, share us with your friends. Help us pay as many writers as much as we can!
This month we’ve got Orrin Grey back on in the feature on Frankenstein.
Elijah Beahm has an actual year-end list. Jay Castello practices the law. Maddi Chilton gets Cage-y. Natasha Ochshorn also does an actual year-end list! Matt Marrone wonders remembers when games where inscrutable. Emily Price also did a kind-of end-of-the-year wrap-up, sort of, of a kind. Justin Reeve goes into the frozen lands. Rob Rich lets it all go. Levi Rubeck sees stars. Ben Sailer is super jazzed to be ecstatic. Phoenix Simms returns to Silent Hill. Noah Springer didn’t watch Fellowship of the Ring.
As always, be good to each other, resist fascism and AI, and do one thing today, tomorrow, and the next day to make the world around you brighter, kinder and more pleasant. Thank you for a great 2025. See you all in the next Exploits!
David Shimomura
Chicago, IL
December 11, 2025
P.S. Since writing this letter, Team Unwinnable has struggled with the loss of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer. Writing this, I’m smiling just thinking about all the times people quote The Princess Bride around me. But Reiner was much more than an actor/filmmaker. He was a champion for issues near and dear to us here. He was someone who contributed to culture through his art but also through his very human deeds. He wanted the world to be better and worked to see it. I wish I had more to say but go out and do good, make the world a place Rob would have been proud to call home.
