When the weather gets cold, I like to get cozy and settle in to a game. I have a bad habit of playing a few games at the same time and bouncing between them as my interest in a particular game fluctuates. This week’s blog post is a list of the games I’m currently playing. If a game is on multiple platforms, I’ll include links to the different versions.

The Outer Worlds 2 (PS5/Xbox)

Obsidian developed my favorite Fallout game, so I’ve been partial to their games for the last few years. They’ve continued a design choice since Avowed that I appreciate. Avowed was open enough that it felt like an open-world game, but it was contained enough that I didn’t feel punished by going in a particular direction. Sometimes open-world games prioritize the size of the world without filling it with enough content to reward exploration, and to be honest, as I’ve gotten older, I don’t want to spend hundreds of hours sifting through a game to find what’s worth looting. Avowed also allowed you to upgrade the equipment that you liked throughout the entire game, so I didn’t have to waste time on loot grind. It was nice to see The Outer Worlds 2 kept that streamlined design, and I find the Outer Worlds setting interesting. Outer Worlds’ setting tends to be a little more comedic than Fallout: New Vegas was, but it still itches that Obsidian itch.

Death Stranding

Death Stranding is a game that I know is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s often described as a walking simulator, which isn’t incorrect. But there is something that hooked me about the world. Post-apocalyptic tends to be a go-to genre for me, but it tends to get a little too grimdark for my tastes. So I appreciate that Death Stranding can get goofy at times. While Kojima’s claims about creating a new genre of game feel a little too self-grandiose, I do find that multiplayer features were melded into a single-player game. You’re able to build equipment, like generators or ladders, to help you reach your destinations. But once you connect your destination to a “quantum network,” it allows you to use what other people built, and they can use what you built. The game rewards you for essentially helping other people play, even if it’s indirect, which I found heartwarming.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

My cousin and I played a good amount of Fatshark’s previous game, Vermintide II, because it reminded us of Left 4 Dead 2. We were always more fans of the Warhammer 40,000 setting than Warhammer Fantasy, or what’s now called Warhammer: The Old World. So I always hoped they’d someday make a similar game, but set in the grimdark future. Well, they finally did! It’s more melee-heavy than I expected, or at least I don’t find the shooting as pleasant as I would have wanted, but I find something enjoyable about occasionally loading into a mission to fight the horde of Chaos-infected cultists of Nurgle. I’m also surprised that the customizable characters have as much personality as they do, because Vermintide used a limited roster of characters that only had cosmetics you could unlock.

Bonus!

Palworld

I try to limit my posts to materials you can get via Mead Library, or at the very least, the broader Monarch System. Videogames sometimes aren’t the best about releasing games physically, and when you write a post about what you’re currently playing, you might have a game that isn’t yet out. In this case, I have been playing a lot of Palworld, which is still being developed. I love the combination of survival mechanics and creature capturing. Hopefully, when the game finishes development, they will release a physical copy of the game.