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So what do Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, Fallout 76, Elden Ring, Marathon, and ARC Raiders all have in common? Aside from the obvious….them all being video games….and great ones at that. To name a few things:

1. Post apocalyptic and/or dystopic (Elden Ring….well, if you stretch the definitions a bit)
2. Humans rallying in some way against insurmountable/unfair/unwin-able conditions
3. Fantastic soundtracks
4. Stunning graphics, yes I include Fallout 76 in this.
5. Incredible narratives and worlds either fully fleshed out or getting there – looking at you Marathon and ARC Raiders
6. They all have my undying love and autistic hyperixation

They’re all incredible games and games I happily suggest to any and every one. And while I understand that not all games are for all people, these are my short list for games I think everyone should play at least once. Personal opinion, of course.

Each of these games I have a large amount of playing time in considering I just started playing video games again in 2021 – a conversation for another day – as well as have worked full time (or more), achieved a masters degree, moved four times – two of which were across the country and back, trained for various athletic competitions and also just had general life-stuff as I am not a content creator or streamer, full time anyways. My playtime looks like this:

Cyberpunk clocks in over 400 hours across playstation and PC. I have done 2 full play-throughs, a full run of the DLC, and two incomplete starts – one of which is on Switch 2. Of note is that Cyberpunk is THE game that got me back into gaming at all and why I ever got into PC gaming. (Yes, I played AT LAUNCH on a base PS4 and survived 116 hours.)

Death Stranding is at 95 hours and I am not close to the end by any means. Largely because I log in with the intent of pursuing story beats and instead end up building roads or doing side-quest deliveries……or terrorize M.U.L.E.S when the game stole Lou from me.

Fallout 76 sits at 398 hours at the time of this article, a game I started in 2024 and have largely done none of the storyline. I do blame my unmedicated ADHD because I “oh what’s that over there” far too often.

Elden Ring is also over the 400 hour mark and I am one trophy away from platinum (and while not a trophy hunter for my first Fromsoft game, it means a lot.) This includes the DLC and now two full play throughs with a third on the way to get the sweet, sweet platinum.

ARC Raiders is around 240 plus hours, mostly solo and just, well, wandering. I do have all quests completed and work benches maxed, but I find more enjoyment in just loading in and running around. Also, helping others and randomly dropping epic items “just because”.

Marathon is fairly new but even with a full-time job, long distance running and art I have managed 2-3 hours most days. Currently level 25 with all factions unlocked. Looking to progress into harder content, events, and of course Cryo Archive now that it’s available.

So you get it, I love all of these games. And while I did list some similarities, other than poor ARC Raiders and Marathon that get continually and unfairly pitted against one another, why? Why THESE games?

I mentioned narrative. All of these games are strong in that department and rife with lore. And yes, even though Elden Ring requires a doctorate in literature, a subscription to 37 different youtubers, and owning a copy of Grace Given, it just means she’s a little “high brow.” Each game has a distinct, well-written, and thought out world that allows for total immersion. And before I go any further, I am not saying games NOT on this list lack this. This is just my personal opinion about my “best gals.” I mentioned ARC and Marathon as games that are being fleshed out and I’d like to touch on that a second, if you don’t mind.

ARC’s world is incredible story-wise but has a ton of potential. I say this as someone who has no connection to ANY game studio and thus no inside knowledge, but I don’t think Embark expected ARC to be so well-received. The Finals is beloved but by no means massive. My guess is they were hoping for something similar with ARC…instead it blew up. And I think that we will see more lore and narrative as they update and add content to the game. Not because it doesn’t exist, but because they didn’t expect so many people to want to be IN this world. Again, my two cents. And anyone with half a brain knows Bungie goes hard in the paint when it comes to story and lore. They’ve been turning in up to eleven since their first game, Classic Marathon, and don’t know how to do anything less. Marathon is PACKED with lore, positively dripping with it, and we’ve just scratched the surface with season one.

Each game has incredible soundtracks and what I call “world sounds” that pull you deeper into immersion with each note, each footstep….and dear god the way my stomach PLUMMETS when the buildings creak in Marathon. The sounds and noises make the world real, well I assume so as I tend to wear headphones and listen to the soundtracks for these games as I navigate the real world….joking, but largely not.

To live is to struggle and in each of these games, humanity struggles. Maidenless is flung at you from the outset of Elden Ring and the world literally dwarfs you at every turn. But I got a killer workout from every massive door I opened in slow and dramatic fashion. In Fallout 76, you’re a do-good doofus living underground and blissfully unaware of just how screwed is screwed. Cyberpunk and Marathon are siblings in humanities struggles: megacorps owning you quite literally, futuristic but somehow no more sustainable or livable for most…..capitalism in its final demonic form razing all in its wake. ARC Raiders is about humans pushed underground by giant AI bots that find new and interesting ways to kill you….like that firefly that managed to wedge itself through a tiny window on Buried City and light me on fire just as its friends, angry roomba and spicy roomba made themselves known. Death Stranding is one of those games where everyone’s comfort character has literally never known comfort in their entire existence. Yes, Higgs IS daddy but like has that man EVER been hugged?

Visually all of these games are stunning. I wish I could forget Elden Ring so I could feel what I felt when those doors opened and I was in Limgrave for the first time (also the fact that I was so terrified, it took me almost 7 hours to get the first map fragment and that music for that area could make me physically nauseous until recently). Even Fallout 76, which I KNOW people are just WAITING to clown. I love the way the world looks. It plays well into the retro-futuristic feeling of the game. Death Stranding is a visual feast, as is ARC, Marathon, and Cyberpunk. And now we’ve made it to the point. Yeah, I’m AuDHD but I do have a point despite my attention deficit. Two, in fact.

The first being – I think, while art is absolutely subjective, good art begets art. It makes you want to make art. And each of these games has done that for me. I’ve written so many stories using bits and pieces of ideas or emotions felt while playing these games. Hell, sometimes when playing I am monologuing in my head an active narrative for my character as they move through the world. A story completely aside from the one in game. For ARC Raiders, Death Stranding, and Marathon I have written direct fan-fiction…and no, not THAT kind of fan-fiction. Get your minds out of the gutter. ARC and Marathon has also joined the ranks of physical art as well. I started painting again, outside of my time in elementary school art classes, and its lovely.

Good art makes art. And no, I’m not saying my art is good but I’m proud and it exists. I’ve enjoyed many games, but few have done creatively for me what these games have.

And secondly, as well as what birthed the title “Why the Wander”… I mentioned previously that Fallout 76 and Death Stranding remain unbeaten from a narrative standpoint. Fallout 76 is also a live service game, but semantics. Also, how can one put over 200 hours into an extraction shooter….looking at you ARC (although I know people with 5000 hours in Tarkov so maybe its just confusing for those who don’t play the genre). And Marathon, I am just getting started sinking my life into that game. For those who love the genre, THEY get it, but once the quests are done and upgrades upgraded, people may wonder what’s left? MURDER EVERYONE. No, no, that is not my style.

Simple. In all of these games I love to load in and wander. Two hours shy of 400 hours in Fallout 76 and the intro story quest is not done. WHY? Because I load in and do my dailies and then “oh look, I’ve never been over there” and suddenly 3 hours have passed. Death Stranding is full of side questing and optional deliveries and a girl just wants to be in the world. Including that very dark time when Lou was gone and I went on a M.U.L.E. and terrorist killing spree because Lou was not there to be sad about it. I also could be caught singing “Give me my baby back, baby back” a la Chili’s old rib tune until I finally got my baby back. Cyberpunk is the ONLY game on this list aside from Elden Ring I’ve beaten, twice for both so far. And even now I just log in and wander and still find new things I’ve never found before. Like that dildo-sword thing on a cliffside I happened to fall on in Cyberpunk. And not like THAT, again….gutter-mind-get-out. ARC and Marathon raids and runs START with objectives. Either quests or contracts or a need to find gear and loot on the map. But all of a sudden I am ADHDing too close to the sun, I’m across the map from what I was supposed to be doing, and now I need to extract or die trying.

All of these games seem tailor made for my neurodivergent brain. And while not traditionally cozy, again read “comfort characters that have never known a day of comfort in their lives”, these are my cozy games in that I can always log in and have a great time. Even without doing an objective or quest or progressing the story line. I can just BE in the world, lose myself in it, fully become the character on the screen or A character in the world in my head. I can’t BE in New Cascadia, at least not yet…but let’s see where the future takes us. The death stranding hasn’t occurred. Soul Killer isn’t real, I can’t take a plane to The Lands Between, luckily no one has dropped nuclear warheads on Appalachia, AI hasn’t sent us scrambling beneath the earth….yet. But I can slide my headset on and I am there, fully. I just want to exist in them, even when faced with death or hardship or storylines I just can’t finish because I’m not ready for them to be over.

So, why the wandering? Because its a chance to be someone and something else in worlds I’ll never see.