Forged in Shoreditch, London

Where every pixel gets put to the fire.

Pixel Frontier Raiders is a UK gaming blog for people who read the patch notes. We hammer out deep reviews, hardware teardowns and retro archaeology — no hype, no filler, just the good ore.

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Editorial desk: +44 20 7613 6805 · [email protected]

Neon-lit gaming setup glowing in a dark workshop
Editor writing notes beside a retro console

Our workbench

A blog built like a foundry, not a feed.

We started in 2016 as a Discord full of pedantic PC builders and Saturn apologists. Ten years on we still write the way we argue: slowly, with receipts. Every piece is played to completion, timed, and cross-checked before it ships.

No sponsors in the copy

Independent, opinionated, receipts attached.

Review builds are bought at retail or logged as loans in plain sight. Scores are earned, not brokered. If a launcher eats your save file, we say so — and we tell you which patch fixed it three weeks later.

Close-up of a mechanical keyboard being tested

What we publish

Columns you can actually plan your week around.

Deep Review Fridays

Full-completion reviews with logged playtime, frame data and a plain-English verdict. Members-tier long reads from £4/month.

Hardware Teardowns

Handhelds, GPUs and mechanical boards opened on the bench, thermals measured, value-per-pound scored. New teardown every second Tuesday.

Retro Archaeology

Dig columns on lost prototypes, cancelled ports and cartridge preservation, written with emulator devs and collectors.

Patch Watch

Living verdicts that get re-scored as launch bugs are fixed. We track every hotfix so you know exactly when a game is worth buying.

Indie Forge

Monthly spotlights on UK and European indie studios, plus playable-demo roundups from EGX and Rezzed in London.

The Raiders Podcast

A fortnightly 45-minute show recorded in our Rivington Street studio. Free everywhere; ad-free feed for members.

The crew

The raiders behind the byline.

Portrait of Editor-in-Chief

Marcus D.

Editor-in-Chief

Runs the review desk and settles scoring disputes. Sixteen years covering RPGs and strategy; still bitter about a cancelled Dreamcast port.

Portrait of Hardware Editor

Priya N.

Hardware Editor

Owns the teardown bench and the thermal camera. Ex-repair tech who can tell a good handheld from a hot brick in ten minutes.

Portrait of Retro Columnist

Tomasz K.

Retro Columnist

Preservation nerd and cartridge whisperer. Writes the Archaeology dig and keeps our emulator test rigs alive.

Portrait of Podcast Producer

Freya L.

Podcast Producer

Runs the Rivington Street studio and the Indie Forge column. Books the guests, cuts the tape, chases every launch demo.

Read by the right people

What the raiders' guild is saying.

★★★★★
The Patch Watch column literally saved me £60 — they flagged the save-corruption bug on day one and told me exactly when it was fixed.
Callum R. — Manchester · March 2025
★★★★★
Their handheld teardown convinced me to skip the hype model and buy last year's — thermals don't lie. Best hardware writing in the UK, full stop.
Sofia H. — Bristol · January 2025
★★★★★
I found my current favourite studio through the Indie Forge spotlight. The podcast is the only gaming show I never skip. Worth every penny of the membership.
Dev P. — Edinburgh · February 2025

Free every Friday

The Frontier Dispatch.

One tight email: the week's verdict, one teardown, one retro dig, and the patch that changed a score. No spam, unsubscribe in a click.

Pitch, tips, corrections

Send it to the editorial desk.

Story pitches, hardware loans, review corrections or membership questions — we read everything and reply within two working days.

Phone
+44 20 7613 6805
Studio
82 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3AY
Desk hours
Mon–Fri, 10:00–18:00 GMT