How quickly does it take you to become obsessed with a game?

I have been playing a lot of Diablo 4 in the time since the early access for pre-orders went live. As I write this, that’s five hours of D4. And I have to say that I don’t know how I’m going to be able to stop to do things like eat, drink, void waste, and sleep, considering how obsessed I am with the game. Part of me wants to burn to Act 4 as quickly as possible, while another part of me wants to just explore everything, go everywhere, and spend at least a day just tooling around the vast open world of Sanctuary in this game.

Some games just have this effect. Cyberpunk 2077 had a similar grip on me when it went live, as did Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and I feel like I was pretty close to this involved with Greedfall, Battle Chasers Nightwar, Diablo 3, and Fallout 4. But it feels like D4 is the shortest amount of time to get me obsessed of any game I’ve ever played — so much so that I can barely get myself to stop long enough to write this post. Messing around in the Wardrobe trying to find a good look didn’t help matters much either.

Now, I’m old enough that my days of nonstop gaming are well behind me. I will be taking rest breaks and sleeping, using the lavatory, and otherwise slowing myself down by acknowledging my frail, mortal flesh that simply cannot endure that level of monofocus any longer. But it’s fair to say that if I were able to do nothing but play this game? I would likely do exactly that, because this is the game I’ve been waiting for since I finished Reaper of Souls. It’s the game that actually brings all the threads from the Sin War books in. It’s the game with Lilith and Inarius. It’s the game where we get to actually see the world of Sanctuary bloom into full view, instead of just slides and slices of it.

So now that I’ve admitted it, what about you all? Do you ever find yourself submerging into a game? How obsessed can you get, and how fast can you feel it happening?