Gaming and Being Lost
I have anxiety. Now, before you say "yeah, Rose, we're aware", let me explain. My head is frequently filled with junk, broadly speaking. It's pretty hard for me to relax, in general. And I have a hard time calming down in plenty of instances. The reason I bring this up is because I've been thinking of how I just want to fall into a game again. I think the closest was Absolum, which kicks ass. But nothing has hit in the same way since I finished it. I just want to sort of lose myself in a game.
As I started thinking about this idea, however; I began to wonder, can I even do that anymore? The world is rough as fuck anymore and my time feels so incredibly finite that it's hard for me not to feel bad about taking time to game when I could be working on something that I need to get done. This is ridiculous, of course, because games are, I'm realizing, sort of a big stress relief for me. Even if it annoys me, if it can keep coming back despite that, that game’s one I enjoy. For example, I enjoyed my time with Elden Ring despite it not really being the kind of game I’m invested in anymore. It annoyed the piss out of me at times, but even now I’m thinking, “okay, let’s run it back.”
I don't know. We're all familiar with the idea that something is your favorite game less because of the game itself than because of when you played it. For example, I loved Hollow Knight. I loved it. The aesthetics still appeal to me and I am a big fan of metroidvanias, but the reason it was huge for me was because I played it when I was depressed and it was a game that weirdly pulled me out of it. Is that because of the game's quality? Unlikely. It was so overtuned that it was a totally different game than what you get now. I struggled with ever boss in the game, but when I come back now, some of those guys are an absolute cakewalk. But, at the time, it was surmountable, so when I could beat a boss that gave me trouble, it felt good. Before that, I was literally mechanically playing Diablo 3 more because i couldn't think what else to do with myself than because I really wanted to. I’d sit at my computer, put on a podcast and play Diablo 3 because that was just kind of what I waas doing at that time. So, Hollow Knight will always hold a special place in my heart. Silksong is cool, i guess, but it will never hit like Hollow Knight did for me. I'm just at a much different (and better) place than when i played Hollow Knight.
I guess i miss the whimsy and sheer joy of losing myself in a game. I'm probably really stressed, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately and how I just want to be able to lose myself in a video game again. Or a book. Anything, really.