The first time Dan Marshall saw Wolfenstein 3D, it wasn’t just a game—it was a revelation. At eight years old, stepping into a friend’s living room and staring at a 3D world rendered in real-time shattered his understanding of what games could be. Decades later, that moment still lingers in his work as director of Size Five Games, where titles like Time Gentlemen, Please!, The Swindle, and Earth Must Die* blend humor, strategy, and sharp storytelling.
Today, Marshall’s PC is a digital museum of gaming history, cluttered with relics of his childhood and the games that still captivate him. Among them: XCOM 2, which has swallowed 219 hours of his life, and Atomfall, a British Fallout clone that he’s replaying despite finishing it. His library isn’t just a graveyard of forgotten installs—it’s a living record of how gaming evolves, from the turn-based tactics of Fallout 1 to the procedural dungeon-building chaos of Into the Restless Ruins.
Marshall’s current obsession is Atomfall, a game he initially dismissed as a pale imitation of Fallout—until he picked it up on sale. What he found was a tightly woven mystery, where every encounter and hidden clue feeds into a larger narrative. It’s not just side quests and leveling up, he says. Every room, every building, has clues pointing toward your objectives. The game’s blend of tension, humor, and investigative depth struck a chord, earning it a rare endorsement: a game he’d wear a t-shirt for.
The Games That Defined Him
Marshall’s Steam library reads like a timeline of gaming’s most influential titles. At the top of the list is XCOM 2, a tactical masterpiece that has absorbed nearly 220 hours of his time. Its appeal lies in the slow burn of base management—researching upgrades, fast-forwarding time, and suddenly realizing four hours have vanished in the pursuit of a new mission. It’s one of the most deeply satisfying games I’ve ever played, he admits. The game’s staying power is such that he’ll never uninstall it, keeping it on his system for emergencies.
- 219 hours in XCOM 2—his longest-played game by far.
- Still installed: Fallout 1 (1997), which he lasted only 20 minutes in before giving up.
- Current favorite: Atomfall, a British post-apocalyptic shooter with deep investigative layers.
- Inspiration: Into the Restless Ruins, a dungeon-building game with Tetris-like tension.
- Childhood relic: X-Wing (1993), where difficulty spikes and drops mimic real-world piloting.
A Developer’s Digital Toolkit
Beyond games, Marshall’s PC is a hub for creativity. His go-to non-gaming tool? The Snipping Tool, a utility he uses daily for work and social media—cropping screenshots, annotating ideas, and sharing moments. I genuinely cannot believe everyone doesn’t use it, he says. It’s like a pair of scissors for your screen.
His desktop, meanwhile, is immaculate—a rare trait in a developer’s world. But the real mess isn’t on his screen; it’s in his mind, where ideas for new games simmer alongside the games he loves. Whether it’s the procedural dungeons of The Swindle or the satirical fury of Earth Must Die, his work is shaped by the same curiosity that drew him to Wolfenstein 3D* all those years ago.
For Marshall, gaming isn’t just play—it’s a craft. And his PC, cluttered with hours of strategy and moments of discovery, is both his workshop and his time capsule.
