I’m almost always playing two video games at once; one for a challenge, and one for comfort.
These two games can take on many different forms, but right now it’s the two new releases Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Yoshi’s Crafted World, two completely different video games with two completely different intentions. I trust you to figure out which one is my challenge and which one is my comfort.
If there’s one thing I love in life, it’s balance. Balancing work and my personal life. Balancing sweet foods with salty foods. Hot foods with cold foods. Acidic foods with fatty foods. It’s mostly food related honestly but I like to apply this philosophy to games, too.
When I’m feeling energetic, I’ll play a game like Sekiro, an aggressively challenging game that keeps me on the edge of my seat. I fail repeatedly trying to progress past bosses, my neck and hands straining more and more as I tense up, trying to read my enemies’ attacks and time my counters perfectly.
‘Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice’ is a never-ending challenge.
A game like Sekiro is the kind of game that pops into my mind throughout the day when I’m not playing it, idly planning how I’m going to tackle a boss I’m stuck on or wondering what other fights await me. It fully engages me with its engrossing gameplay.
It’s the kind of game that requires breaks, and in comes the comfort game.
Yoshi’s Crafted World is acting as my current comfort game, a game that allows me to move at a lackadaisical pace, bopping forward through levels that are like little dioramas of delight rather than difficult puzzles.
Yoshi’s Crafted World thrives as the kind of game one can play laying down, and even look away from to check a text without really needing to worry about pausing. Sure, there’s a certain finesse that’s required to land jumps properly and aim eggs at moving targets, but if you miss it’s not really a big deal.
A game like Yoshi’s Crafted World is one that feels relaxing after a strenuous day.
‘Yoshi’s Crafted World’ is wonderfully care-free.
For a long time I’ve maintained this gaming duality. The challenging game is usually some new release or something I’m just getting around to, and the comforting game is usually either something easy or something that I’m just comfortable with.
Over the past few years, my most-played comfort game has been Rocket League. It’s a weird choice, given its competitive nature and its impeccable ability to make me angry, but I’m so comfortable with the controls and the physics that it’s almost like slipping on a comfortable hoodie for my hands and brain.
Sometimes a comfort game is an old favorite, like Metroid Prime, or something care-free like Grand Theft Auto.
My challenge games have pretty wide array too. A challenge game can be something difficult and new like God of War or Resident Evil 2, or it could be something that engages me narratively, like Night in the Woods.
It’s a hobby, not a chore
In a given week, I usually lean toward one or the other much more heavily, sometimes going between a couple comfort games back and forth for a whole week just to reset myself after a week that was heavy in challenges.
Variety is very important to me, and I often get bored of one thing and will need to move onto something else, so it’s good to have a couple options on the table at all times. I’ve found that breaking up an experience can also help with game fatigue — when you play too much of one thing and get tired of it.
It’s a method I’ve adopted to always keep gaming fresh for me. I used to burn myself out on games all the time, obsessing over one at a time until all joy had been sucked out of it.
But it’s a hobby, not a chore, and it’s important to remember that you don’t have to muscle through games if you’re not feeling it. There’s a lot of pressure in the gaming world right now to press forward with Sekiro to keep up with all the discussion and discourse, but I know if I go too hard on it, I’ll just get sick of it (and probably pull a muscle).
Yoshi’s Crafted World is the cheese to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twices‘s wine. The peanut butter to its chocolate. The ice cream to its apple pie.
The fact that they released just one week apart is some sort of sign, a divine occurrence that heralds their bond. You can play one without the other, sure, but they go so well together.
