Sundays are for celebrating the 800th-est ever Sunday Papers. Happy big 8-0-0, Sunday Papers. Here are four fun facts about the number 800, followed by some quality writing from the past week.

• Irish monks completed the Book of Kells in 800 A.D., roughly
• 800 is the number Americans dial if they don’t want to pay for phone calls
• The Simpsons’ 800th televised episode, guest starring Kevin Bacon, aired just last month
• If you look at the number 800 while tilting your head to the left, it looks like a surprised frog

And now, words.

The loss of certain Eurogamer friends and colleagues continues to string, though deputy ed Chris Tapsell did take to Bluesky this week to give them a lovely farewell speech.

While he may have initially seemed an outsider of sorts compared to Eurogamer chiefs of old – at least to some on the surface, coming from his 20-plus years across our sister sites VG247 and USGamer, and before that the cult-favourite site he founded in our once-rival VideoGamer – I can’t stress enough how much Tom ‘got’ Eurogamer. His goal was for us to be at the heart of the big stories that mattered most to our readers with original, diligent reporting and on-the-button commentary, and that will absolutely continue.

I was also dead pleased to see one of the affected parties, former RPS dealsman Will Judd, has reunited with the now-independent Digital Foundry. Gratz Will!

Now, remember how former Sable dev Gregorios Kythreotis set up a new studio, Eteo, which in addition to games promised a series of game design articles/newsletters? Those are up and running, and have featured such Friends of RPS as Christian Donlan, Holly Nielsen, and Jay Castello. Here’s Boen Wang’s analysis of the radio in GTA V, and that game’s acute case of carbrain.

It’s a tiny detail, but these two ads are emblematic of GTA V’s failed attempts at satire. If gas-guzzling trucks are for patriotic rubes and emissions-free EVs are for self-congratulating snobs, what counts as a normal car? Is there any car that doesn’t deserve mockery and scorn? If GTA V depicts conservatives, liberals, celebrities, paparazzi, hillbillies, hipsters, cops, crooks, spooks, feminists, and women in general as some combination of vapid, vain, delusional, and just plain irritating—then who is worth taking seriously? What, if anything, is worth believing in?

Because lemme tell you, confused social commentary notwithstanding, Grand Theft Auto V believes in the automobile.

For Defector, Lauren Thiesen visits Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome, an ice hockey arena that looks like the London Olympic velodrome after spending two weeks dead in a river. Includes some thoughts on big venue design, which I always end up thinking about whenever I go to one; my most common conclusion is that concrete and plastic seats are uncomfortable, but trying to establish some semblance of luxury would somehow lessen the experience.

This new venue is not shaped like a saddle, and has neither Saddle nor Dome in its name. Instead, it will officially be a generic Scotia Place, courtesy of one of the three or so companies that sponsor Canadian buildings. Whereas the Saddledome has the whimsical charm of a Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen sculpture, the Place projects to be just another mall surrounding a hockey rink. You can tell, because the most specific compliment that Gary Bettman was able to give it this week was that “it has more bathrooms.”

Someone recently decided to do a war, in case you missed it. Garbage Day considers, among other oddities, the Finance Broification of armed conflict.

There was half a billion dollars in trading volume, according to The New York Times’ Mike Isaac, on prediction markets this weekend. One Polymarket user named Magamyman, obviously, made more than half a million dollars over the weekend, betting that Khamenei would be “out as Supreme Leader of Iran by March 31st.” Kalshi, for its part, is refusing to pay some users for the same bet, saying that it won’t allow “people profiting from death” — got some bad news for you on that one.

Amanda Guinzberg, meanwhile, goes looking for relief. Attempted sources: murder trials, Alan Cumming, the Winter Olympics etc.

Humans are uniquely skilled at doing this. Rewriting the story as it happens. Erecting scaffolding after a collapse. Making meaning from a fallen angel. The Quad God ushered back to Earth. Ferried home by faithfuls who know from experience about hype and magic, practice and floundering, winning and losing, the laws of physics, and bodies on ice; spun out of sequins and lace.

Music this week is the Marathon soundtrack. Extraction shooters may be an inherently miserable idea that both encourage and reward the worst impulses of online multiplayist, but hey, game’s got tunes.