This year started off not so great and has had some lows alongside its great highs. Several live service games shutting down early this year, Suicide Squad game being a generic looter shooter, Redfall being okay but buggy, Forspoken being not great, LOTR-Gollum being not fun to play.

People in general have soured a little on microtransaction filled live service games. Established IP-driven games will likely still succeed and rake in tons, but people will be wary about new IPs tied to live-service games that can disappear in a heartbeat.

Sorry if this is me being a negative Nancy, I am looking forward to what's coming next but I figure I should remind people this very recent history.

We're finally out of the COVID dev lull! Or at least, we're currently in the window that all big games got delayed to. Lol

I'll say! I finally got around to Elden Ring, and it's everything I could have hoped for in an open-world Souls game. It lives up to the hype for sure.

Anything particular that stands out for you? I'm itching to get my hands on Baldurs Gate 3.

I mean, it's hard to ignore the "Shoddy PC ports" when it's your main platform and if that applies to you, and you mostly play big budget games, well so far, this year has mostly been fucking awful.

Being a Mac user, this year is indeed a good year.

I’ve been a very longtime WoW player but couldn’t stand the game anymore. I dropped it after a few months of Classic WOTLK (my personal fav) both out of boredom and because Blizzard contempt for macOS users

Finding a game that I love and runs natively wasn’t easy but it finally happened. I never was an hardcore gamer (except maybe in the early days of WoW) so I never felt the need to get a dedicated PC (I had a PC but it only ran macOS and Manjaro)

I’m currently playing Metro Exodus and BG3 (which I absolutely love even in EA). I also bought REV, NMS and Cliff Empire, but they weren’t for me.

The other game changer is Game Porting ToolKit which allows me to test a whole bunch of Windows only games thanks to a friend who added me to its Steam family.

Most of the games run smoothly enough for me (60FPS) so I guess the times I was thinking about buying a gaming rig are over. This money will go in some overpriced Mac option.

Anyway, I never spent that much money in video games. It definitely must be a sign.

The only thing I have been satisfied with is Baldur's Gate 3 and I lost interest before I completed Act 3. I'm so immensely fucking pissed off with Armored Core 6 right now that I'm considering uninstalling.
It's not that it's bad. It's actually a really well-made game. But it's fucking FromSoft, and it's their "games aren't shit unless they're infuriatingly hard" bullshit they've always been on.
I don't know what I was expecting. I beat Elden Ring and the bosses weren't on this level of nonsense.
And with the news that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 just got pushed back AGAIN, I'm not having a good year in gaming, no.
I need Starfield to be good or I walk away from gaming altogether until next year. It's getting to be not worth it anymore to me.

Mortal Kombat 1 and Mega Man X DIVE. Yeah that's my September plan

What has been released this year that really got your motor running??