Patrick Dane

I’ve been a professional entertainment reporter and editor for over five years, working primarily in the film and game industry. My work is read by millions every month, as I help to edit and run one of the biggest entertainment blogs in pop culture, Bleeding Cool.

From Staff Writer to Editorial Assistant to Managing Editor, I’ve proven myself as a key team member across multiple sites that is adaptable and capable. I’m now a recognisable voice in the film and video game industry, where my scoops, interviews, editorials, reviews and editing skills have seen me move on an upwards trajectory since entering the space. This includes raising a whole gaming division with Bleeding Cool from nothing, to a respectable outlet in the field on my own, as well as being nominated for ‘Best Critic’ at the Games Media Award 2016 and part of the honorable mentions for MCV’s 30 under 30 list.

About me

Since 2012, I’ve been an active part of professional entertainment journalism. Starting predominantly in the film and TV space, my focus for the last seven years has almost exclusively been in games. I learned the craft through early stints at Bleeding Cool, WhatCulture, and GameRant.

However, I took a leap when I was hired to come back and create Bleeding Cool’s new games vertical. I ran the division on my own and shaped it into a decently recognized player in the space. Within a year, I’d impressed enough to be promoted to the Managing Editor of the entire site. While Managing Editor, I helped guide the brand to new waters and oversaw around twenty contributors. The site grew during that time, implementing changes such as a new style guide and Slack ecosystem.

In 2017, I left the website to grow as a writer and gain experience with some of the most reputable outlets in the world. Since going freelance, I’ve written for Metro UK, IGN, GamesRadar, Eurogamer, PCGamer, VG247, GamesMaster, Red Bull, International Business Times, GamesTM, and more. I love being able to write about games and broader entertainment, it's most of what I've done my entire adult life.

Metro •

Exclusive: Bungie's CEO Pete Parsons on Destiny 2 and the split with Activision

GameCentral sits down for an exclusive interview with Bungie CEO and Chairman, Pete Parsons, talking about everything from crunch to Destiny’s social benefits and the company’s split with Activision. With the release of Beyond Light, Bungie has taken a bold new step for Destiny 2. What is intended to be the start of a new trilogy of expansions sees Bungie with a clear vision of where it’s headed, both as the creators of Destiny but also as a company. Since their split with Activision in earl
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Spiritfarer Review – To Be A Friend – Patrick Dane

Gentle isn’t a word used to describe a lot of video games, especially ones that explore death in a very direct way. In fact, there aren’t all that many games that explore death either. They are often trying to hurry you past the murderous crimes you’ve wrought before you have time to consider them. Spiritfarer is a different beast though. Or rather, a different huggable animal you will guide to their final resting place when they are ready. Spiritfarer‘s gambit is a clever subversion. The mythi

Rogue Company Early Access Review – Going Rogue and Breaking the Rules – Patrick Dane

Counter-Strike is a hardcore shooter. That comes with all the positives and caveats that implies. It has the perception of being so pure, that it’s hard to deny, if someone is great at Counter-Strike, they are an elite shooter player. It also comes with a whole lot of elitism creating a wall around a dense tactical game. There is a high bar for entry, especially as its form is fairly unique. You sit, you wait, you think about where your opponent is, and the angle they will be looking at. If you
IGN •

Overwatch 2's 5v5 Shift Has Created Uncertainty for Long-Time Players

The Overwatch community has shown a great deal of patience while waiting for Overwatch 2 news. The few glimpses they’ve gotten have been entirely focused on the new co-op and story-focused content, and with an absence of news on the PvP-side until very recently, there’s been a vague sense of apprehension around the hardcore community. And while the recent PvP-focused livestream finally lifted the veil on Blizzard's plans for competitive play in the sequel, it brought with it a pretty big bombsh
Eurogamer.net •

Destiny 2 Vault of Glass guide, changes and everything else you need to know about the returning raid

Our complete walkthrough for Destiny's Vault of Glass raid, complete with boss strategies and combat tips. Vault of Glass - the original Destiny's first ever raid, and arguably Bungie's best - has returned to Destiny 2. Vault of Glass is available free for all players - perfect for lapsed Destiny players looking to relive old memories. That said, though the reintroduction of the Vault of Glass may have the trapping of the old raid, but it's a new beast altogether. The structure of many of the
NME •

'Overwatch 2''s change to 5v5 is a bold, scary but ultimately exciting new direction

Overwatch isn’t a stranger to change. Over its now five year lifespan, it’s seen massive structural shifts. Some forget that when the game first launched, there were no hero limits to team composition. More recently, it restricted choice further for the health of the game by implementing the two tanks, two DPS and two support role lock. There aren’t many, if any games like Overwatch, and perfecting its formula has been a long, half-decade process for Blizzard. • READ MORE: Call of Duty Warzone’s
Metro •

Destiny 2 producer Wendy Wade discusses Season of the Splicer and Vault of Glass

As Season of the Splicer begins, GameCentral talks to Destiny 2’s producer about playing with the enemy and the return of Vault of Glass. Destiny 2’s latest chapter has launched this week, bringing new activities, story content, and a raid. We got to sit down with Bungie just prior to the release and talk about a whole host of topics concerning the season, as well as the broader game. Now that Season of the Chosen is in the rear-view mirror, Guardians are sprinting headfirst into the Tron-like
Metro •

Call Of Duty: Warzone Season 3 live now, as Verdansk continues the COD legacy

The biggest update yet for Warzone has just gone live, as GameCentral hears from Raven Software about the past and future of Call Of Duty. It’s rare you can pinpoint a moment in a game where everything changed. Not just for the title itself, but a moment that shifted the ground of the entire industry itself. Moments like that are by their nature, defining. While PR buzzwords like iconic and legendary are often thrown around with little care, those moments at their most genuine are few and far b
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Metro Exodus Review - The Rack

Metro Exodus is a tough one. As a reviewer, you ask yourself if a game is good or bad. You look at graphics, gameplay, story, and then you appraise how well they all blend. Obviously, there's a lot more to it but reviews are mostly boiled down to those components. Is a game as good as the sum of its parts? Does it transcend them? Metro Exodus is complicated because it's often impressive and a struggle within the same instant. It's jarring and heart-touching at the same time. It's got a dedicatio
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Battlefield V Review - The Stories Untold

The quiet moments are what really caught me. Battlefield V is a game full to the brim with down and dirty combat. Seeing 10s of soldiers storm one point amongst screams and artillery fire is as exhilarating as it is horrifying. However, there is magic in those brief moments before a game starts or when the fight hasn't quite made its way to your part of the map yet, when everything is quiet but for some rumbles in the distant. In that space, an interesting feeling you don't usually feel when it
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Marvel's Spider-Man Review: How the Spider Found His Spirit

There have been a lot of Spider-Man games. For nearly as long as video games have been around, game developers have been trying to find a way to put players in the shoes of Peter Parker. Since 1982's Spider-Man for the Atari 2600 to today, a quick trip to Wikipedia will show you that there has always been a fascination with the hero in the medium. Sadly, the number of those titles that are actually 'great' is restricted to probably just one hand. While many were (just) on the side of good, that
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Video: Everything You Need Know About World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth's Story in 7 Minutes.

We've put a video together to catch you up with what's going on in World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Battle for Azeroth. World of Warcraft's seventh expansion, Battle for Azeroth has now launched and players are out there running around fighting their respected wars for and against the Alliance and Horde. Things are a little tense in the world of Azeroth right now, with both factions in an all-out war for the first time in a little while. There are no more big overarching, world-ending bad
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Early Thoughts on Agony: It’s Actually Closer to Boring

Agony caught my attention when it first started to be talked about in the press. Survival horror that is worth getting excited over is a rare breed nowadays. Bar your Outlast 2s and your Resident Evil 7s, there are only a handful of smaller titles that tend to grab the attention. It's a niche genre but one with a lot of lovers. That's why when something potentially interesting floats down the river, it's worth keeping an eye on. Agony looked like it had promise. Taking players a trip through hel
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Monster Hunter: World Review - The Special Sauce

There is an important note that needs to preface this entire review and it's one that I think is important to understanding the context of where I'm coming from here: I've never played a Monster Hunter game. I tried about two hours of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the Wii U, but I found it fairly insufferable. Conceptually, as a big lover of… well, big monsters, it is absolutely my jam. Nice, methodical fights against amazingly designed monsters, both visually and play-wise, is something I think
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Tracer's Sexuality Didn't Make Overwatch Political - It Always Was

A lot, and when I say that I mean most, players of Overwatch don't care about the lore. It's designed so you don't have to engage with the characters you are playing with, or the locations you're in. If you are just there to get as many eliminations as you can, or help others get as many elminations as they can (god bless you healers), the game is set up to be able to handle that. At the same time though, there are cosplayers, fan art-ers and those genuinely interested in the story of the univer
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

The Walking Dead: A New Frontier Episode 1 And 2 Review - Far From Dead

Telltale's The Walking Dead's first season remains one of the best storytelling achievements in games in the last few years by my account. It's the game that transformed Telltale Games from an odd studio that seemed strangely focused on episodic adventure games, two things that weren't exactly lighting up the charts in 2012, into a heavy hitter. With some real ground breaking moves, The Walking Dead almost invigorated both the genre and form, and the developer hasn't looked back since. The serie
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Dishonored 2 Review: Arkane Studios Have Done Well Post-Dunwall

Dunwall isn't a place that leaves you easy. The city of the first Dishonored was a grim landscape, rife with betrayal, grime, and blood flowing through its rough streets. Protagonist Corvo could be a really nasty piece of work with a focus on slowly taking out everyone nastier than he. The steampunk reality wasn't like too much out there, and it became one of the most recognisable stealth games ever made overnight. It remains one of the most distinct new AAA properties to emerge over the last fe
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Titanfall 2 Review: Exquisite From Ro-Top To Robot-Tom

Titanfall was an excellent game. It was hurt by a lack of content both without a single player campaign and in-depth multiplayer progression, but the moment to moment might be some of my favorite online shooting this generation. It was cinematic, massive, fast and chaotic multiplayer, all held together with a really firm rule base in the way of how the game worked. That's why I was initially worried by what I played of Titanfall 2. It felt hermogonised, smaller and like it was chasing an identi
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Battlefield 1 Review: DICE Create Their Best Ever With Impressive Take On WWI

Battlefield is a franchise that has always impressed me immensely. It's focus on huge scale online matches and utterly breathtaking graphical capabilities are impossible to not get something out of. That being said, there is something incomprehensible about it to me. It is the only first person shooter I feel genuinely terrible at, it's scale and pace of combat feeling incredibly off with my own sensibilities (more on that later). Add that alongside the mostly forgetable campaigns, and the serie
Bleeding Cool News And Rumors •

Gears Of War 4 Review: War Never Changes (And That Is Good)

Gears of War is a special series. Perhaps that sounds hyperbolic, as some might make fun of it for being a meatheaded Michael Bay-like blockbuster, with nothing but action, blood and shooting on its agenda. It's hard to argue that the series doesn't have that tone built into it either, but calling it just that, I believe, is selling the franchise short. While it's all do-rags and testosterone on the outside, there is an intelligent core to the story and universe with some genuine emotional depth
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