at least from the perspective of general PC users.
This is a bit of a side tangent not strictly related to this article - The overwhelming vast majority of computer users are not gamers. Most people do not play videogames on a PC and whether or not a few games run or not on Linux is irrelevant to them.
What is relevant to them is productivity software, employment requirements, ease of use, and stability. And, on those particular fronts, Windows still has a noticeable advantage despite being a dumpster fire that costs money.
I acknowledge the many achievements that have been made in the world of Linux development lately and I’m so stoked to see it enter the mainstream more and more, but grow very tired of all the articles, opinion pieces, blog posts, etc saying that Linux is “ready” because it can play games - as if that is the only thing that matters.
The TES series in general for its massive, expansive lore.
But Morrowind in particular has absolutely incredible world-building with incredible creativity and originality. There is a reason why so many people keep going back to the n’wah simulator and it’s because the world is so rich and fleshed out. So much of the following games was built off Morrowind’s stunning work.
Honestly? Aloy from the Horizon games. She’s maybe not the most rounded character, but she is a very strong, determined, stubborn, and intelligent person. She knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. I think it also helps that the games don’t really have many choices or multiple endings, which I think was a good design choice. The story belongs to Aloy, not the player.
Also she’s not a protag (sorta, you can play as her) but I would like to give a shoutout to Lae’zel from BG3. I suspect a lot of players haven’t explored her character questline much because of how prickly she is at the beginning, but her character development is extensive and, at times, heart-wrenching. A story of someone getting the entire fabric of their life and soul torn out from under them.
I stopped playing when I learned the DLC I paid for would be removed and no longer accessible. I already had some growing negative sentiment towards the game at that point but being outright ripped off was the last straw.
There is a waning interest, but it wasn’t the singular reason the game flopped. It’s because it was a painfully mediocre game at an extremely inflated price.
Mass-produced corporate sludge like Outlaws is exactly why interest is waning. It sucks the soul out of the franchise and makes people lose interest.
They were much too big for my thumbs (going off the theme of the Deck in general being made for hands clearly bigger than mine). Too tall, too wide on top, and while I never had to deal with any drift - the deadzones suck to play games with. I keep a gamepad at my desk for racing and flying games and I switched it to a hall-effect gamepad about a year ago and I’ve never looked back. Potentiometer-based joysticks just feel like garbage in comparison and I think are inexcusable to use in a highend gaming product these days. I ended up using the touchpads instead for many things.
Poor ergonomics is actually a large reason why I sold my Deck. It is quite heavy and clearly made for hands bigger than mine, which made holding it for more than 20 minutes quite uncomfortable. Also the joysticks are just awful, awful, awful awful awful. Id say a hall-effect stick mod is basically mandatory.