WRUP: It’s the end of February and Team Blizzard Watch is joining the Horizon/Elden hype train

Hello and happy Friday! It’s another weekend, which means it’s time for all of us here at Blizzard Watch to talk about our plans for gaming, entertainment, and life in general. Because sometimes, it’s nice to just celebrate the fun things in life, y’know? And this weekend in particular is ripe for plenty of fun things, as we now have our (very likely) second GOTY contender out in a week! As always, there are too many things happening and not enough time to enjoy them all — but we shall try!

Our own Christian “Kalcheus” Thoma leads us off this week with the adorable-looking game from our header image above.

Christian “Kalcheus” Thoma

• Never Alone
• Horizon Forbidden West

Never Alone was released for the Switch this week and it’s my top choice to play this weekend. The tale of an Iñupiat girl named Nona and her arctic fox, Never Alone is a puzzle platformer that lets you switch between the two. It’s been out for awhile now for PC and Xbox, but I never got a chance to play it so I’m taking full advantage of a portable Switch version. Gorgeous environments, a playable arctic fox, and they actually worked with Alaskan elders to get the cultural details right? My ideal game.

When I’m not exploring with Nona, I’ll be still working my way through Horizon Forbidden West. I don’t think I’ll have a chance to “finish” it this weekend, but I’m hoping to make substantial progress with little other gaming to do until Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons releases on Monday.

Elizabeth Harper

• Horizon Forbidden West
• Hearthstone Mercenaries

I’m still all in on Horizon Forbidden West, which is a fantastic game, though its mechanics are a huge jump up in complexity from the last one. A bit too much, in my opinion — while there are all sorts of neat abilities and combos, it leads to some convoluted controls. For example, you have a pullcaster, which you can shoot at things and pull them towards you or pull you towards them — a useful way to get around, and the only way to get to a lot of places. However, to use it you have to aim with your bow using L2, then press triangle to swap the bow for the pullcaster, then press R2 to fire. It’s a pretty essential mechanic, but has an unintuitive three-button combo to use. The control scheme just feels odd to me sometimes.

Other than that I’m back in Hearthstone Mercenaries to do the Lunar New Year quest which unlocks the Celestials — Xuen, Niuzai, and Yu’lon. I haven’t been playing in a while though so I’m not even caught up enough to start it… so I’m working on it. Mercenaries is a really low attention span game, so it’s a good one to play while doing something else (like writing my WRUP response). And I’ll probably also work on some of this “patch 9.2” thing I’m hearing so much about.

I feel like there’s a lot vying for my attention right now, but sometimes lately I just feel too run down to focus on a big game so I wind up playing things like Hearthstone instead. It’s good, too, but I have FOMO on Horizon and 9.2!

 

Ted Atchley

• Star Wars: The Old Republic

The plan is to continue my SW:TOR Imperial playthrough with my good friend/gaming wingman. He had already played through all the Legacy of the Sith content and said we’d have more fun starting our new Imperial characters. Inspired by the Skad and Drash from The Book of Boba Fett, I made Cyborg Imperial Agent Power Tech and he made a Bounty Hunter Commando complete with The Mandalorian transmog you can buy off the Cartel Market. We had a great time just hanging out and playing.

Because we were grouped, I could go into his ‘story moments” and he could go into mine. I got to see the Bounty Hunter story and he got to see the Agent story. I’ve played through three Republic stories (Jedi Knight, Republic Trooper, and Smuggler) so it’s been interesting to see what the other faction’s 1-60 story is like. We played through Hutta (the first planet/zone) and then ran The Black Talon (the first Flashpoint/dungeon). SW:TOR gave us two NPCs in addition to our companions to run the dungeon with so we didn’t even need to find a group. We’ll start this weekend on Dromund Kaas.

 

Phil Xavier

• Pokémon Legends: Arceus
• Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
• KOF XV
• WoW

I didn’t spend a ton of time playing video games this week for some reason, so I’m still mostly on the same page as before. Not a lot of progress was made on Pokémon Legends: Arceus or Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, but I did manage to play quite a bit of KOF XV.

There’s also WoW patch 9.2, but I’m taking my time! It took me almost four days to unlock the semi-weekly (Patterns Within Patterns). I’m in no rush whatsoever to consume that content.

Mitch “Mitch” Mitchell

• Elden Ring
• Horizon Forbidden West

It’s… well, the last weekend in February, which means I can finally play Elden Ring. I am, of course, also only minimally through Forbidden West because the game is massive. So I’m going to close out my week of HARDCORE GAMING™ with even more HARDCORE GAMING™ until I make it through as much of those two titles as possible before returning to work next week.

 

Andrew Powers

• D&D The Weirs Campaign
• WoW

This Saturday is the second session of Blizzard Watch plays D&D the Weirs campaign. As I mentioned last time, the new patch for SWTOR was really short, I’ve run out of story content, and the grind for new gear is terrible. I either have to find people to raid with, or cancel my sub (the older, more fun content is free to play). So for now I’ve stopped playing. I think I might play World of Warcraft, and actually start patch 9.2. I have also finished all the tv shows I’ve previously mentioned I was watching, and will be looking for something new.

 

Matthew Rossi

• Horizon Forbidden West
• Cyberpunk 2077

I’m playing Horizon Forbidden West, Cyberpunk 2077 because patch 1.5 is amazing, and that’s about it at the moment

Anna Bell

• Cozy Grove
• Valheim

It kinda-sorta feels like spring where I live, so every game I play that has a decorating system with floral elements is getting an overhaul. My Cozy Grove character is ready for spring cleaning and my House Flipper apartment office is getting some love, too. This is also where I’d insert WoW if we had player housing, but a flower crown transmog is okay, I guess.

My husband got a wild hair and decided to start a new Valheim server, where we started with new characters and everything, but he has a habit of wanting to all-in when he’s invested, so the first night when we logged out it was day 8, and then today when I logged back in, it was day 56, so I suspect he blazed on without me while I was busy doing other stuff. That’s totally fine, and kind of what I expected — he tends to be a goal and conquest/dungeon defeating oriented gamer, while my serotonin hits tend to come from exploration and gathering. Either fortunately or unfortunately, Valheim has added a mapping table feature where you can mark your map with map markers supplied by your teammates, so when I logged in on day 56, a whole lot of the reward cycle for me was wrecked almost instantly, because there are very few places left to explore where I won’t get murdilated instantly. Yes, that is a word.

 

Liz Patt

• Horizon Zero Dawn
• WoW
• AC:NH

My schedule is totally out of whack this week, so it’s all about the snippets of gaming where I can. Continuing in HZD, Aloy is a Seeker now so the real adventure begins. In WoW, I’ve fallen for the environment of Zerith Mortis and trying to knock out the first three chapters. Finally, the quest for the blue rose continues in AC:NH. Wondering if I start including a “weeks since starting” counter in my WRUPs, because time is a construct and does not exist.

(Side note: I will get back to Lost Ark and D2R/D3 soon, there are just only so many hours in a day.)

 

That’s our WRUP — What aRe yoU Playing — for this week! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and get to enjoy some of the fantastic games out there. Or fantastic weather, if you’re fortunate enough to have some! Either way, be safe, have fun, and if you have a second — why not let us know what you’re playing? Cheers!