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What game is your personal "Silksong"?
A "Silksong" = a game that you waited a long time for and that met your very high expectations.
- What was the game?
- How long did you wait for it?
- What were you expecting?
- How did it deliver?
(And yes, Silksong can be your "Silksong")
Baldur's Gate 3.
I was (and am) a big fan of Larian's previous game, Divinity: Original Sin 2 (if anyone wants to play co-op and can deal with timezones, reach out. I've run out of IRL friends interested enough in a playthrough) so when I heard that they were going to be making BG3 I was very excited for it.
I played early access when it first entered, did a couple of playthroughs and then stopped, waiting for the final release. Since then, I've done one full co-op playthrough, one more ongoing, an incredibly dishonourable honour mode playthrough, and an embracing the dark urge playthrough (that I needed to decompress after).
BG3 is not a perfect game. It has a steep learning curve; everyone I've talked to who hasn't played D&D 5th Edition struggled with the concepts, and people who haven't played a Larian game struggled with the inventory/hotbar management. The lower city is physically large enough to burn people out right near the end (though now I know the place well, it no longer feels as large to me. It's just that the actually important things are further apart). The story itself is running on empty at the very end and just makes it across the finish line. But in spite of all its flaws, it has been one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had. I love the world, I love the soundtrack, and now I look forward to whatever Larian does next.
BG3 was my first Larian game I actually played (I might’ve played one of the Divinity games for all of an hour, but at least a few years after it released).
I bought it soon after launch, because I was going through D&D withdrawal, and I’m so glad I did. I only played through it once (but that’s normal for me, I don’t really find myself wanting to play games again, even if they do have good replay-ability with new options - if the overall story is still largely the same, it can’t hold my interest.)
It was so, so enjoyable, and filled that D&D itch I was having. I didn’t find issues with the inventory or hotbar, but I have played a fair bit of Guild Wars 2 and ESO which have similar styles of ability hotbars, or at least similar enough that it wasn’t a steep learning curve for me.
This is such a great answer, and I felt the same way about it. I adored BG1 and BG2 and played each through a few times. I had wanted more fantasy games and my husband talked me into trying Divinity and then Divinity 2 - and I really enjoyed the world and the story. This gave me really unrealistically high hopes for BG3, but I think that playing both games put me into the perfect position to appreciate BG3.
Mine is Portal 2.
The first game was an unexpected delight and the second was an amazing masterclass in environmental story telling. I was amazed. The Portal games are still my favorites to this day.
Celeste!
I’d been a fan of Towerfall Ascension for years - it was my favorite multiplayer game, and I’d even won some tournaments at various PAX-es! I got the chance to play Maddy as a result, and she destroyed me. :D)
I was so excited by the motion in the Celeste demos that I played, but I was absolutely not ready for such an emotional roller coaster. It’s a game that I will think about at least once a week for the rest of my life.
I’ve played a few hours of it, I really should get back and finish it, huh.
I was quite enjoying it, just took a week break and I’m really bad at picking up games after I’ve set them down.
Given its mix of extremely fun gameplay, an amazing narrative, and also an incredible development narrative, this is my pick for my favorite game of all time. Super cool that you were aware of it so early on!
Well, apart from Silksong itself, I'd have to say Alan Wake II.
My first Remedy game was Quantum Break -- arguably their worst game; a decently well written time travel story and a passable powers-based third person shooter, clumsily stapled to an embarrassingly bad TV series. But even there, the studio's lofty ambitions, their exciting ideas -- both narratively and metatextually -- shone through. After that I played Alan Wake, then Control -- both great games; both notably flawed games (especially Alan Wake, which was dated on release back in 2010). But through each game there was a clear throughline of increasing ambition and increasing polish. They were getting closer and closer to creating a masterpiece with each subsequent game, and I was so excited when AW2 was first teased at one of the Geoff Keighlythons because I thought 'this could be it, this could be the one where they finally put everything together and deliver an all-time great game.'
And, yes, that's exactly what happened. In my opinion, Alan Wake II has a credible case for "best game ever made." The gameplay is just "good enough." It does just enough to stay fresh and fun throughout the runtime, and has strong fundamentals. But the story, my God. Not only is it as conceptually ambitious as Quantum Break, as well directed as Control. It is also incredibly well written and performed on a scene level, getting me deeply invested in the characters like no Remedy game has done before. The mirrored narrative structure reflecting its two protagonists and their journeys is exquisitely done. The game borrows from the cinematic language without sacrificing the strengths of the games medium. It has an absolutely killer soundtrack. It is extremely tense and scary and therefore, eventually, cathartic. There's simply nothing else like it in the medium. And the central theme of the game -- that such a work of art can only be achieved through a diversity of voices, through collaboration -- resonates with me deeply, and casts a reflective light on the studio's history.
AW2 is so good that it has ruined a lot of survival horror games for me since then, because in terms of writing, direction, ambition and cohesion, really nothing else that I've found comes close.
As an Animal Crossing fan... Well, pretty much that whole franchise. The newest one (New Horizons) lives up to expectations less, but I still get hundreds of hours out of it (was playing it just today, in fact).
I cackle at people clamoring for a new AC title on Switch 2. They are clearly new to the franchise, because we go years between titles. We had 7+ years between New Leaf and New Horizons. Before that it was ~5 years between New Leaf and the previous title, and New Leaf is probably the most highly regarded of the franchise to date. The Switch 2 just dropped, they're not releasing a new AC title anytime soon.
The other big one: Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, or rather just remakes of the Gen II games in general. One of the first forums I joined as a kid (if not the first forum) was for a fan remake that would use FireRed/LeafGreen graphics called Pokémon Platinum. Yes, this project predated Gen 4's Platinum.
That fan-made project never got completed (despite a LOT of work over the years), but the official remakes are considered among the absolute best games in the franchise. They added so much new content from the originals. I think my only disappointment was having Lyra as the female protagonist instead of Kris.
I meannn... New Horizons came out 5 years ago. Since then that team has made Splatoon 3 and now they're working on... something. Probably a new Animal Crossing, especially when NH sold gangbusters.
Yeah, but there's usually a delay between a new console's release and an Animal Crossing game. I think the shortest gap was Wild World on the DS, since they both got releases in 2005 for most regions. Otherwise there's usually at least a year between the console and its AC game. So I wouldn't be surprised if they're already working on the next one (or maybe that Splatoon spin-off?), but it's just hilarious to me to see how rabid people are hoping for news at every single Direct given the Switch 2 is, what, four months old? Pretty sure I've seen people hoping for it even before the Switch 2.
New Horizons is a big seller, sure, but part of Animal Crossing's power is that it doesn't have a technical end like most games. You can pop in and out regularly for years because the game changes throughout the year. New Horizons is lacking in content in that regard, which probably contributes to people's impatience, but I think the nature of the franchise pushes it lower on Nintendo's priority list when it comes to new games. The nature of the franchise even limits potential spin-offs. So, I don't expect a new Animal Crossing game to be announced in 2025. At best I hope for the original to be added to or announced for the GameCube library this year.
...Though won't lie, my biggest hope is that they remake the original GameCube version with QOL updates and features from newer games like hairstyles, proper clothes, decorating outside, bigger houses, customizing interiors more, new characters, more holidays, online play... The original was just so cozy and charming. A girl can dream c':
Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Back in ye olden days before the internet really took off, gaming news mostly came through a slow drip feed of reporting from monthly gaming magazines that we'd repeatedly read cover to cover (despite most of it being ads), so it was easy to let your imagination run wild about what a game would be like just from a couple of grainy preview screenshots and sketchy rumours. Needless to say, the actual games frequently did not live up to those dreams!
These two games both had a lengthy development process (the latter often being cited as the origin of the 'delayed game' quote apocryphally attributed to Miyamoto, although I believe he did say something similar) which was closely reported on, and together with the hype for the launch of the Nintendo 64 (it's twice as big as the number for the PSX! It has to be good!) and the shift to 3D, expectations were very high.
You all know how the story turned out. Both turned out to be timeless classics that played like nothing else at the time, giving rise to mechanisms like the 3D camera and Z-targeting which are still used today.
Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one in the world, but, Halo 4.
I was a kid and teenager when the original trilogy came out, and that was my formative gaming experience. I was so excited for Halo 4 and it exceeded my expectations in every single way.
I loved the storyline, because it gave the characters things like motivations, interactions, and arcs for the first time. I loved the campaign, as I was one of the few that had read the Forerunner trilogy that led in to it, so it felt extra-rich and immersive for me. I loved multiplayer, which I thought was a great modernisation of what had become a pretty tired format for me.
I was pretty shocked when the game released to great reviews but negative fan reaction. The tone has shifted now to 'great campaign, bad multiplayer', but it was still my favourite. Because I had free time in college, it was probably the only game I've ever been truly excellent at.
Halo 5 came along and threw away Halo 4's storyline, lore, and emotional impacts. Still, 4 met and exceeded every expectation I had, and I had a blast for years with that game.
Building off this, Halo 2. I remember the intrigue of playing the original Halo: Combat Evolved on my friend Alex's xbox back in 2001, that game motivated me to bust my butt doing chores all summer to afford my own xbox. And everything I loved about Halo, Halo 2 did, and did better. The campaign, the story, the mechanics, the multiplayer, the soundtrack, it was everything I loved done bigger and better. I have a lot of love for Master Chief, but in my mind, Halo 2 will always be the pinnacle of Halo.
I'm with you, I genuinely enjoyed the Halo 4 campaign and multiplayer at launch. I loved the Spartan Ops co-op missions, and the fact that Chief actually got some humanization and internal conflict was fantastic. I did think that the QTE final boss fight robbed me of an epic finale like Halo 2 had, but other than that I enjoyed every minute of the game.
Armored Core 6 was my "I've waited so long" game. Oh boy did it deliver, its the only game in memory that I stopped playing only because I literally have done everything there was to do, got the plat trophy and said "I am satisfied" and was done. I'm hopingn I can get the same level of enjoyment out of the next Ace Combat game.
It really was glorious given that V was such a mixed release. Hits the perfect middle ground between the insane speed of FA with the heavier feel of older AC games.
And every game should have sekiro stance breaks at this point. Gives such a fun payoff for so many weapons
That game is perpetually in my backlog in a “I should REALLY play this game later” state.
I suppose I'll bring out the hot takes and say Kingdom Hearts 3
It was by no means perfect, but the world explorations through places that looked almost as good as the movies, through IP's of varying art styles, isn't really a feeling that has been matched up to that point. Even the Pirates world, which was a bit jarring in KH2, really felt immersive come KH3. The gameplay also seemed to really find its ground after several games experimenting and made its own unique identity instead of just being "KH2 but more", taking bits and pieces from Birth By Sleep, Days, and even the mobile games on how you upgrade your keyblades.
The story... well, I can talk about that all day. It's not my favorite but it's also not really its own story, if you know what I mean. KH3's goals were to conclude the arc, and it did that to... okay execution. That's probably the only real downside in my eyes: despite being a numbered titled it feels like it acts more like a "bridge" than the other 5 bridge games. Less there to tell its own story and more to tie up loose ends (and make more in the process).
If I had to go with just one, probably Last of Us 2. This is a very controversial game, and while I agree with some critiques, I disagree with most. Last of Us was one of my favorite games, it was a game me and my dad played together when I was a teen, and means a lot to me as a result. I remember we got it a day or two after launch when the buzz started to pick up, and after playing the intro bit that night, we played the rest of the game in the next day, utterly enraptured by the story and characters. I also just really enjoyed the game mechanically, and have completed a Grounded and Grounded+ playthrough in the following years. So when TLOU2 was announced I was stoked, and would often come back to watch the initial reveal trailer. Then they dropped the gameplay trailer with the Seraphites in the woods, and I was ravenous. The game looked so beautiful and dynamic, and seeing a grown Ellie in action after I had grown up a bit was a really interesting familial feeling. Then the game came out, and not only was just as fun to play as it looked in the demo all those years ago, but took some of the biggest narrative swings I had ever seen in a game. Those are of course the controversy that surrounds this game, but I think most people's opinions are still tainted by the misinformed 4chan threads on the leaks of the game, as well as by an unwillingness to separate themselves from their love for a major character and meet the game where it was at with the story it was trying to tell. Its by no means perfect, I can agree there, but I do disagree with most of the critiques I see. Obviously I am not discounting any thoughts anyone had on the game, so please share your feelings if you felt otherwise.
As a quick bonus 2nd place pick, Red Dead Redemption 2. RDR1 is another GOAT for me, and the sequel was amazing. Literally everything I wanted and more.
Final Fantasy Tactics re-create releases tomorrow, something I never expected to happen since we got WotL on PSP and an upscale adaptation for mobile devices.
Performance pending it could lead to a sequel, or prequel. But that’s half life 3 territory.
Pang on Nintendo DS, released in 2010 (only in Europe).
It arrived 21 years after the original Pang (or 27 if you count the earlier Bubble Buster), 20 years after the last home console version, and 10 years after the last arcade-only release. And it's brilliant. It takes everything that is great about Pang and dials it up to 11, across two screens.
https://blog.gingerbeardman.com/2010/10/04/pang/
The first game that comes to mind is the original Warcraft2 RTS. I had played a lot of Warcraft1 in 1994 and while it was fun for its time it was pretty limited. I read in some gaming magazines about the work Blizzard was doing for War2 and got really excited when the release was announced. Unfortunately it came out on the day my family took me on a week long trip to visit relatives and all I could think about was what I was missing. At least it was a great game when I finally got to play it.
More recently the only game I've instantly bought on release day (besides Silksong) was Factorio: Space Age and it more than lived up to all expectations.
I don’t have one. I’m strongly of the opinion of “if something I like gets a sequel and it’s good, that’s nice”. And I am also strongly of the opinion that we should not simply expect sequels to things that we like. Talented game designers should go on to make more new and interesting games, even if the games they end up making are “bad” by any given (ultimately arbitrary) standards.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I first played FF7 around like 2000 but a few years later is when I got really focused on the idea of the remake. I would regularly browse this site dedicated to FF7, desperately looking for rumors of the a re-release/remake/remaster. That was back in like, oh, 2004-2007, around the time Advent Children/Crisis Core/Dirge of Cerberus came out. So there was plenty of content for that blog, but of course the remake idea never went beyond the most spurious of rumors back then. I eventually stopped stalking desperately around for signs that it was actually being made but never gave up the dream. And 15 years later it finally started releasing! Of course we're still waiting for the rest, so I guess 20 years and counting?
I certainly didn't expect it to be anything like what we're getting. Back in the late PS2/early PS3 timeframe my mind was mostly about it just being a graphic upgrade. I was certainly disappointed we never got the true-to-the-classic remake, but it's not like I haven't replayed the original multiple times. And the remakes are fun too, excessive mini-games aside. But being able to get to have more of the characters and see the world as more than polygons was the real magic.
This is a weird one but some kind of follow-up to Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Xenoblade X was a game from 2015 on the Wii U. I was in university at the time. I fell in love with the game and its world. It was controversial at the time: original Xenoblade fans didn't like it, some people felt it dragged on, but it was my first big open world game of this kind! The game notoriously also ended on a major cliffhanger.
Unfortunately it kind of got the spinoff treatment afterwards and the following Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3 more or less ignored its existence. So I just kept waiting…
Then out of nowhere 9 years later, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition came out on Switch, which included a new ~5 hour chapter concluding the story.
As is fated for Xenoblade X apparently, it was also controversial. The story was something of an attempt to turn what was supposed to be a multi-game story into a relatively self-contained package. I appreciated the closure after such a long time, but many others didn't and thought it was not adequately reverent to its own worldbuilding. I feel like it overall delivered for me more than it didn't.
I came to the game through the DE and I'm in the camp that dislikes the epilogue.
The original story has this somewhat hard sci-fi vibe, with a pretty 'real robot' approach to the mechs (e.g. they constantly get trashed and need repair; they have to go to a huge amount of effort to get them to fly, etc) and a general absence of magic / supernatural elements in favour of gritty tech often cobbled from scraps - I thought this was great and tied in perfectly with the theme of rebuilding humanity!
Then you have the post-credits scene that overturns all of the story in the main game. All of the drama and sacrifices made by the good guys - was it all meaningless? Find out in the sequel! OK, it's a big cheque to write, but I can accept it if they actually cash it.
The problem with the epilogue is that in my view, it doesn't!
Spoilers
The answer is that all the souls were stored in the dimensional cloud! Also, there's a multiverse!I appreciate that there was only so much they could do with the scope they were given, but it just feels so unsatisfying! I can't imagine that this is what the original vision for the story was because it feels so out of tune with the bulk of the main game (particularly the build up to the big bad antagonists who you don't even see in the main game).
Also, I couldn't stand Al, but that might just be me :P He's built up so much in the main story as this legend and he just turns out to be a pretty uninteresting guy with an annoying catch phrase.
The actual main game is great, though. Even the extra area in the epilogue is fun.
Al is a love him or hate him character for sure. Though he did give everyone the "How's it poppin'" brainworm for a while there.
But yes, in general I don't actually disagree with you. It felt a bit hamfisted. I still walked away mostly satisfied (the final area was as you mentioned pretty fun, and it was still closure in some way.) I also did have an out of body moment once Elma started reciting Revelations though. That was the good kind of unexpected.
Spoilers for the entire series
After Xenoblade 2 and 3's epilogue I kind of guessed the multiverse crap would happen. I didn't think it was necessary for THIS story though, per se. I don't mind the dimensional cloud/collective consciousness thing, it's a Takahashi trademark, but I think the multiverse itself was kind of pointless. The whole story could have taken place in the same universe more or less like Xenosaga with very little changes. The Samaarians and Elma's planet and Earth and Mira didn't need to be in separate universe or whatever. Ghost being this biblical universal correction entity could have been localized to planets and not a universe-ending force. Etc.Return to Monkey Island. While there had been other games in the series, it took a little over 30 years for us to get a third installment from the original creator Ron Gilbert himself, concluding the trilogy that he originally started with the first two games. The game naturally didn't meet everyone's expectations but I loved it. The conclusion to the story was what I expected to see and the way it was delivered was, I think, quite beautiful.
I didn't think a Monkey game would be a coming-of-age story, but here we go.
Technically, my answer has to be Hyper Light Drifter.
Kickstarted in late 2013 with a goal of $27,000... it got $650k (!), hitting all its stretch goals except the million-dollar SNES de-make. The initial trailer came out at a time when the indie game space was still nascent, just a year after Indie Game: The Movie, and there was real skepticism whether anyone on Kickstarter exceeding their funding goal by that much could live up to their projected vision for their game. The promise was an intrigue-soaked action RPG, heavy on atmosphere and taking cues from the likes of A Link To The Past, Diablo, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and everything in between. The snippets of news about it that came out periodically all sounded positive, but there was no escaping the reality that lead creator's Alx Preston's debilitating heart condition not only served as inspiration for some of the game's themes (not to mention the name of his studio, Heart Machine) but also threatened his life at multiple points during development. A preview build/demo would eventually be released to backers, though, and it was so assured and full-featured that we just kept salivating. It eventually released in March 2016, after about 2.5 years of development - not quite Silksong levels of delayed gratification, but it absolutely surpassed my expectations, receiving widespread acclaim and becoming one of my most favorite gaming experiences.
However, I'm still waiting on two games that I *really* hope will fit the criteria.
Radio The Universe was also Kickstarted in 2013; more than 6 months before HLD, in fact! However, this is the debut work of a solo developer, so I've tried to stay patient and keep my gripes to myself. Also a lot of Zelda influence to be found here, but the initial trailer also has heavy cyberpunk-dystopia, Serial Experiment Lain vibes going for it. Keen followers have tracked redesigns, engine rewrites, etc. over the years, and it's interesting to see how things have changed since the initial reveal. A demo finally came out during Steam NextFest in early 2023, after 10 whole years. It's gotta be said, though - it's amazing! I believe nothing's been heard from its creator, 6exe, since early 2024-ish, but word on the Discord is that they're known for unplugging from the internet for months while working, so... maybe it's still all good? I just hope that they're actually okay. If (when!) the game ever does come out, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.
The other game I'm holding my breath for is The Last Night. After revealing that trailer at E3 2017 and absolutely blowing everyone away, designer Tim Soret caught some heat in the midst of GamerGate, eventually parted ways with publisher Raw Fury, and has otherwise kept subsequent promo about his game limited to a dev blog video released last year. However, there have been a lot more details forthcoming on their Discord, so I'm confident that this will see the light of day. Apart from the gorgeous visuals, the game is supposed to tackle some issues likely to be very relevant in our near future (AI's effect on the workforce, human identity, and society on the whole), so I'm keeping the faith.
Wow, I didn’t know Hyper Light Drifter had such a story, my respect greatly increased.
I tried getting into it but I kept getting lost, it was really hard to read the map. Do you have any tips?
Well, I last played it about 7 or 8 years ago, so I don't know if there's anything useful I can share at this point besides pay close attention to the details in the world. I saw a lot of the gripes that were shared online when it first came out, and chief among them was probably the map. I didn't have too much trouble with it myself, although I concede that it's not necessarily the most intuitive by today's standards. IIRC it showed you which section you were in but not necessarily the exact room.
I always viewed the game on the whole as a throwback to the 16-bit era when games could sometimes be just that bit arcane and you often had to figure quite a bunch of stuff out on your own. They put out a few updates after release that made secrets more obvious and were essentially concessions to modern gamers, who are less likely to spend as long to puzzle stuff out when they have 100 other games in their Steam library to play... which I did think was a little sad, but I get it. Tunic is another game that followed in a similar vein but really leaned into that aspect of cryptic information.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this yet. Factorio Space Age. Okay, yes, it’s technically a DLC not a game, but I think it still qualifies. I have talked about it a ton here on tildes, so I won’t go into it much here. If Wube released a dlc that did literally nothing, I would buy it day one and be happy. I have gotten far more than my money’s worth out of Factorio. But instead of a cash grab, they released a fantastic dlc that more than met my expectations. Wonderful game, and wonderful dev team.
That game for me would be Gta V. I played every Gta before that, I got hyped up by all the teasers, and it did 100% live up to its expectations. It was the reason back then I bought a PS3. And now I'm looking forward to 6 ;-)
Off topic, but what's the appeal in Silksong? Is it the graphics, the storyline,...?
I've never played any game of them but looking at gameplay videos, all I see is a good looking platformer. Convince me to try it out!
This was my answer. GTA V was my longest wait for a game I was actively anticipating (around 2-3 years) and I still play it to this day. I loved every other GTA up to that point and while I haven't had the obsession with V that I've had with say, Vice City or San Andreas to the point that I have significant chunks of secrets and hidden treasure memorized, it's still been an excellent game and I've enjoyed soloing the online content. I have no opinion about GTA 6.
If I can bastardize the prompt a little bit, my current Silksong is the Katana Zero DLC.
Katana Zero's main story is short and leaves you with more questions than answers. But I still really enjoyed the 2 hours I put into it. Enough to put another 60 or so into the hard mode/speedrunning content, whose gameplay is way more fun than the gameplay in the story.
I waned off the game after a couple weeks in Summer 2020, and read that the developer was planning on releasing DLC. I would have been (and still would be) totally happy with just "a bit more Katana Zero", and just waited for more news. That wait lasted 2 years, when the Katana Zero discord held an event that ended with a developer walkthrough of a demo level (HD Footage). And that shot my expectations WAY up, since even that slice was showing a bunch of ways the game was improving in all areas (art, gameplay, writing) but developer was still insisting that the DLC would be free. And then we got more silence. For another 3 years. Until randomly, right at the end of a indie video game showcase (iii initiative) we get a new trailer for the DLC that blows me away again.
I'm starting my 6th year waiting on the DLC at this point, and I'm still riding the expectation that I'll eventually get a DLC that's just "Katana Zero, but better everything".
I don't really mind the wait either. It'd be nice if this was another Silksong situation, where the dev is happily making a banger game at their own pace that's out when it's done™.
Huh. I didn't know that there was any expansions planned for Katana Zero. It's been so long that I've forgotten what the plot was about. I'm glad to hear that there's going to be more of it, though!
Starcraft 2 for me. I grew up on the original and Brood War, which remain on my short list for 10/10 perfect games still.
I remember browsing websites in the pre-Google era seeing preview assets for the sequel which were clearly just mods with high hopes, not realizing I’d have to wait almost a decade.
When the music leaked, Blizzard was still in full WoW mode and I had waning hopes for ever getting a StarCraft sequel until I heard the bombastic tunes that sounded very familiar. I always thought that it was going to be some kind of rug pull like “the StarCraft soundtrack remastered” or something until we got the reveal announcement and indeed, it was about time!
Launch day was nothing short of biblical in my dorm. Roommates were going bananas climbing the ladder and finding all the imbalanced and broken builds. Streaming was out of control, Day9 dailies, etc. It was a magical time.
Since then, it feels like SC2 has kind of fallen out of relevance in comparison to things like Counterstrike and League, but it still holds a special place in my gaming fandom. If we ever get a StarCraft 3, or similar level of successor, I can only hope it will capture that same lightning in a bottle moment.
For me it would have to be Skyrim. I had never played an Elder Scrolls game but I remembered my college roomies being obsessed with Morrowind for a time. I was a huge fan of Fallout: New Vegas, the only Bethesda (technically Obsidian but that’s beside the point) game I’d played and my love for that set in motion the hype cycle for TESV.
Over the years I’ve loved many games but not many of them were ones I allowed myself to get hyped about before launch. I’m more of the patientgamer mindset. Skyrim was different. The teasers and promotions for that game were masterfully done. I was hanging on every word that came out of Todd Howard’s mouth, salivating over every video or screenshot. I was caught up in the hype for probably a full year and a half before it released; it was a day one purchase for me.
And it the clincher is, it didn’t let me down. They absolutely knocked it put of the park with that game. Just amazing world-building, art direction, game mechanics, storytelling, and power fantasy. It was everything I wanted it to be and more. Now there’s no such thing as a perfect game but what I appreciate about Skyrim is that it knows exactly what it wants to be and absolutely delivers on that. Sure, you can quibble about any number of things but at the end of the game it is one of the most cohesive, well-constructed, and rich open world games ever conceived.
It’s a famous meme how they kept porting and re-releasing it but I seriously bought it for three different systems with no regrets. No idea how many thousands of hours I’ve put into it over the years… and still I manage to find things that surprise me. And I haven’t even mentioned the vibrant mod scene. It’s just so good.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I loved Breath of the Wild and when I learned there was a sequel in development (back then all we knew was based on the first ever trailer, we didn't even know the name), I was exited. The more we learned about the game, the more exited I got.
And all that Hype was worth it, the game is now in my top 3 favorite games (alongside BOTW and Elden Ring).
Factorio: Space Age. The Factorio devs have been amazing with their attention to QOL and sheer polish for their game, and I knew it was going to be a good expansion when the second blog post about the expansion was not actually about new features, but about QOL and polish improvements. Every single weekly blog post was a massive hype builder, a topic of conversation for me and my friends that were also Factorio fans. When it did finally release, it absolutely lived up to the hype and then some. I took a week off from work for the release, and probably clocked 60 hours in that week. I did burn out after about a month, but I finally beat the expansion only a couple weeks ago, with a grand total of 250 hours put into the game since the expansion came out.