United States · 1995–2002
Edge's American sibling — an unusually intelligent, often controversial magazine that treated game development as a subject worth interrogating rather than a source of screenshots.
Next Generation launched in January 1995, published by Imagine Media, and ran until January 2002. It was affiliated with the UK's Edge and shared content with it, and the family resemblance was immediate: clean design, serious prose, and a refusal to write for children. It was published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West, who left his job at MEGA — the Genesis counterpart to Super Play — to take the position. What set it apart in the American market was the depth of its access and the seriousness of its intent. Nearly every feature and preview carried extensive commentary and input from the developers themselves, making Next Generation one of the very few publications genuinely bringing the game development process to readers rather than merely reporting its outputs. Its interviews — with figures like Trip Hawkins and Atari's Sam Tramiel — were substantive and frequently uncomfortable, and its willingness to run critical, argumentative features made it unusual in a market where most magazines existed downstream of publisher marketing. It has a fair claim to being the most intelligently written games magazine the United States has produced. West left in 1997, and the magazine's editorial direction began to shift thereafter.