As someone who loved BOTW, there’s no way I’m playing TOTK. Just for so many reasons.
I hate crafting and building. I can’t deal with such a massive world right now. And I think what it really comes to is that, while I can enjoy periods without narrative, I’m just not the kind of person who thrives in a “make your own fun” situation. Sandbox games never appealed to me, and TOTK is even more of a sandbox than BOTW was.
I think I was just lucky to be in the right frame of mind when it came to BOTW.
It’s funny, before they were everywhere, open world games were my jam. Now there are only a few where I actually pay attention to the world.
I typically treat open world games as linear in some way. Go from one story/side mission to the next without really bothering to explore. Especially for large games. Some exceptions, but not many. I’ve become a chronic fast traveler and I have no intention of changing that.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the work put into a lot of these games, it’s more that I simply don’t have the energy or time to actually get into it all and it doesn’t bother me that I’m “missing out”.
In general, I just crave linear and relatively short games. If howlongtobeat lists something as more than like 12 - 15 hours for a non-RPG/immersim game, I’m usually out. I’d have to really be enjoying it to stick with something for more than like 20 hours total.
Titanfall 2 is one of the best examples of a fantastic game that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Everything’s tightly packed into a linear, but incredibly well-developed game. It doesn’t stop being fun, and throws new shit at you without being overwhelming, can be beaten in a few days (probably like two if you’re playing in long sessions).
I do sometimes go over that limit with stealth games, often because I play them very patiently and can spend a few hours on a level. But they’re really the exception.
When Todd leaves after TES VI, I hope someone from the ESO team takes the reins. They seem to care a lot about the world and lore. Lol, like I’m obviously not holding my breath for TES VII, but still.
Yeah, this is a good one. Works surprisingly well for solo playthroughs, too. The base game for free is a great deal. Lots to do before you get to the later DLC.
Good writing, voice acting is miles above all other Elder Scrolls games, the magic and abilities are really fun (don’t know if it’s available with this free version, but Necromancer class is fucking awesome).
And so. much. lore. If you ever read the books in any of the games, there’s a particular individual who often comes up in necromancer books which sometimes net you a skill point in Conjuration in Skyrim. This game fleshes out that entire story.
You also get to discover areas we haven’t seen much of. Elsweyr, Black Marsh, Summerset Isles, High Rock, and more. Every province, basically.
Literally my only complaint is that I really loved Molag Bal’s voice actor in Skyrim and this new one doesn’t hit as hard for me. Actually goes for a few of the Daedric Princes. I know why people didn’t like his voice, but I fucking loved Hermaeus Mora in Skyrim. Also doesn’t hit as hard here, but it doesn’t matter much.
I should actually maybe get back to it. Kind of burned myself out, but now feels like a good time to jump back in.
There is some stuff (other than the story DLC) which essentially requires real money, but none of it is particularly necessary (although one could argue that the crafting bag is absolutely necessary, which I wouldn’t entirely disagree with).
Waaaaay back, almost two decades ago, I was super into the Spider-Man 2 movie tie-in. Played it almost every day. The only game I’ve actually fully 100% completed, which was a bit more difficult back then because walkthroughs weren’t as easily available. There were a lot of great cheat/guide sites that popped up around that time, and also physical cheat/guide books from before, but those were a bit harder to find where I lived.
(Speaking of physical cheat books, I used them a lot for for GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas. The cheats these days don’t even remotely compare to the variety and fun of the ones back then.)
Anyway, Spider-Man 2 had legitimately the best swinging mechanics in a Spider-Man game (IMO). Not that the Insomniac games are bad at all, but I consider them to be the best since Spider-Man 2, which is still pretty high praise, honestly. Ultimate Spider-Man which was released around the same time was also pretty good, actually. The others were just less fun or completely dumbed down to the point where you didn’t even need to connect your webs to buildings.
I don’t live in a city with skyscrapers. So every time I’d either see second unit camera pans on TV or movies with a lot of skyscrapers in frame, or find myself in an area with a lot of high rise buildings, all I could imagine was swinging around through the area.
It was kind of like the Tetris effect (not the game, the phenomenon), but more of like… I guess I’d call it the “Spider-Man swinging effect”.