Each month I write a column focused on what I’ll be playing during the month. But let’s be honest, Cyberpunk 2077 is coming out in a couple of days and with few exceptions I can’t see myself playing much of anything else in December unless the game turns out to be a total dud.
I’m sure many of you reading this are in the same boat. Like me, you are probably just playing things this weekend and over the coming days to kill time before this time vampire of an RPG finally releases after eight long years of waiting.
As I’ve written about in the past, I don’t typically start larger games without committing to finishing them. It’s the only way I can finish anything these days. I recently managed to complete Demon’s Souls on the PlayStation 5, which was excellent, by the way. So right now I’m not really playing anything that is going to take up 40 hours of my life because there’s no chance I’d be finishing it before Cyberpunk 2077 releases. That said, I did make a slight exception to this rule.
I started Ghost of Tsushima after I finished Demon’s Souls thinking there was a chance I could finish it before CP2077 releases, but that quickly became unrealistic. I still want to play though, so I am just exploring the world and completing side content instead of tackling the story. This will let me come back to it later because I won’t feel like I don’t remember where I left off, which is the main thing that puts me off returning to a game I’ve partially completed.
I’m enjoying Ghost of Tsushima so far. It definitely doesn’t veer too far from the typical open world formula, but the setting and absolutely beautiful aesthetic does a lot to carry the experience. The feature that lets you follow the wind towards points of interest is also a really nice and immersive way to make the open world collectathon experience a bit less overwhelming. I can just set the wind tracking to direct me towards the nearest hot spring so I can increase my health or fox den so I can unlock more charm slots and I don’t have to look at a map filled with tons of distractions. I just ride around and follow the breeze. Pretty genius (and relaxing) if you ask me.
I’m digging the combat, too. Unlike a lot of these games the enemies don’t really wait to attack you in groups. Combat can be a bit messy and chaotic at times because of it, but it doesn’t feel like unrealistic, like I’m in a dance off with my adversaries. There are also many different ways to tackle a fight and most of them are satisfying. I’m looking forward to the additional options I’ll have as I progress through the skill tree.
Besides Ghost of Tsushima, I also started playing Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War (try and say that one three times fast, oof!). I’m not really a CoD fan. I did a play a bunch of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2 way back in 2009, but I’m more of a Battlefield player when it comes to shooters. I got Cold War free with my RTX 3000 series graphics card, so I decided to check it out to see how the game runs with all the settings cranked. I never thought I’d say this about a Call of Duty game, but Cold War actually does look pretty damn good with all the bells and whistles turned on (HDR + Ray Tracing).
I also have been dabbling in the multiplayer. It’s fun in the sort of popcorn sort of way Call of Duty is fun. You’re still just running around in a sort of endless loop of quick kills and quicker deaths before jumping right back into the action to do it all over again, but it’s not too bad. Upgrade options seem a bit anemic from what I remember, especially when it comes to Perks. The options for Perk loadouts just aren’t very interesting or varied at all and that’s kind of a downer.
Aside from that, I’m mostly just hopping around random games here and there. In keeping with the cyberpunk theme, I tried to play VA-11 Hall-A, which recently released on Game Pass, but this version of the game is unplayable at the moment, with a widespread crashing issue affecting everyone on the platform. If they manage to sort it out before Wednesday, I’ll give it a spin.
If you’re looking for a cyberpunk game to dive into this weekend, I’ll leave you with one recommendation: play Dex. It's excellent.
What are you playing this weekend? Share with us in the comments below!
