Into a Vivid Maze of Adventure

I've lost count of all the RPGs that start with the lead character slowly regaining their senses, having been washed ashore after surviving a shipwreck.

- Anusha Ganapathi

I've lost count of all the RPGs that start with the lead character slowly regaining their senses, having been washed ashore after surviving a shipwreck. And considering that I've played enough of these, I feel like the sentence "I woke up as a Godlike diplomat to find a mushroom-associated epidemic gripping the lands" is hardly the first time I've said it.

Don't get me wrong—I'm not taking a stab at the flashy new RPG 'Avowed' here. In fact, playing Avowed has finally made me understand why I wasn't obsessed at all with Baldur's Gate 3. You see, Avowed is a friendlier RPG than BG3, if you're exceptionally impatient, and cannot quite understand turn-based combat. Avowed's traditional hack-and-slash style of fighting can make you feel a bit maddeningly uncoordinated, but also nostalgic for the Skyrim aesthetic that we've all been missing for very long.