Trivia / Zero Punctuation

• Accidentally-Correct Writing:
  • After noticing the large number of references to unseen prior events in Red Faction: Armageddon, he suggested that there was supposed to be some kind of intervening game to serve as backstory, and the intervening game would have been dreadful, judging by the fact that Armageddon got made instead. He's about two-thirds right, as it turns out; there was a Syfy original movie based on the series that was meant to serve as backstory, and by all accounts, it was indeed dreadful.
  • In his Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review, Yahtzee comments how based on several design elements, he could deduce that the game was originally planned to be an MMORPG rather than a standalone RPG. He's half-correct — he believed it was meant to be an MMO first but the developers chickened out and underwent a Mid-Development Genre Shift, but the actual plan was that Reckoning was a "prologue" game developed to lead into a proper Kingdoms of Amalur MMO, planned to release well after Yahtzee's review (though it would never come to be due to catastrophic financial troubles and 38 Studios filing for bankruptcy).
  • In his review of MindJack, he speculated the real player character was "an unseen puppet-master" based on Jim Corbijn's lack of familiarity with mind-hacking, and admitting he wouldn't know due to getting stuck on a certain boss and calling it quits. He wasn't far off; the plot twist of that game is that the true player character is the ghost of Andrew Gardner, the inventor of mind-hacking.
  • His assumption that Ride to Hell: Retribution was originally an open-world game was entirely accurate.
  • Though he never played the original Ratchet & Clank (2002), he surmised that the reboot had rewritten their personalities to some degree, as the story treats their relationship as preordained and central even though they barely even talk to each other and Ratchet's dull personality doesn't create much chemistry. Many fans in the comments noted that this was entirely true; Ratchet was originally a surly Jerkass and borderline Designated Hero who underwent a clear arc, and the reboot cut or altered a lot of scenes where the two bickered or built their relationship. Further, they're immediately friendly and familiar with each other when they meet, with no "getting to know you" arc like in the original game.
  • In his review of Control, Yahtzee semi-jokingly guessed that beyond thematic overlap, there's a direct crossover between the game and Remedy Entertainment's earlier work Alan Wake based on how their respective villainous eldritch forces behave in almost the exact same way. Not only do a few scraps of in-game Flavor Text reveal that Alan Wake exists in the same universe, the properties would explicitly crossover in the AWE DLC, confirming that The Hiss of Control and The Dark Presence of Alan Wake are of a similar kind, but antagonistic towards the other.
• Adored by the Network: The Escapist treated Zero Punctuation with an almost exclusive level of prestige and security after picking up Yahtzee in 2007, reliably keeping him and the show afloat for 16 years even following massive scandals with other creators on the site, ranging from skimping out on pay like with the Extra Credits team and abruptly laying off all their content creators except for Yahtzee in 2017. This ultimately ended with Yahtzee resigning voluntarily in 2023, which was both an act of solidarity in support of former editor-in-chief Nick Calandra (with the two co-launching Second Wind shortly afterwards), as well as the culmination of his disillusionment with The Escapist, which included frustrations of having to carry the site following its earlier mass exodus.
• Creator Backlash: He coined the term "PC Master Race" as a joke and a jab towards people who take pride in PC gaming a bit too seriously. As the years went on, people started to use the phrase un-ironically and became exactly the joke that Yahtzee made (with some even crediting him for it). Yahtzee's feelings towards this attitude eventually boiled over in his Kingdom Come: Deliverance review where upon seeing fans in the forum praising the game's flaws and begging developers not to change it for the "plebs", he goes into a near screaming fit and curses out the people using such a mindset to defend the game while also regretting making the "PC Master Race" meme.
  Yahtzee: Fuck you, toffee-nosed PC Master Race shitheads! I wish I'd named you something else now, like the "PC Gaming Dick-Slurp All-Stars!"
• Distanced from Current Events: The YouTube version for High on Life specifically notes that the video was created before its lead developer Justin Roiland received charges of felony domestic violence.
• Executive Meddling: During the final year of Zero Punctuation, there began an increasing crackdown on Yahtzee's ability to curse out of fear of getting demonetized by YouTube, as well as more sponsorships placed during the middle of reviews (something that Yahtzee would become increasingly prone to further snark about). Following Yahtzee's departure from the series to begin Fully Ramblomatic on Second Wind (which handled these issues much less intrusively), several comments from the Second Wind channel indicate that how they were handled for Zero Punctuation were because of executive orders from The Escapist, and thus out of their control.
• Funny Character, Boring Actor: In contrast to the witty, fast talking personality he has on the show, Croshaw is actually a socially awkward introvert. He even specifically requests that fans not approach him if they recognize him, as he is uncomfortable with interacting with his fans.
• He Also Did: In both an E3 2019 blog and his ZP review of Watch Dogs: Legion, Yahtzee mentions that he did uncredited consultant work for the game's writing, specifically to "punch up" the dialogue for Bagley, the game's AI sidekick comic relief.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Until mid-2021, Yahtzee's reviews of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and the below mentioned Skyward Sword were exclusive to the original Escapist website outside of unauthorized uploads.
• Long-Runners: One of the longest continuously-running web video series, having begun in mid-2007 and lasting up until November 2023, with breaks only for Christmas and the occasional personal reason (and even then only ending as a result of Executive Meddling and immediately replaced by its Creator-Driven Successor Fully Ramblomatic rather than because of decaying popularity or a lack of desire to continue on Yahtzee's part). To put that it in perspective, Zero Punctuation started before and has significantly outlived Channel Awesome and most of its original series, while Yahtzee's direct influences Charlie Brooker and Victor Lewis-Smith have both given up the media criticism that influenced him.
• Meaningful Release Date: After almost ten years of being only on the Escapist website, the review for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was uploaded on YouTube on July 17, 2021... the day after the game's HD remaster was released on Nintendo Switch.
• The Merch: The Escapist sold Imp plushies at one point.
• Referenced by...:
  • The episode "Hero Punctuation" of Doraleous & Associates has the group trying to get hired by "King Yatzee of Meh," who gives scathing critques of each mercenary, with simple cartoon flashcards for visual aid. His guard's armor is fashioned to make them look like Imps.
  • Alan Wake: American Nightmare has the achievement "No Punctuation" for acing a battle against literal bad words. Seeing as how he panned the game for its Meta Fiction element, this proves what good sports Remedy are.
  • At one point in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, a washing machine can be found, and if Frank West goes near it, he mentions something about potato salad being inside of it. This is in reference to the ZP episode on Dead Rising 2, where Yahtzee says that “Capcom make game stories the way a tumble dryer makes potato salad”.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Several early episodes got blocked on YouTube due the initial use of licensed music in the intro and outro before the show got its own original theme. For example, an upload of the Peggle review was blocked in several countries due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group, as it used "Free Bird" for the outro. The videos were still viewable on the original Escapist website, accessible through the Zero Punctuation Wiki, until the expiration of Adobe Flash Player on January 1, 2021. However, the video for Psychonauts, blocked for use of licensed music, was re-uploaded on YouTube with ZP's original intro and outro music themes on August 14, 2021, in time for Psychonauts 2. Another video, that for SimCity Societies, was also blocked for use of licensed music, and it was not until late 2022 that the video was discovered and re-uploaded on YouTube with the same treatment on December 18, 2022 (on the start of Chanukah and on the week before Christmas, no less!), albeit with the Team Fortress 2 bonus clip removed due to a licensed music issue (the original video with the clip can still be viewed on DailyMotion).
• Screwed by the Network:
  • The original version of "Void Bastards & Ion Fury" was demonetized supposedly for profanity, with YouTube refusing to elaborate on what they took exception to. The video was uploaded in a censored form with the harder profanities replaced by Yahtzee whispering "YouTube", but even this edited version was demonetized for "adult content".
  • The video for The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog was also demonetized for the word "murder" in the title, so continuing with the previous Take That!, the video was re-uploaded as "The YouTube of Sonic the Hedgehog".
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Yahtzee during a podcast interview with Retsupurae, around the same time that he was approached by The Escapist to do video reviews for them (following his first two Fully Ramblomatic videos), he was also approached by Lowtax if he would like to do videos for Something Awful. Yahtzee decided to wait and hear both offers before making a decision, but upon hearing this, Lowtax gave the blessing for Yahtzee to take up The Escapist's offer, feeling they likely wouldn't be able to compete.
  • Yahtzee was requested by fans to review Homefront but he declined as he didn't want to review another "right-wing military shooter", though he did address the game in his review of Homefront: The Revolution.
  • During the Drowning Out of Duke Nukem Forever, he revealed he'd been asked to write a script for the game, but his ideas were turned down because Yahtzee wanted to make the game aware of Duke being a dated artifact of the 90's, but the producers stated that Duke had to be played straight and perfect.^note He turned out to be right on the money on that, as one of the main criticism of the game was precisely that the character of Duke Nukem was a product of a bygone era that was impossible to take seriously today.
  • After his departure, Yahtzee revealed that he and Nick Calandra had been considering buying The Escapist outright before Gamurz came along. They'd also been quietly planning on going independent for some time, since they saw the writing on the wall with a major corporate buy-out like that.

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