every time i play pillars of eternity ii: deadfire at some point i ask myself ‘is this my favourite video game?’ and the answer is yeah it might well be. there’s like four things i’d cite for that title depending on the day (shadowbringers*, deadfire, dragon age: origins** and wind waker***).

*it feels weird to like, cite ffxiv wholesale because it’s this thing i log into multiple times a week rather than a single discrete object I revisit once in a while. also there are parts of it I think suck ass. but shadowbringers as a text is very definitely one of my favourite games. that makes sense to me, in the same way that i’d cite tehanu as one of my favourite books, but not wizard of earthsea even though i read them both in an omnibus edition.

** i feel like i’ve not played dragon age origins in like, a lifetime even though actually i played it iirc sometime in 2020. i’ve played it some like, absurd number of times (25ish?) and i kinda reached the point where i felt like there was no more blood to wring from the stone (makes sense since i played it like once a year for a decade). i’ve kind of been feeling the itch to go back to it. the older i’ve gotten the more i’ve soured on bioware writing but the first two dragon ages are the ones that still hit for me.

*** is sailing the thing?? am i a boat head? because wind waker and deadfire are both games about sailing (among other things). oh god. this is occurring to me right now as i write this.