When unwitting video game professor Brian David Gilbert (Unraveled) told fans on Sunday that there would be a new Unraveled coming their way, they had no way of knowing that this episode would be the show’s last, via Twitter. Polygon’s Unraveled series has been answering the un-asked questions in gamer’s peripheries – like “When Can Mario Retire?” and “What Dark Souls Boss is the Best Manager?” – since 2018. In his final video, David Gilbert tackled a question fans have been asking for since the show’s inception: which Pokémon is the most edible?
“I have received hundreds of requests for a video on Pokémon edibility,” David Gilbert shared in his final Polygon post “and I would never know rest unless I tackled this topic.” David Gilbert has jokingly teased about tackling this topic in previous Unraveled episodes, due to the seemingly insatiable demand.
The final episode, posted to Polygon on Monday, delivers the show’s typical tangential musings and video game lore knowledge-dump, but is additionally sprinkled with reflection on the series Unraveled as whole. David Gilbert both references specific episodes of Unraveled, such as the unreleased version of his Castlevania video, and summarizes the thesis of the series, and his time at Polygon overall. “Unraveled has never actually been about proving the answer to surreal questions” David Gilbert said in his final Unraveled “sometimes creators intentionally leave blank space and it’s fun to speculate what bizarre truths could fill that space.”
Within the video itself, there’s little mention of when and why David Gilbert decided to make his departure from Polygon. However, in a Twitter thread promoting the video, David Gilbert provided more details for fans who may have been taken aback by the news. The creator thanked the team at Polygon, while mentioning that he felt it was his time to leave. David Gilbert expanded “I want to help make bigger, stranger, less referential projects. I’d like to make the stuff that, in 10 years, someone else could make an Unraveled about” (Twitter).
Patrick Gill (Unraveled), a Polygon creator who worked closely with David Gilbert on Unraveled, bid farewell to his colleague on Twitter after the final episode was posted. “Helping out on Unraveled was some of the most fun I’ve ever had at work,” Gill shared in Twitter thread.
David Gilbert promised he would continue to make “weird vids” on his YouTube channel as he looks to transition into a new position in the realm of video games or television, via Twitter. Hopefully he can continue to combine his areas of expertise to make unique and engaging content as he has done for the past two years on Unraveled.