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Print-run gaming zine · London Pitch us a story →

Est. 2019 · Shoreditch back room

Savage guides for players who read the patch notes twice.

We ink long-form boss breakdowns, indie deep-dives and honest hardware teardowns — riso-printed in spirit, pixel-sharp in practice. No hype, no sponsored scores.

Founder at a cluttered desk laying out zine spreads

A note from the founder

Started on a jammed office printer. Still runs on stubbornness.

I began SavageBattleVanguard folding forty photocopied pages of a Bloodborne guide on a Hanbury Street kitchen table. Readers wanted the version nobody else would write — the one that admits a boss is badly tuned and tells you exactly which ledge cheeses it.

Seven years on we are three writers, one photographer and a very tired risograph. Every guide is played to completion before it ships, every hardware review is bought at retail, and no score is ever traded for early access.

— Marcus, editor & chief button-masher

Why readers stick around

Us versus the algorithm mill

What you get SavageBattleVanguard Typical review farm
Games finished before scoring Always — credits roll first Two hours, then guesswork
Sponsored or paid scores Never, clearly labelled ads only Blurred lines
Boss & build guides depth Frame-by-frame, 3,000+ words Scraped wiki bullets
Hardware sourced at retail Bought with our own money PR loaner units
Physical zine edition Quarterly riso print None

Recent ink

Browse by desk

Reader voices

Shouted from the comments

The Radahn breakdown saved my sanity — the note about staggering him during the meteor phase is the only guide that actually got me the kill.

Priya S. — Camden · beat it on try 41

Bought a handheld purely on their teardown. They flagged the drift risk on the sticks months before anyone else and they were dead right.

Tom H. — Bristol · March 2026

The quarterly print zine is gorgeous. Ink smudges and all — it feels like a mixtape for people who still finish games.

Rachel M. — Manchester · print subscriber

Support the desk

Membership tiers

Reader

For the casual lurker

£0/mo

  • ✓ Every online guide, free
  • ✓ Weekly patch-note digest
  • ✓ Comment & request topics
Start reading
Most popular

Vanguard

For the completionist

£6/mo

  • ✓ Everything in Reader
  • ✓ Early access boss guides
  • ✓ Ad-free reading
  • ✓ Members-only Discord
Join the Vanguard

Print Club

For the collector

£12/mo

  • ✓ Everything in Vanguard
  • ✓ Quarterly riso-printed zine posted
  • ✓ Numbered art print each issue
  • ✓ Name in the back-page credits
Get the print

Pitch, question or fan mail

Reach the back room

Got a boss we should break, an indie we should hunt, or hardware we should tear apart? Send it over. We read everything, usually with coffee going cold.

Phone
+44 20 7437 7284
Studio
58 Hanbury Street, Shoreditch, London E1 5JL
Desk hours
Mon–Fri, 10:00–18:00 GMT