July 5, 2024
Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This week we’re banging our heads into Shadow of the Erdtree, suffering for our evils in Baldur’s Gate 3, and enjoying a change in Diablo 4.
what did you play
If you fancy catching up on some of the older releases of What We’ve Been Playing, here’s our archive.
Diablo 4, PS5
Diablo 4 is the perfect companion game in the sense that it’s a welcome relief from everything you’re playing. I came back to it this week inspired by many of you still playing it and as always I was impressed. It’s such a smooth and well-made package that I feel like a kid with an action toy who just wants to smash it into other action toys; I pick up the game and it makes me want to play.
The slight uphill battle I faced this time was that the loot had changed. I picked an older character I’d spent some time with – one I’d completely forgotten how to use, so I just had to trust that I’d ‘thought’ before and built something viable and button-mashed all the way back to that old strategy. resurfaced – and I quickly discovered that all the gear I was wearing was now considered ‘heirloom’. Additionally, I started looting things I’d never seen before: weapon schematics that could be used on their own, core expansions, and new systems like Tempering. It was the same game, but now it was a different game.
This is happening now: the games are changing. Spend some time away from them and you might come back and find something significantly different. Look at Cyberpunk 2077, look at World of Warcraft, look at any live service game. And yes, it takes a bit of work, but I also quite like it. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the loop that Diablo 4 is so well aware of. What tires me is the packaging and the sense I have in the game. As long as it keeps getting refreshed, I’ll be happy snacking on Diablo 4 among other meals for years to come.
– Bertie
Elden Ring, PC
I’ve been on the lookout for the Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion for the past few weeks, trying to dig up every last secret and turn it into some kind of guide. I spent a few hours this weekend being the absolute monster of Bayle the Dread, a giant dragon youth who is one of the optional bosses that lives atop a giant volcano in the southeast corner of the map.
Really, I should have told myself it was a bad idea when I first started climbing the mountain. When you emerge at the base of Jagged Peak, the sky is already blood red – a stark change from the ghostly grays and blues you left behind on Gravesite Plain. But things only get worse from there. The wind picks up, whipping through the trees so hard, throwing up so much dust and flying rocks that you feel like you too could be blown away in an instant if it weren’t for the full set of armor you have. wear. When you cross a disturbingly flimsy looking wooden bridge, red lightning starts to pierce the sky, and whoa, now it’s tearing up the ground in front of me like some kind of almighty lightning bolt from whatever, hell, this game’s equivalent of Zeus could be.
The further up you go, the more apocalyptic it gets. The sky turns red, the dust engulfs, and did I mention the many dozens of smaller dragon corpses lining the way up? It’s the epitome of carnage and mayhem, and yet I still plodded my way to the top before proceeding to spend over three hours running into the same boss arena over and over again only to get chewed up and crushed each time. I finally got there, but even now I wonder, was it really worth it? For the sake of my job, of course. But for my personal pleasure? I think I’m still working on it.
– Katharine
Baldur’s Gate 3, PC
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Have I backed myself into a corner? I stopped playing Dark Urge in BG3 and ran into a stumbling block: Act 3. Specifically, there are climactic battles that I’m not quite ready for. My problem: lack of spellcasters. I have Shadowheart and that’s it. I killed Will and Gale – I did say it was a bad game! – and I never found Halsin either, so the only character capable of dropping these high level magic bombs is Shadowheart.
My party makeup is currently two paladins – me and Minthara – plus Shadowheart and then either Astarion or Lae’zel. That sums up my options. It works in some situations. When I was fighting Astarion’s evil vampire, the built-in radiation damage of my paladins was amazingly useful. But now that I’m in hell fighting demons, it’s less so. Worse, I lack the firepower to effectively deal with the strongest of them.
In some ways I don’t mind. I know I can go to Withers at my base camp and ask for a day laborer there who is a wizard or warlock or wizard or whatever I want them to be. I can build a perfectly balanced side if I want to; I can even change my own class. But I also want to face the consequences of my actions and the evil I have done. I will reap what I have sown.
– Bertie