The Video Games That Got Me Through 2020
I am by no means a writer, so please bear with me. The New York Times published an article “The Video Games That Got Us Through 2020” which had some excellent entries of games that people played to help ease the pain that was the entire year of 2020. I enjoyed reading about what other people played this year to help cope with the daily stress of living in a pandemic so much that I thought I’d write my own list of some of the games I played this year that greatly improved my wellbeing while in quarantine. These were the games that provided me with a sense of personal progress on days that all blend together, relaxation during times of stress, and escapism in moments where I felt trapped in my own home.
Outer Wilds
Outer Wilds is a game about exploration for exploration’s sake. You play as a new astronaut from the planet Timber Hearth originally tasked to simply explore the solar system to your heart’s content. Once you take off, you find that within about 22 minutes the sun at the center of your solar system goes supernova, exploding in a bright blue fiery ball of destruction, incinerating every planet around it. After the explosion, you awake at the campfire where you started to find you are stuck in a time loop and must use every 22 minute loop to progress slightly further in your exploration of the solar system in hopes to find an answer that will save your soon to be extinguished planet and species.
As you begin to start exploring, you find breadcrumbs of clues that lead you to other planets to discover the next piece of the story, creating a literal web of information on your ship’s log.
As you discover new story points, the new information pops up on the log and connects to the old piece of information that led you to your discovery. I found myself originally finding random and dissociated pieces of the story to add to the ship log but as I progressed further, the web of information slowly started connecting and converging on itself much like a cork board with pictures and yarn connecting points in a criminal investigation.
I loved this game so much my phone case actually has the “Outer Wilds Venture” logo from the game printed on the back. What sets this game apart was that the story was so rich and detailed that the things you “unlock” in the game were not new abilities or weapons like in other games but instead were the actual story points and informational discoveries themselves. It was such a finely crafted story that these breadcrumbs of information alone were enough for you to “progress” without the need for new game mechanics or abilities to be acquired. It was an adventure, a puzzle, and a beautiful tale about the need and wonder of space exploration with an absolutely outstanding ambient soundtrack to boot. It was literally a game about the world ending which felt very timely in 2020. Despite its somewhat tragic and dark theme, after completion it really left me sitting on my couch feeling like I had played a game that I’ll always want to, but never will be able to, play again for the first time.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
If you’ve never heard of Animal Crossing then I will assume that you live beneath a rock. But for those who haven’t played, Animal Crossing is a peaceful game where you develop your own personal island into whatever you like. You can build homes for your island residents, upgrade and decorate your own home, plant trees and flowers, dig rivers, buy clothes for your own playable character, and much more. For long time fans of the series, there are plenty of returning characters like Tom Nook and his adopted children Timmy and Tommy, the porcupine clothing making Able sisters, the resident services dog Isabelle, and Blathers, the museum curator Owl, to name a few.
I had not played video games with my siblings since we were all much younger, but when I returned to Dallas to quarantine with them, my sister began stealing my Nintendo Switch at any possible opportunity to help develop what was once my island into our island. We began with us two and our first residents: Sprocket the robot Ostrich, Merengue the cheesecake Rhino, and Big Top the Elephant. Our island has slowly grown over time. We now have beautiful stone bridges to connect the different parts of the island, brick walkways, a basketball court, a designated neighborhood for the residents, a field of crossbred flowers, and, of course, weekly performances from Animal Crossing’s greatest songwriter and musician, K.K. Slider.
Animal Crossing was such a welcome distraction during this year even on days where you’d log on just to hit the rocks, chat with the residents, and fish for some sea bass. Being able to play with my sister made the experience all the more enjoyable as I would get to see all the island improvements she would make while I was away and vice versa. The island changes month to month (in real life time) offering new bugs and fish to catch as well as monthly seasonal events so the fun truly never ends. It was a delightful game and in this year we could all use our own Nook Island Getaway Package™.
A Short Hike
A Short Hike is a game about… well — a short hike. You play as a bird named Claire whose family brought her on a vacation to a beachy island to “get away from the city and everything else going on” … which feels… relatable? Claire finds herself without cell service to call her mom and must make a short hike up to the top of the mountain on the island to get service. You can explore the island in any way you like, finding golden feathers that allow you to climb higher. Along the way you meet the cast of wacky and friendly characters who help you get farther up the mountain.
This is by far my favorite indie game I played this year. It was developed by Adam Robinson-Yu (shoutout to game developers named Adam) and is a pretty short game overall. I think I completed it in about 2 hours, but it was truly a gem. It was simple, interesting, charming, and thoughtful. The characters are memorable and goofy. The story was simple and moving at the same time. I found this game sticking with me for much longer than other titles mostly because the idea of needing an escape was what the game was about and was exactly what I needed. When I was feeling like my life was constrained to the area between my bed and my desk in my apartment, what I really needed was to take a short hike.
Overwatch and Valorant
I am lumping these two games together not because they are the same but because the reasons they make this list are the same. Overwatch is a team-based first person shooter where you choose a role (support, tank, or damage) and attempt to either capture a point on a map or attempt to push (or stop the other team from pushing) a “payload” to another point on the map. Valorant is also a team-based first person shooter, but instead your goal is to either plant a “spike” at a given point on a map or stop the other team from doing so (or defusing it before it explodes). I know these explanations sound like the exact same game, but I promise they are different in many ways.
Why are these two together on the list besides their gameplay similarities? These were the games my friends and I found ourselves wanting to play together after we all abandoned Seattle in March to return to our respective homes. While other groups of friends found themselves scheduling facetimes or zoom calls we’d schedule times to log on to play a few rounds and ultimately this was our medium for keeping in touch.
I think why these games felt more prevalent in my mind than other online games is that because they were serious competitive style games, they both had a pretty high skill cap, meaning there was a lot for us to learn and improve upon while we’d play. I’d begun to feel like between sessions of play that we had gotten substantially better as individuals and as a team as we’d see our win-rate increase and overall competitive ranking improve. Especially during this year, it was easy to feel like every day was the same, but getting just marginally better at something on a daily basis began to feel rewarding. Additionally, if it could be used as a time to catch up and keep up with friends? All the better.
Among Us
Once again, if you’ve not heard of Among Us, I assume you live beneath the same rock as the person described above who hadn’t heard of Animal Crossing. Among Us is a virtual version of the game Mafia/Werewolf (or insert your favorite game where most of the players are the normal players and one is the Mafia/killer/imposter/witch/etc.). Other online versions of this game have existed in the past like Town of Salem, but, in my mind, Among Us has done it best. The “Crewmates” are given a series of tasks to complete on board their spaceship and must try to determine who is the “Imposter” in the group. The rounds operate like this: You and your friends with whom you are playing join a group call on your platform of choice and when the game begins you all go on mute. Someone is assigned to be the “imposter.” The crewmates go about their business. The imposter tries to kill the crewmates without being found out. If someone finds a dead body or pushes the emergency meeting button, all activities stop and everyone unmutes themselves to chat about who they think is the imposter. You have about 2 minutes to discuss and vote someone off the ship. The crewmates will try to gather information and make an informed decision. Meanwhile, the imposter must lie their way out of any accusations against them.
This was by far the most fun group game I played with my friends during quarantine. I’ve enjoyed playing this so much I even played a few games with my friend and his family just so they’d have enough players (shoutout Alan C). Watching your close friends and family try to lie their way out of being called out for point blank murdering someone in the cafeteria in front of everyone has got to be one of the funniest experiences I’ve had this year. It’s a great game for large groups, relatively easy to pick up, and is free on mobile so if you’re looking for your next virtual game night, this is the game you’ve been waiting to play.
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Upon googling an image for this, I was reminded how amazingly life-like the in-game screenshots are for this game. You may have heard of Microsoft Flight Simulator in the past as it first debuted in 1982. Every couple of years Microsoft releases a new version with improved graphics and realism and this is the latest iteration in the series (the previous one being from 2006 (Microsoft Flight Simulator X)). The game is exactly what it sounds like, a flight simulator. You can play from inside or outside the cockpit of the aircraft of your choice and you can fly anywhere your heart desires. Yes, anywhere. The game world is procedurally generated from data from Bing Maps allowing you to explore anywhere in the world you’d like. The planes are created with such detail that real pilots and fans of the series (also called “flight simmers”) will find it is an extremely realistic simulation of flying the real life aircraft of your choosing down to the exact placement of the knobs on the instruments panel.
This game was the escape a lot of us needed, myself included. In a year where I felt it was unsafe to fly and visit places I wanted to go, this gave me the opportunity to go there and feel like I could escape the confines of my home for just a brief moment. My very first flight after the tutorials I took flying from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) in Michigan to fly over my college town, Ann Arbor. I’d fly along the Huron River where friends and I used to swim and tan over the summer, then through downtown to pass by the bars we used to go to, and finally over The Big House, the Michigan football stadium, to see the big maize block M in the stands in full detail. I’ve done flights over mount Fuji in Japan, the Lincoln Memorial in DC, and the Pyramids in Egypt. The game allows you to do these flights in any weather condition and any time of day. Never before has a game provided me with such a sense of wonder and awe. During a year of feeling so trapped at home, all I wanted was some way to feel like I could get out and explore the world. Imagine my delight to read the message at the end of the game’s promotional videos: “The Sky Is Calling”
