What are we all playing this weekend?

Edwin had the lovely idea of increasing everyone’s workload this week, by suggesting that we add a bit more meat to the bones of our responses this weekend, given that it’s Easter here and we’ve got Friday and Monday off work. Which means more time to fill with games, in theory!

So! Here’s what we’re all clicking on this extended, vaguely chocolatey weekend!

Brendy
Brendy, sly sinner that he is, managed to escape before the tolling of the WAPAPAPAPA bell.

Edwin
Back in my carefree years as a freelancer, years before Katharine Castle (RPS in peace) put a harpoon through my leg and dragged me screaming up the Treehouse ladder, I had the pleasure of reviewing Dragon Age: Inquisition in four days. Three days to play, and one day to write the thing up, and possibly some periods of sleep driven into the cracks like pitons. Such turnarounds are sadly common in the world of freelance. If it had been a website I’d have played the Websites Are Made Of Fairy Dust Card and asked for an extension, but it was a magazine gig, and when magazines miss deadlines there are tangible material consequences, like printers offering to break your knees. So I girdled my dressing gown, ordered in extra Pringles and got busy Inquisiting.

I remember that period as a sort of four-day-long Xmas hangover. Predictably, I spent far too long in the Hinterlands, that listless Ubisoft daydream at Inquisition’s heart. I had to brute-force the equipment curve, so my party members always looked like they’d dressed themselves by rolling around in a cutlery drawer (except for Cassandra, my beloved). I kited a lot of demons and got lost in the desert at 4am. I had a blast, frankly. It’s rare that you have a blast reviewing a mega-RPG at short notice, and Inquisition isn’t a perfect specimen. The battle interface is a cauldron of confused and angry spiders. A lot of the chainmail looks like foil-painted candyfloss. Still, I can’t think of a fantasy realm I’ve had more fun beasting on deadline. If you’ve got a bank holiday weekend in store, you could do worse than to shove those four days down Inquisition’s gullet.

Graham
It’s a long weekend, which means more time to fill with games. Except, not really. I’m a parent and my kid is off school for two and a half weeks, which gives me both less time to play games alone and more time to fill. So far: Minecraft, Fall Guys, and a return to Kirby And The Forgotten Land ahead of the new levels coming on Switch 2 have kept my kid and I entertained together. Also Block Blast, a wholly unremarkable twist on Tetris that’s been blowing up the mobile gaming charts. I can’t deny its appeal. This coming weekend? I will attempt to get him interested in Vampire Survivors and Hollow Knight. He’s keen on anything that’s got big bosses to defeat.

James
I’m glad Edwin came up with this idea of longer, more retrospective WAWAPs, as I’ll be spending the entire long weekend schlepping around Ireland in the rain – conditions that make PC games logistically difficult and uncomfortably moist. Anyway, if you do have four days to fill at your keyboard, that to me sounds like a perfect amount of time to dig into a nice, meaty immsim: your Dishonoreds and your Deus Exes. I’m currently partway through a second, more upfrontedly shooty playthrough of Deathloop, and it may have supplanted Arkane’s previous works among my most favouritest games ever.

It’s just so composed and confident in its own gleeful oddness. The 70s thriller aesthetic? The mechanically nonsensical guns? The fact that your archnemesis calls you for a chat at the start of every mission? Love ’em. All while quietly possessing the depth of action that allows and encourages desperate, hipfiring cagefights as much as gracefully flowing murderdances. And you know about the kick, right?

Jeremy
With all this news of an Oblivion remaster hovering over the horizon, now seems like a perfect time to maybe boot up the original game…? Nah, that would be too ambitious a goal, even during this four-day weekend. However, I can surely waste time watching some of these massive TWELVE HOUR OBLIVION RETROSPECTIVES on YouTube. Seriously, how do people tackle YouTube essays that are longer than all of the LOTR movies combined?! I guess that’s what long weekends are for. Oh look, here’s a shorter one, at only five hours. I might as well just play the original after all. Except for the fact that I think Morrowind is objectively the prettier early pre-Skyrim game, and probably the one that deserves a true remake, except doing so would likely be harder than remastering Oblivion. While we’re at it, why don’t remaster Redguard, the Elder Scrolls spinoff that nobody remembers except for me, because as a kid I was so enamored of the box art which managed to make it look like an epic Zorro adventure rather than the thinly veiled Tomb Raider clone that it was. I think I’ll just watch a playthrough of that this weekend instead, and fill my brain with memories of 1998 tank controls!

Nic
I am still playing that secret review game, despite having written my review already. This very rarely happens! It’s very good! Otherwise, I’ve got some Monst to get back to hunting. (editor’s note – this is an unsuitably non-lengthy response, and Nic is now in the naughty corner.)

Ollie
Pray for me: I have begun a new Factorio playthrough. It’s very early days so far, just red and green science done, and a single car with which I’m scouting out chokepoints to wall up with turrets. Otherwise, I’m still playing Trackmania’s Cup Of The Day whenever I can – best I’ve done so far is still 2nd place in my division. And if I get any time beyond that, I want to get back into some sort of FPS. Possibly some Fragpunk, which I’ve only played a couple games of but seems pretty fun and satisfying. Or maybe I’ll go back to Delta Force and play some of its campaign at last. Then again, all of this is a lie except for the Factorio bit.

But you, reader dear, what are you playing this weekend?…