Endless Mode: It’s the New Thing

Hi. Welcome to Endless Mode. We’re new here. Let’s get to know each other.

Do you like video games? Anime? Other kinds of games, like board games and tabletop RPGs and pinball? How about interactive and immersive art, like theme parks and experiential art exhibits? Do you like fun? Do you like being serious about your fun (but, like, not always serious, I mean, it’s supposed to be fun, right)? Maybe you just like the beauty of the English language and want some letters to stare at. If you’re into any of those things, Endless Mode wants to be your friend. And even if you aren’t especially interested in any of ‘em, we’d still love it if you could hang around. We’re going to write about all of them, every day, from a place of knowledge, passion and experience, and with an eye for what they say about our world and the larger culture. Because ultimately what’s most important about these experiences that transport us to other worlds is what they say and how they make us feel about the one we’re stuck living in. 

Launching a brand new website in 2025 is a challenge, of course. In fact the impetus to really get moving with Endless Mode dates back to a day exactly two months ago today that really underlined how fraught the media industry is right now. On May 1 it appeared that two of the best and most popular games and culture sites—Giant Bomb and Polygon—were both being shut down by clueless management. Paste Media had been looking to expand its gaming and anime coverage through a new site for months, with a number of possibilities on the table, and when two major sites on the scene seemed to be disappearing simultaneously we viewed that as an opportunity instead of a warning sign. We knew their audiences would suddenly be looking for a new place to read and talk about games, and we knew there’d be a tremendous amount of world class talent available. We looked at all the options before us, pitched our way around various ideas and concepts, and two months later here we are with Endless Mode. 

Well before that day in May, the original pitch for what eventually became Endless Mode centered on the idea of play—an eternal human behavior inseparable from what it means to be alive. Play isn’t just valuable because of the act of play itself, though, and the way it temporarily redefines our relationship to the world around us—the “flow state” where play supersedes everything else—seemed like a good hook for a new site. Of course play isn’t the only thing that can augment reality in that way. Theme parks, which increasingly look to games for inspiration, and exist specifically to make us feel like we’ve briefly left the real world, felt like a natural fit for this new angle. (And yeah, it’s probably not a coincidence that I’m also a hopeless theme park fan who long ago shoehorned writing about them into my job description.) And it’s a very short line from theme parks to immersive art like the kind found at Meow Wolf’s exhibits or interactive experiences like escape rooms. 

The final piece of the Endless Mode puzzle was found when Elijah Gonzalez, my longtime assistant editor at Paste, officially signed on to the site as its Associate Editor. His love for and understanding of anime has quickly made him one of the best critics of that medium in America today. And with anime growing more popular every single year, it only made sense for Elijah to cover it in depth for Endless Mode. If there are two pillars propping this site up, they’re video games and anime, and I’m excited to see what Elijah has in store for our anime section.