What’s the last game you got really obsessed with?

As I’ve mentioned a couple dozen times over the past year I’ve gotten really into the Persona series of games from Sega Atlus. The latest entry is Persona 3 Reload, a remaster/update of the original Persona 3 released in 2006 for the Playstation 2. I hadn’t played the original (although I dabbled in one of the DLC game modes) so despite its age it was going to be a new experience for me. How much am I enjoying this game? I had to force myself to stop playing long enough to write this article!

P3R has really grabbed a hold of me since its release 10 days ago and it hasn’t let go. While I’m not neglecting my family or job, I am finding myself not getting as much sleep as typical or enjoying my other leisure activities — I watched the Super Bowl with one eye on the football game and the other on the video game. I’m at over 80 hours played already and that just feels like a ludicrous number for something that came out earlier this month.

Of course, obsessive gameplay is not something I’m unfamiliar with, as my /played in World of Warcraft would suggest if my therapist hadn’t recommended I no longer check several years back. Before that there was the Civilization franchise, and so while the Persona games have taken control of my brain in the past year this isn’t an unusual circumstance. As someone who’s always worrying about his backlog I actually appreciate the fact that I’ll have completed this game (for the most part — 100% completion would require a new run of “new game+” and I’m not sure I’m going to do that yet) pretty quickly.

All of this is preamble to ask each of you: what’s the last game you’ve played that took hold and wouldn’t let go? I know a lot of people feel that way about Baldur’s Gate 3 (I’m planning to try it out later this year) and also Cyberpunk 2077, but what other games are heavily on your mind?