WRUP: It’s the weekend and there’s one video game in particular that’s on the *ahem* horizon for Team Blizzard Watch

Look, I’d be lying if I said we here at Blizzard Watch weren’t collectively very excited about Horizon Forbidden West. Even still, while many of us will be playing the highly awaited sequel, there are plenty more goings-on here.

Read on below to see everything that we’re up to in this week’s WRUP: What aRe yoU Playing? Rob kicks us off.

Rob Flanagan

• IXION

For some, this is a long weekend so I am including Monday in my WRUP. Starting Monday, Steam Next Fest will begin, offering tons of demos of up coming games. I have yet to see a full list yet, but one game has certainly caught my eye. IXION has been described by many as “FROSTPUNK in space,” and my love of the colony building genre has me looking forward to building my own depressing Deep Space Nine.

Dan O’Halloran

• Lord of the Rings Online
• Legends of Runeterra

I have fallen deeply down the rabbit hole with Lord of the Rings Online again. I will be continuing to quest through the latest expansion, Fate of Gundabad, that finishes a 4-year story arc set immediately after the end of the events in the books. The whole arc has centered on the Dwarves reclaiming an ancestral mountain home north of Moria.

I’ve also started a character on one of their new Legendary servers, LOTRO‘s version of Classic servers. It’s only progressed to the first expansion from 2009 so happily reliving the memories of exploring Moria once again and helping the Dwarves reclaim their ancest—wait a minute!

Finally, I may play around with the new Brawler class that was introduced late last year because who doesn’t want to punch goblins in the face in the name of stopping ancient evil? If only they gave us tankards in each hand.

I’m back to playing Legends of Runeterra, the League of Legends-themed mobile CCG from Riot. A new content update dropped this week that wraps up their latest expansion and the new champions and mechanics look crazy fun. They have been building a very entertaining rogue-like single player feature into the game called Path of Champions. I like CCGs but don’t have the time or money to keep up with the meta for competing with other players, so this newish feature has me hooked. Bonus: Some of the champions have storylines in this feature that hook into their appearances in the animated Arcane series on Netflix.

 

Elizabeth Harper

• Horizon Forbidden West
• Horizon Zero Dawn

It’s Horizon Forbidden West time, though I may finish the Horizon Zero Dawn playthrough I was trying to do beforehand first. I haven’t quite decided.

Also I might do some closet-cleaning. One of those chores that, for whatever reason, just doesn’t do itself. But maybe it will be a nice rest for my eyes after a while staring at a screen.

 

Christian “Kalcheus” Thoma

• Horizon Forbidden West
• World of Warcraft

Like so many others, I will be diving into Horizon Forbidden West and trying to see how deep into the game I can get before patch 9.2 releases on Tuesday. I’ll take a daily break to run my toons through Crown Chemical Corp for a miniscule chance at the mount, but other than that it’ll be pretty much Aloy Aloy Aloy all weekend long.

Mitch “Mitch” Mitchell

• Horizon Forbidden West
  
• Mass Effect 3
• A Way Out
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus

For my part, I’m starting my PTO today (well, Friday) and I still have a massive blanket fort up in the living room, so it’s going to be a full week of HARDCORE GAMING from inside a fort and I could not be happier. I’m playing Horizon at midnight right when it launches, and I’ll be diving into Elden Ring before the next WRUP is up.

It’s a week off from thinking that I’ve desperately needed for a long time now, and if you haven’t recently, give yourself permission to take a break, use PTO if you can, and just generally stop moving for a moment, if just to breathe.

In between all that, Mass Effect 3, A Way Out, and shiny hunting in Pokémon. I actually managed to complete the ‘dex, so now it’s a matter of 100%ing the game which… it’ll be a grind but hey. I managed to do what I wanted before Forbidden West. That’s a win to me.

 

Anna Washenko

• Horizon Forbidden West

I am horrendously, atrociously bad at games that focus on stealth, which means I’m not going to be playing Horizon Forbidden West. But my husband will be! He’s already laid claim on the TV for the entire weekend, so I’m probably going to be watching him mainline Aloy’s latest adventure. We tend to divvy up a lot of major game releases and watch each other play. It’s nice to have an extra set of eyes to find sneaky enemies or an extra brain for solving puzzles.

Ted Atchley

• Legacy of the Sith

Legacy of the Sith! I’m so excited to dive into the new expansion this weekend. The trailer, “Disorder”, was one of the best pieces of Star Wars content I’ve seen recently. Even if you’re not into SW:TOR, if you like Star Wars at all, the trailer is six minutes of pure Star Wars entertainment. I’ve wanted Star Wars to delve into this angle on the Jedi story for a long, long time, and I’m so glad to see SW:TOR doing it.

I’ve heard the expansion’s story content is on the short side, but I think they will be doling out new story throughout the year. As someone with highly constrained playtime, it will still take me multiple play sessions to get through it. Even once that is done, my good friend and I will be re-rolling on the Imperial side after playing together on the Republic side at the original launch ten years ago.

My friend is rolling a Bounty Hunter origin story so I’ll be rolling an Imperial Agent origin as I want to start on the same planet as him. I’m taking advantage of the new Combat Styles by making my new character a Power Tech from Bounty Hunter combined with a Commando from Republic Trooper. Power Tech for my love of tanking and Commando for pew-pew fun with a giant gun. “Say hello to my little friend!”, indeed. Now I just have to conquer the hardest task when creating a new character–coming up with a name I love.

 

Andrew Powers

• SWTOR: Legacy of the Sith
• You’re the Worst

SWTOR‘s new xpac, Legacy of the Sith came out Tuesday. I was so looking forward to diving into the new story, playing it. I knew I was going to be saying that’s what I was going to be doing this weekend in this article. The thing is, in a total of about four hours of game time, I completed the story on a Republic-side character, through the one flashpoint, all the way to the credits. Not quite the content I was expecting. And between writing this and publishing, I’ll probably have finished the Imperial side, and if not, that will be done this weekend. Guess I’ll hope for a lot of end game content.

On the TV front, I started watching this show from FX, available on Hulu, called You’re the Worst. A “comedy” about dysfunctional relationships and divorce, and PTSD, it’s not really funny except maybe a line here and there. But the actors and the characterization are good. Five seasons, so a lot of content.
Also, this weekend, time to do my taxes.

Phil Xavier

• King of Fighters 15

This week, it’s time for KOF XV! I’ve always been a fan of fighting games, and The King of Fighters is one of my favorite series in this genre; I really enjoy their character designs and the general gameplay. As a fighting game, it’s not something you’ll play for the story, because that’s definitely secondary to the action. The goal here is to mash a few buttons, punch and kick your opponents, maybe try some combos and character trials, and have fun watching all the different endings, collecting all the different artwork and music, etc.

 

Joe Perez

• Lost Ark
• Total War Warhammer 3
• Pokémon Legends: Arceus

I actually installed Lost Ark at the request of a few friends, and I’m going to give it a fair shake. I am intrigued by the UI / controls and the combat system. I appreciate that they have a photosensitivity mode for players, which honestly more games should have.

Total War Warhammer 3 released on Game Pass, and I’ve been dying to give that a shot, so once it’s done installing I can go ahead and wage war as the Lizardmen!

I’m still working on 100% completing Pokémon Legends: Arceus and also trying to make an Alpha Dex, so I’ll probably spend some time doing that, which is definitely good.

And the new MTG Kamigawa Neon Dynasty set just released, and I’m going to do some deck building this weekend!

 

Matthew Rossi

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Horizon Forbidden West

Cyberpunk 2077 got its big next gen update, and it’s basically a soft reboot of the game, with new apartment hideouts you can buy, a customization option via the mirror in your apartment,a complete rebalancing of talents and the game’s AI was heavily overhauled. It’s essentially a complete revamp. And I enjoyed the heck out of it when I went into it yesterday. I will likely be playing it all weekend, because unless a genie shows up, I can’t afford Horizon Forbidden West and even if I could, it would have to be on PS4.

Seriously though, if you never played Cyberpunk 2077, now is the time. This update looks and feels like a whole new game, the one they wanted to release in the first place.

Update: Someone very nice helped me get a copy of Horizon Forbidden West for the PS4. I don’t know when I’ll get to play it, hopefully this weekend.

Anna Bell

• Strange Horticulture
• Cozy Grove

This week I just picked up Strange Horticulture, an indie game where you inherit your uncle’s weird herbalist shop. You have a cat, and you can pet your cat and it purrs. That’s really all you need to know about the game. Honestly, what more could there be?

I’m also keeping up with Cozy Grove, but I’m a little annoyed because apparently there’s a cap on how many pieces of clothing you can have! I’ve been picking up all the random beards and ugly hats along the way, so apparently it’s time to cull them all. I’ve also been ending up with just a mishmash of random crap at my campsite, because these silly dead bears keep giving me bicycles and lemon trees and snack tables and a couple of haunted graves and a food truck and a sparkly tree and a telescope, and half my animals hate those things. It’s an overwhelming, chaotic mess. I LOVE IT.

 

Liz Patt

• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Animal Crossing

Horizon Zero Dawn! I’m starting to get into the swing of Aloy, and all the chatter this week (my own writing included) has driven me more and more towards this game. I wanna climb a Tallneck so baaaaad. At least my aim has gotten better.

Supplemental fun to be provided by Animal Crossing, where the quest for the blue rose continues. I’ll also be hosting my first houseguests — first, a movie night on Friday, then a very belated holiday get together on Saturday, and a family lunch on Sunday. It’s a lot for my little introverted heart, but Yogg and video games will see me through!

 

That covers us for this week’s WRUP! Have a great week(end), everyone! See you in Video Game Land.