I posted some thoughts about what I've been playing on the Waypoint forums, figured I could post it here too.
Spent two entire months playing The Witcher 3. It's good! Still mulling over the balance of open world content to linear story ; there's a lot of meaningless icons to clear and straightforward go-kill-a-monster quests, but it does work to make the map feel like a big world where you're just a witcher living your life. Even sailing the boat is pretty fun (when you don't stop every 30 seconds to go diving after one of the million sunken treasures around). We'll see how I feel after going back for the DLC.
After finishing that, I grabbed The Pale Beyond. The demo made a strong impression on me last year; I love the idea of a survival game focused on resource management and character interactions, instead of going in a base/city-building direction. The atmosphere is fantastic, with beautiful portraits of your crew over the icy wasteland backgrounds, and the sound of the chilling winds blowing outside your tent.
You need to balance the health of the crew, your dwindling stock of supplies and the loyalty of the people who come to you with requests every week. The game manages to thread the needle of keeping the tension high without locking you in a death spiral quite well; whenever you start to feel like you have a handle on things, some kind of catastrophe occurs to keep you on your toes. I like how the story, despite the harsh and desperate atmosphere, displays support and solidarity among the crew instead of hostility and violence.
The conclusion felt slightly unsatisfying, but not enough to seriously impact the experience. It's a good (and stressful) time; maybe just wait a bit for more bug fixes, I had UI issues at several points. Oh, and serious Content Warning for animal death. The dogs are adorable, and you can pet them, but 😥 Bad Things happen 😥
I also played through Three Lilies and their Ghost Stories, the new visual novel from milk+ (who made soundless, a very good, very trippy horror VN about abuse in a religious community). This one is lighter in tone, though the separate stories offer several distinct atmospheres: melancholy ghost tale on an isolated island, spooky happenings in the suburbs, and a horror/action thriller on a floating city. All the main characters are cool queer ladies and they're pretty well written; the stories are short enough (around 1h each) that I would have liked to spend more time with the cast, but the pacing doesn't feel rushed.
The stories are all interesting but I particularly enjoyed the last one; despite the action movies vibes, it managed to deploy some genuinely unnerving imagery, and the cinematic presentation (with a moving camera over the sprites and backgrounds) is very effective. It's also dealing with climate anxiety, which is more and more relevant every day... Overall a fun little slice of horror while waiting for Halloween!