Great Desolate Adventures

They make for great introspection and even improve your pub chat with friends

Those of you who are around the age of thirty may remember the halcyon days of split screen joy. Maybe you have romantic memories of times where you were mocking your friends as you gleefully traded fired pixels back-and-forth in well-worn locations like Facility or Frigate. Or maybe you simply preferred chasing your big-headed friends around for hours as you attempted to paintball them into submission. It’s worth mentioning, too, that even solo play can be a social experience — albeit in a different way. Ripping through forty hours of a title can lend itself to those every-other-day conversations you have with close friends:

“Which quest did you do?”

“Are you at the final level yet?”

“Oh my god I didn’t see it coming either!”

I love nothing more than discussing these choices and the surrounding games mythology with friends. Usually with alcohol.

Of course, I don’t want to talk to my friends about any old games. I’m especially keen on the experiences that make me feel something — and for me, the worlds that really draw me in have one thing in common: desolation. To be more specific, I’m drawn to those games where I can’t help but marvel at just…