Every Cult Stash you open in Alan Wake 2 will grant you helpful rewards. Like Lunch Boxes and Nursery Rhymes, finding Cult Stashes is an optional pursuit while you’re in control of Saga around Bright Falls and the surrounding areas as she investigates the Cult of the Tree.
In this Alan Wake 2 guide, we’ll show you where you can find Cult Stash locations, how to solve every Cult Stash you find, and what rewards you’ll get from every Cult Stash you open.
Note: This guide is in progress. We’ll add more Cult Stashes as we find them.
Cult Stash locations in Cauldron Lake
There are a total of five Cult Stash locations in the Cauldron Lake area, but you’ll only be able to get four of them during your first adventure in the area. These Cult Stashes come with a variety of supplies, but one of them in the Cauldron Lake area comes with an inventory expansion, which is definitely something you’ll want to have sooner rather than later.
If you miss any of these stashes on your first trip, you will be able to grab them later on in the game.
Cauldron Lake Cult Stash #1 (“Confused? Follow the Steps”)
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The first cult stash is just south of the Murder Site and general store (where you get the shotgun) on the map. In front of the long, rectangular trailer, you’ll find a heavy box with a lock on it.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
On top of the box, you’ll find a taped piece of paper, which reads: “Confused? Follow the steps! Wash hands, take chicken out of fridge, take a nap.”
The note is directing you toward the trailer. If you go inside the trailer and look at the bathroom sink, the fridge, and then the bed in the bedroom, you’ll see three symbols in order:
Two triangles with their points touching at an angle
Two triangles with their points touching that are vertical
Horizontal elevator “open door” buttons
(These symbols don’t have names, so if our descriptions are tough to follow, run through the house in the order we listed above to check for yourself.)
Head to the lock on the chest and input the three symbols we’ve listed above. Once in the right order, the chest will pop open and you’ll be rewarded with some handgun ammo and a trauma pad.
Cauldron Lake Cult Stash #2
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
You won’t be able to access this Cult Stash until after you’ve defeated Nightingale — the game’s first boss — and woken up on the shore with a mysterious companion.
Once you’re headed back toward the Witch’s Sign and the Overlap, hang to your right and you’ll find a ton of gnarly tree limbs scattered along a shore area. It doesn’t really look like you can adventure any further, but if you walk up to the biggest tree blocking your way, Saga will climb under it.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
Once on the other side of the big tree, make your way through the narrow path until you reach another Cult Stash. This lock is the simplest to open by far. Activate it and some lights will flash in an order. Hit the buttons in the same order that the lock just showed you — like Simon Says — and it’ll pop open.
This is a pretty great stash to find, as it includes some shotgun ammo, a propane tank, a hand flare, and most importantly, an inventory expansion.
Cauldron Lake Cult Stash #3 (“Rock Rock Tree”)
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
Once you’ve removed the flooding from Cauldron Lake and you’re able to get down by the river, you’ll find another Cult Stash just south of the Private Cabin, in a little ravine that leads out to the lake itself.
The Cult Stash is on a shelf next to the cabin, and simply says “Rock, Rock, Tree. Are you bright enough?”
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
This one is a little tricky, as you’ll need to do some minor math and hunt around for the code. If you’re just looking for the code, here you go: 658.
The gist is that there are two numbers written on a rock down by the river (to the south) that say 7 and -2. Then there’s a tree to the left of the box with a 6 and a +2 on it. And then there’s another rock to the right of the box with 3 and +3. If you do the math on this, that means you’re dealing with 5, 6, and 8.
The cache doesn’t specify which rock is first, so we just had to try both to figure out the order.
You’ll get a propane tank and a first aid kit for your trouble.
Cauldron Lake Cult Stash #4
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
Just west of the Witch Sign, next to the tent icon in the Crow’s Foot Hills on the map, you’ll find another stash. Depending on how you approach it, you’ll likely see the golden arrows before you see the box itself.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The box just has a picture of a lightbulb on it. If you look at the trees from the west (looking east, toward where your car and the parking lot is) with your flashlight, you’ll see a bunch of arrows leading you to the right (or south, on the map). Follow these arrows and you’ll eventually find some keys on a mound of dirt.
Pick up the Streamside Stash Key and bring it back to the stash to unlock it and earn a hand flare, some shotgun ammo, and a trauma pad.
Cult Stash locations in Watery
There are a total of eight Cult Stash locations in Watery, which you’ll be able to head to as Saga once you complete the first Alan gameplay section. These Cult Stashes come with a variety of supplies — as usual — but one of them in Watery is how you’ll unlock the Crossbow, which is a powerful long-range weapon for Saga.
If you miss any of these stashes on your first trip to Watery, you will be able to grab them later on in the game.
Watery Cult Stash #1
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
North of downtown Watery, just after you meet the Taken Throwers for the first time, you’ll find yourself on a winding trail up into the woods. Keep going until you’re able to turn right and head back the way you came along a small ridge — if you make it to the rest shack with the generator, you’ve gone too far, and if you find a nursery rhyme, you didn’t go far enough.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
After passing by some foliage you’ll find yourself on a ridge overlooking the area you just walked through. On the lip of the ridge is a Cult Stash. This has the same Simon Says-style lock as the second Cauldron Lake Cult Stash. Copy the inputs and it’ll pop open, netting you a propane tank and some shotgun ammo.
Watery Cult Stash #2
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
North of downtown Watery you’ll find a safe room shack with a generator outside. Once you turn it on and save your game, walk outside the safe room and you’ll see another Cult Stash sitting under and awning by the shooting range. If you read the note you’ll see that this Cult Stash is where you can get a Crossbow — if only you could figure out the code…
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The code here is 527, and the way you figure it out is actually pretty cute.
If you look at the crossbow training area to the right of the stash, you’ll see a bunch of targets with numbers on them. The five has one bolt sticking out of it (indicating it’s the first number), the two has two bolts, and the seven has three bolts.
Input the code and steal the Crossbow for yourself. You can grab all of the bolts out of the aforementioned numbers to get some extra ammo.
Watery Cult Stash #3 (“Only striped cups”)
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
Once you make it inside Coffee World, you’ll find another Cult Stash at the foot of the Slow Roaster, the creaky death-trap of a Ferris Wheel.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The code here is 147, and the clue says “only striped cups.”
If you look up at the Slow Roaster you’ll see that all the Ferris Wheel carriages are numbered and some are striped. You just need to pick the three striped ones and put in their corresponding numbers. You’ll get some shotgun and handgun ammo for your trouble.
Watery Cult Stash #4 (“What hides behind the smile?”)
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
In Coffee World, in the section of the map sandwiched between the “Coffee World” area (the one south of the Slow Roaster, not the big red sign on the map) and Kalevala Knights Workshop, you’ll find the Huotari Well. And behind the Huotari Well, against the back wall of the area, is another Cult Stash.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The clue shows a picture of Drippy — the giant coffee pot mascot for Coffee World — and says “what hides behind the smile.” This sounds cryptic, but it’s actually quite literal. Head back toward the Coffee World area and the main entrance to the park (remember, you entered from the back) and you’ll see the giant, painted Drippy made out of concrete, sitting on a wall. Walk up behind the mascot and weasel your way though a little gate to what looks almost like a tiny garden. You’ll find a key sitting on the ground.
Grab the Coffee World Stash Key and take it back to the Cult Stash to get some handgun, shotgun, and crossbow ammo.
Watery Cult Stash #5
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
West of the Watery Lighthouse and its nearby safe room, you’ll find a ledge you can grab up on. Climb up to find a Cult Stash sitting against a rock. Here, you’ll need to shine your flashlight around looking for cult symbols in a particular order. But there are way more symbols here than codes to place into the lock, so you’ll need to narrow it down.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The code to the box is:
Two triangles facing down on top of each other
Two triangles facing up on top of each other
Two triangles next to each other facing down
You can find this pattern for yourself by looking around for the roman numerals above each symbol. These symbols are marked with an I, II, and III respectively.
You’ll get a propane tank, an arrow, and some pistol ammo for your trouble.
Watery Cult Stash #6
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
Once you’ve conquered the Overlap in Watery and made the flooding subside, head back to Saga’s trailer (marked “‘My’ Trailer” on the map) and go to the trailer one just south of it. Head toward the front door, which faces the dock, and you’ll see the Cult Stash hanging out under an awning near the front door.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
There is no hint on this stash at all, and while you could go into the house and read some emails to figure out where to find the key, we’ll just tell you where it is.
Facing the stash, walk right and you’ll see a ramp that leads up to a pole. Walk up the ramp and look to your left. Grab the Trailer Park Stash Key off of the electrical box and use it to open the stash.
You’ll get an arrow, a propane tank, and a trauma pad for your trouble.
Watery Cult Stash #7 (“Battery 1600 Amps math problem”)
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
Once the flooding has gone down in Watery, head back into downtown and go down the dock facing to the east, on the farthest edge of town. You’ll find the Cult Stash box sitting next to some other boxes and it’ll have a bit of a math problem for you to solve. Let’s take a look:
There are 3 batteries (B1, B2, B3) which have a combined charge of 1600 Amps. B2 has 128 Amps more than B3. B1 has two times as much charge as B3. How many Amps does B2 have?
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
The correct answer and code is 496.
Show our work? Sure! Subtract 128 from 1600, which gives you 1472. Divide that number by four (three different batteries, but we know one of them is double the other, so it counts for two), to get the value of our lowest battery, B3: 368. Multiple B3 by two and you’ll get B1: 736. And add that 128 back to B3 and you get the code and answer to B2: 496. Check your work by adding 368, 736, and 496 back together and you get 1600 Amps exactly. Math!
You’ll get an arrow, a trauma pad, and shotgun shells for flexing your math skills.
Try as we might, the yearly release hold can be inescapable for many of us. Especially when it comes to sports titles. For example, while the long-running EA Sports FIFA series may be under a new name – now aptly titled EA FC – a lot of its sameness lingers. There were some tweaks, sure, but nothing to truly enhance the overall experience. Which brings us to Football Manager.
20 years on, the partnership between Sports Interactive and SEGA is as strong as ever. And yet, although the past couple of entries were more often than not enjoyable – one need only glance at my play time to confirm – stagnation began setting in. The experience itself was still the best in the business and yet, there appeared to be little room left to grow. Nothing revolutionary, some minor tweaks, and perhaps a little lack of imagination.
So how have the folks behind the ever-popular managerial simulator responded this year? With more new features that you can shake a stick at. Noticeable upgrades to both the on-field physics and matchday lighting, which truth be told, feels like a night-and-day difference even from FM23. And, most importantly for some, even more choice when it comes to where you want to take your career.
Who Needs Reality Anyway?
Image Source: SEGA via Twinfinite
Look, I would be more than content to start every FM save from now until forever the same way. Would my play time be a little more sporadic? Likely. Even still, I know myself. Thankfully, FM24 has given its players all the more reason to throw their free time away.
Whether it’s the tried and true ‘Original,’ ramped-up reality of ‘Real World,’ or the alternate reality that could very well become ‘Your World,’ FM24 presents three career paths to consider as you begin managing. We’re not going to shame you for sticking with the ‘Original,’ at least not initially, but there’s something invigorating about taking the ridiculous riches of Todd Boehly’s Chelsea and getting every player imaginable off the books – at your own risk, of course.
You could simply stick to the ‘Original,’ but that would mean having to hold onto a lot of players you don’t necessarily want. And certainly, a whole host of those you didn’t recruit yourself. But if you’re looking for a stronger dose of mapped out realism, ‘Real World’ has you covered. Think about taking Tottenham Hotspur and realizing that on the day before the Premier League season begins, Harry Kane is leaving. Sure, you know it’s coming, but the question is: How are you going to adjust?
What if you’d rather start a save in which everyone is where they were? Well, that’s also an option! In this scenario, Christian Pulisic is still at Chelsea. Harry Kane hasn’t left. You can sell every Schalke 04 with a hint of value, enraging everyone. These are definitely not specific examples.
Whatever the case, the initial transfer window is there for you to shape. Almost entirely.
Rolling Saves Will Always Be a Game-Changer
Image Source: SEGA via Twinfinite
In Football Manager 23, I brought Ange-ball to Manchester United. Maybe it was out of pity. Perhaps it was because whatever it is that Erik ten Hag has them doing now, coupled with their even worse transfer business, made me think ‘Wait, I bet I could do better.’ And alas, I did! Because you see, Football Manager isn’t real life. Though, there is a case to be made that it is sometimes more enjoyable than real life.
All that is just a long way of saying that in Football Manager 24, I could bring those Ange-ball tactics and that very same Manchester United save to this year’s edition if I chose to do so. In the end, that wasn’t the direction taken. However, the fact that it is now a possibility feels like an important shift.
Suddenly, I long for my Schalke FM22 days when, within four seasons, I was able to sign the likes of Robert Lewandowski and Manuel Neuer on free contracts. Sure, they were at the end of their careers, but this is Schalke we’re talking about.
Anyway, it’s good to know you don’t have to start from scratch if you don’t want to.
Various Ways to Rebuild Your Squad
Image Source: SEGA via Twinfinite
You don’t have to lie to us: We’ve all used the In-Game Editor at some point in our Football Manager careers. Am I projecting? Oh, most definitely. But am I right? Again, yes. Still, even at my lowest point, I only ever really used said editor to rid my club of players that just would not move. Sometimes there was interest, but no bids. Other times they’d be begging to leave, only to turn down seven different loan offers within a two-week period. So I moved them to a club with genuine interest, usually at half their in-game value, and that was that.
I know, I know; it’s sickening. The good news is that in Football Manager 24, there are multiple routes to take in order to remove some of the deadwood, as it were. Stirring up market interest with their agent (think Tobias Fünke talking himself up around the water cooler) is one way. Another way is by hiring an Intermediary Agent, and let me tell you, that option is a breath of fresh air.
There are pros and cons, of course. That player may not want to leave and this may cause unrest, but why should you care? They’re not in your plans, so it’s time to move them on. Simple as that, and I can say that with confidence because I know for a fact that I’ll never have to do something like this in real life. Though, it may also come at the expense of general squad morale, and that’s a little trickier to navigate.
If nothing else, making it a little easier on us to move some of our squad is a welcomed change, even if it’s not as easy and underhanded as using the editor to do so.
A Fresher, More Authentic Feel
Video Source: Football Manager YouTube Channel
I imagine most of us don’t typically pour hours upon hours into this series for the graphics. Even still, FM24 upped their game in terms of presentation this time around. Be it through in-game tactical progression or overall presentation, there are noticeable differences.
The Continental Competitions (UEFA Champions League, Europa League, and European Conference League) remain, as do their licenses. Those anthems are still bangers. Animations are genuinely crisper, from penalty shots to goalkeeper saves.
There have been minor bugs here and there – a la players suddenly giving up on the ball; ignoring tactical instructions; blurry images depending on the weather. Yet all in all, it’s another step up from last year’s edition. Sometimes, that’s all we’re really asking for.
At Its Core, FM24 Gives You Reasons to Keep Playing
For a while, admittedly, Football Manager could afford to coast. There are plenty of simulators out there, but when it comes to sports simulators, it’s difficult to find one more engrossing than this. Part of that is due to the sheer volume of clubs available. While it’s fun to save a struggling Premier League side from itself, it’s arguably even more fun to rise through the ranks (if you’re able) with a club from the sixth tier in English football (or the third tier in Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and so on).
No matter what, most of us were probably always going to pour hours into this game. But this time, Sports Interactive and SEGA have taken a large leap forward, improving on the tamer-yet-newer features of the past couple of entries while going all-in on a variety of fresh ways to greatly enhance the player experience. At a time when other franchises had a chance to retool and swing for the fences but didn’t, Football Manager went for it.
Not everything is going to come off, sure. Bugs will appear. Player moods will swing a little more wildly than they have in the past. At times, it will seem like no matter what you do against a certain club or player, it won’t work. That’s football, baby. You can always go somewhere else. You can always try something else. Maybe the Eredivisie if you find the larger leagues a little too stressful. Go to Iceland, Japan, or heck, bang your head against the wall while adjusting to the MLS registration rules.
There is no single way to play Football Manager 24, but then again, that’s been the charm of the entire franchise. There are several reasons to keep coming back for more, though, and it’s apparent the developers took that to heart this time around.
Football Manager 2024
Reviewer: Shaun Ranft
Award: Editor’s Choice
Pros
The definitive Football Manager experience.
Multiple ways to enjoy a Career.
Available on all platforms.
Enhanced presentation.
Saves carry over.
Cons
Player mood swings seem a little more frequent, volatile. Press Conferences remain stale, repetitive, and tedious.
Release Date
Nov. 6, 2023
Developer
Sports Interactive
Consoles
PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4
Copy provided by Publisher
About the author
Shaun Ranft
Shaun Ranft is a Freelance Writer for Twinfinite, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has been with the site and writing about games in general since 2022. While he typically covers any major sports title, he also cannot get enough of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds, Arkham, and the Horizon series.
Thirsty Suitors has been one of my most unexpected gaming joys of 2023, with the title originally catching my eye for the parallels it drew to the Scott Pilgrim franchise. However, as I soon discovered when I was given the opportunity to play a preview of the game, Thirsty Suitors is entirely original and quirky and puts a new spin on the whole ‘battle against angry exes’ thing.
Because I had found this preview to be such a blast, I was more than excited to give the completed game a run; and just as expected, the wacky, chaotic fun continued in full swing. While Thirsty Suitors does share some classic references to Scott Pilgrim, it also puts a refreshing spin on things to make the story feel entirely original.
Most significantly, you don’t play as yet another ‘thirsty suitor’ (sorry Scott, the truth hurts) but instead as the ‘Ramona’ character, or in this case, Jala, who has returned to her hometown for the first time in three years, only to be met with even more trouble. As Jala embarks on a journey to repair rocky relationships with her family and friends, she also finds herself trying to fend off unwanted attempts at trying to win her back or make her life hell, from her exes.
Upon jumping into the game, you find yourself as Jala on her bus ride home. To kill some time, she takes part in a dating quiz to determine your initial ‘Thirstsona’ – one of three dating types that provide different stat boosts for you to use in Suitor Battles. It’s also here where you’ll meet the character of the Narrator, Jala’s self-deprecating inner monologue who is pictured with an uncanny resemblance to her older sister, Aruni.
Image Source: Outerloop Games
The Narrator is there to antagonize Jala every step of the way, making sarcastic quips and brutal remarks to almost everything that she has to say; and it’s so hilarious that it had me laughing out loud the entire way through.
This Thirstona Quiz is also much more interactive compared to others, allowing you to get a feel for the skateboarding mechanics at the same time by jumping, grinding, and wall-running your way between each platform, where you will be presented with the next question. After concluding this hilarious and bizarre experience, you will finally have arrived home in Timber Hills and make your way to the Diner in search of a ride home.
While the main focus in The Diner is the first Suitor Battle, I’d like to briefly compliment the inclusion of the coolest skater dog in town. In Thirsty Suitors, petting the dog is not as simple as a little ruffle of the fur. Machan, who is perhaps the most rad little pup in existence, will do a trick on your skateboard, give you high fives and fist bumps with his paws, and even complete a personal handshake like you’ve been best buddies forever. Automatic bonus points are deserved for sure.
Image Source: Outerloop Games via Twinfinite
Not long after saying hi to Machan, you’ll be met with an appearance of Jala’s ex-boyfriend and supreme momma’s boy, Sergio. Suitor Battles are turn-based combat encounters with cinematic dialogue scenes between most turns, giving Jala a chance to confront the negatives of her past.
There are many different Suitor Battles to encounter in the game, with mysterious ‘Gift or Grift’ encounters involving men that your grandmother has sent your way with goals of arranging a marriage, and Jala’s exes serving as the boss fights of Thirsty Suitors, their reveals spread out among various Chapters of the game.
In Suitor Battles, you will use a mix of Attacks, Taunts, Skills, and Items to defeat the countless Suitors. Attacks are basic blows that deal damage and earn you WP, Taunts place various status effects on the enemy at the cost of your WP, and Skills are attacks that deal bonus damage to Taunted enemies or heavy HP damage both at the cost of your WP. Items are exactly as you’d imagine, consumables that you can use to restore HP, WP, or gain certain buffs.
While Suitor Battles are fairly basic in terms of turn-based combat, they are entirely uplifted and kept entertaining by the hilarious one-liners, baffling (and at times cringe-worthy) dialogue, and energetic voice acting. I find myself excited to use an attack each turn, waiting in anticipation of what harsh and sarcastic words Jala is going to drop on the enemy, or how the enemy will respond to such a maneuver.
Image Source: Outerloop Games
Suitor Battles also use timed-button inputs to strengthen the output of your blows, or to reduce damage from incoming attacks. This makes dealing damage that much more satisfying, there’s nothing better than nailing a perfect attack, having Jala spit out some words of sarcasm, and then WHAM! Watch your poor ex get flattened by your moves.
Jala returned home to confront her past and fix her rocky relationship with her family and has now found herself forced to face off and make amends with her exes, too. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, unfortunately for Jala, that’s only about half of the craziness. She also finds herself involved with infiltrating and tracking down the mysteries surrounding the cryptic skateboarding cult, led by Soundie, a strange man in a full-on bear costume. Yep, it’s as wacky as it sounds.
Image Source: Outerloop Games
Skating is the main method of transport for the game, allowing you to kickflip, wallride, and grind your way around town; and the Skate Park offers unique challenges to test and build your skills along the way. These are usually fun little stunts that involve learning new tricks or completing time trials to collect as many Neon Burger Tokens as possible. Completing challenges will win you bonus rewards to use in battle, coins to purchase some goodies from the various stores in town, and even new jackets, skateboard decals, or sneakers to customize Jala’s look.
These challenges are relatively simple, too, not being too easy or too difficult. For example, I found that I had to retry one of the Neon Burger runs a couple of times to determine the best pathing, but once I had that worked out, I was able to tackle the challenge like some sort of skate pro.
The skateboarding mechanics in general are quite satisfying, with a variety of different tricks you can pull off whenever you feel like it, even bumping into people like a true skatepunk. These little trick mechanics and challenges remind me of the chaos that was Skate 3, just on a smaller scale with much more toonish influences.
Thirsty Suitors may seem like a bizarre, quirky, chaotic mess, but that’s exactly what makes it so special. Never have I experienced a game that can so continuously catch me off-guard and make me laugh out loud with ridiculous one-liners and character interactions. The story is simple, hilarious, and easy to follow along, making it an enjoyable tale to explore. The soundtrack also creates a unique vibe, combining Hip-Hop tunes with South-Asian music influences to create some intense battle themes and catchy skateboarding tunes.
Image Source: Outerloop Games via Twinfinite
The characters themselves are brilliantly endearing, and intriguing, and showcase great representation and diversity, with each one helping Jala to learn new lessons and make peace with some of her biggest flaws. Between all of the chaos and craziness, there are also some entirely heartwarming moments in Thirsty Suitors, such as Jala’s relationship with her father.
While her bond with her mother is finicky at best, with them only really seeming to talk through the Cooking activity, and her sister refuses to speak to her, Jala’s father is always there to encourage her. He helps her by having discussions about hardships her exes have faced both at her hand and in her absence and is even there to carry her to bed when she falls asleep.
Overall, Thirsty Suitors is a lovable game with a very enjoyable narrative to follow. With each Suitor Battle, it truly does feel like Jala is moving forward in her journey to confront her past and come face to face with her actions and flaws, rather than simply running away again. Every character you meet brings something to the table and has their unique strength – from confidence, persistence, or independence, to kindness and selflessness, which makes each battle feel very rewarding to complete.
Image Source: Outerloop Games via Twinfinite
There are a couple of minor bugs in the game, but this didn’t affect gameplay performance too much. The first was a small audio hiccup/bug that happens frequently when certain sound effects or voice lines play, both inside and outside of Suitor Battles.
The second is a bug with the Suitor Status menu, in which some character portraits don’t appear on their profile along with their backstory. This is a shame, as I really enjoy the 2D portrait art of Thirsty Suitors, so I was looking forward to seeing each ex illustrated in this style. Oh well, hopefully, a fix will be out for this soon. Or maybe some of Jala’s exes are just taking a page out of her book and going full ghost, who knows?
Apart from these minor instances, Thirsty Suitors has been an incredibly enjoyable experience with an endearing, quirky story and unforgettable characters. It’s a brilliant game to play if you just want to chill out and enjoy a laugh or two, as I found even the skateboarding challenges to be fairly relaxing to play once I had the basics down.
It’s also relatively short to complete as the game only has a few Chapters, meaning you can wrap up the story in between 10-15 hours. This makes it the perfect game to pick up and play on a weekend, especially if you’re looking for something that combines simplistic and fun gameplay with a strong narrative and a quirky plot. Trust me, taking on Jala’s role of an ex-battling skater girl in the early 2000s is a wild and entertaining rollercoaster ride, sure to have you laughing along every step of the way.
Thirsty Suitors
Reviewer: Grace Black
Award: Editor’s Choice
Pros
An entertaining story with great humor that also involves navigating common issues in life.
Lovable and intriguing characters.
Brilliant voice acting and dialogue that is capable of making players laugh out loud.
Some nice character development along the way that makes each milestone feel worth the time.
Brilliant character diversity, with each individual being just as interesting as the last.
Awesome soundtrack that combines Hip-Hop influences with traditional South-Asian music.
Cons
Some slight audio skips/hiccups, but this doesn’t affect gameplay too significantly. Small bug in which some character portraits wont appear in the Suitor Status menu. Some sections of repetitive gameplay are heavily carried by the entertaining dialogue and voice acting.
Release Date
November 2, 2023.
Developer
Outerloop Games
Publisher
Annapurna Interactive
Consoles
PC, PS5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox Series S/X.
Copy provided by Publisher
About the author
Grace Black
Grace is a writer, digital artist, and character illustrator from New Zealand with a love for fiction and storytelling. Grace has been writing for Twinfinite for seven months and in the games industry for a year. She’s a horror enthusiast, occasional anime enjoyer, and die-hard Ghost-Type Pokemon fangirl. Her favorite video games include Overwatch 2, Life is Strange, The Last of Us, and Pokemon – all of which she will never tire of.
Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t officially launch until Nov. 10, but you can get early access to the campaign up to week beforehand. Hot off the heels of an open beta, it’s your second chance to play part of Modern Warfare 3 earlier than usual — if you’ve paid up, naturally.
Here’s when Modern Warfare 3 early access starts for the campaign, and what time campaign early access starts in your time zone.
How to get MW3 campaign early access
Early access to the Modern Warfare 3 campaign is available to anyone who digitally preorders the game — whether or not it’s the standard edition or the premium “Vault” edition.
What time does early access to MW3 campaign start on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation?
On Windows PC, where Modern Warfare 3 is available via Steam and Battle.net, campaign early access begins at 10 a.m. PT on Thursday, Nov. 2, according to an Activision blog post.
(Update, Nov. 1): Activision clarified in a blog post that Modern Warfare 3 campaign early access will go live on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S at the same time as Windows PC.
Here’s what that is in your time zone:
10 a.m. PDT on Nov. 2 for the West Coast of North America
1 p.m. EDT on Nov. 2 for the East Coast of North America
5 p.m. GMT on Nov. 2 for the U.K.
6 a.m. CEST on Nov. 2 for west mainland Europe
2 a.m. JST on Nov. 3 for Japan
If you’ve pre-ordered, you’ll be able to preload the Modern Warfare 3 campaign starting at 10 a.m. PT on Nov. 1.
A direct sequel to 2022’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the campaign for Modern Warfare 3 continues the narrative of Captain John Price’s Task Force 141. Early access gets you the whole campaign, too. Like Starfield, Diablo 4, Mortal Kombat, and more big-budget games, Call of Duty is the latest tentpole to offer divergent release dates. In this case, Nov. 2 is for all intents and purposes the Modern Warfare 3 release date.
Alongside early access to the campaign, Modern Warfare 3 preorders include the Zombie Ghost Operator skin for the game’s multiplayer component, which officially goes live on Nov. 10. If you preorder the pricier Vault Edition, you also get:
The Soul Harvester Tracer weapon blueprint
The Nemesis Operator pack
Two weapon vaults
The battle pass for season 1, called Blackcell, plus 30 tier skips
It only took a couple of minutes for Alan Wake 2 to make me jump. From the very beginning, Remedy Entertainment’s new sci-fi thriller has a lot of scares to offer — and I’m talking about classic jump scares, not just the moody atmosphere that pervades the entire Twin Peaks-esque setting. I didn’t expect this game to be as scary as it is, so let me issue a warning: Alan Wake 2 is freakin’ creepy, y’all!
[Ed. note: This article contains minor spoilers for Alan Wake 2.]
First things first: Horror is subjective, what scares me might not scare you, blah blah blah. You’re here because you want to know about the jump scares, so let’s get to it.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing
Alan Wake 2 kicks off with a very creepy scene, not least because you have absolutely no clue what’s going on. You start playing as a heavyset older white man who doesn’t look anything like Alan Wake and looks even less like Saga Anderson, the Black female FBI agent who’s the co-protagonist of Alan Wake 2. I guess I left out the most important part which is that this guy is naked. And he is trudging — and later, running — through a gloomy, foggy forest.
Perhaps the creepiest part to me was that Alan Wake 2 wouldn’t let me look at this guy’s face. I kept trying to turn the camera around to see him, but he kept turning away from me, like the guy in the corner at the end of Blair Witch. Turns out, that’s how the Alan Wake 2 camera works with almost every playable character — but in this opening scene, it’s even more restrictive against showing you the character’s face, probably to delay the reveal of this man’s identity. He turns out to be Robert Nightingale, the FBI agent who had it out for Alan Wake in the first game.
While poor naked Nightingale runs through the woods, you’ll get your first of several jump scares. Complete with flashing lights (the game does open with a seizure warning) and super-loud music stings, you’ll see a flash of Alan Wake’s face, lit up like he’s holding a flashlight next to it for dramatic effect or something. Alan’s face is not scary in a vacuum, obviously, but the loud noise and flashing lights are jump-inducing. Those moments of surprise will keep happening as Nightingale keeps on meandering through the woods, his journey culminating in his gruesome death at the hands of a death cult.
Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games Publishing via Polygon
That death cult — and the murder of Nightingale — is what you’ll be investigating once you take on the role of Saga Anderson, whose story is where the game jumps to next. Saga’s sections involve exploring the exact same creepy woods, but unlike with Nightingale, there aren’t jump scares for Saga. Of course, that didn’t stop me from thinking there would be.
You won’t get another big scare until you get to the town morgue. This is when the game introduces the central mechanic for its supernatural enemies: If you’re standing in a lit area, they can’t see you. But if you tread into the darkness — as you must do, periodically, to escape or strafe around these opponents — they’ll be able to see you, grab you, and kill you instantly.
Personally, I find the fight scenes to be less scary than wandering around the woods in the dark between the altercations. The world of Alan Wake 2 is so bizarre that you just never know what to expect. But once I can actually see an enemy, even if they look scary or unusual, I’m fine — I just need a pistol in my hand, because apparently bullets still work on supernatural entities (thank goodness?).
My usual tips for making a video game less scary might not be very effective in Alan Wake 2. There isn’t much you can do about a basic jump scare of a big face suddenly filling your screen, accompanied by a loud noise. But there are still some options if you want to play this (amazing, thrilling) game and not be quite as stressed out by it. I recommend turning off the orchestral score, while leaving the dialogue and sound effects on; the score is beautiful, but it also does a lot to heighten the game’s tense moments. Do remember to turn the music back on when you feel calm again so that you don’t miss out on the many original songs in the game, though.
My other big tip? Just take your headphones off entirely, as needed. I turned on the subtitle option that includes character names, since Alan Wake 2 involves a lot of unnerving voiceover from unpictured characters. If you’re feeling overstimulated, you can always just read the game for a little bit, using the subtitles and character markers as a guide. I usually would only do this for a few seconds before recovering, resetting, and wanting to head back into the full audio immersion of the world.
As somebody who’s made it through plenty of great horror movies and scary games, despite my irritation at the way my body reacts to horror, you’ve got this. Alan Wake 2 is absolutely worth experiencing, so give it your best go.
Battlefield 2042 is enjoying a small resurgence as it nears its two-year anniversary, thanks to a recent free weekend, a sale, and multiple updates from the developer. The game’s new season will hopefully maintain players’ renewed interest in DICE’s futuristic military shooter — particularly the new mode that lets you deploy and fight against hordes of 3D-printed synthetic soldiers who run around naked and smash enemies’ heads in with hammers.
Season 6’s of Battlefield 2042 will introduce a new limited time mode called Killswitch, a 12v12 game type that lets players print out waves of Geists — the aforementioned buck-naked ’bots — that can be deployed in combat. They’re effectively (fast) zombies who sprint at the opposing team and try to bludgeon them to death, as seen in the trailer above.
Geists are printed at Forges in Killswitch’s maps (Redacted, Manifest, Hourglass and Spearhead), and teams will battle for control of those Forges while they simultaneously attempt to capture locations called AOS nodes.
How did these synthetic soldiers, who are not canonically zombies, find their way into Battlefield fiction? According to DICE and publisher Electronic Arts, a secret R&D lab off the coast of Scotland is the victim of an AI run amok. That artificial intelligence has taken over and created the Geist, glowing-eyed bad guys who are programmed to kill. Sure, I buy that.
Killswitch is playable as part of Battlefield 2042’s Dark Protocol event, which runs Oct. 31 to Nov. 14. Players who take part in Killswitch matches can earn Ribbons that can be cashed in for free cosmetic rewards, like weapon and vehicle skins.
There are a lot of pieces that make up the whole of Destiny 2, and over time a lot of said pieces have been overhauled to the joy of the community. However, I would argue one such element of Destiny 2 that has had everything around it improved but not improved itself is Legendary armor, and honestly, it’s high time Bungie overhauled Legendary armor drops.
One of the best changes Bungie recently made about armor was the removal the various subclass elements being tied to it. Likewise, the mod system overhaul was a breath of fresh air for how Legendary armor’s mod sockets are utilized. But beyond those changes, the act of using Legendary armor as a reward is still as stale as it has ever been. The difference in excitement I feel between a purple gun and purple armor dropping is night and day.
I asked myself why that is the case, and discovered that it’s because of rolls and the complete lack of impactful high value rolls.
Image Credit: Bungie via Twinfinite
Allow me to elaborate: when purple armor drops, it always has the same four mod slots, and the only thing a Guardian could get excited about is the armor’s gear stat rolls. The problem is that good rolls are incredibly unlikely unless you’re doing endgame difficult PvP or PvE content. This makes the majority of Legendary armor rolls nearly useless because you’re always going to know when to expect good and bad rolls.
It’s that knowing and expectation that kills the excitement of almost every armor drop. What’s worse is that during the endgame content, the armor may have a high roll, but the gear stat distribution may be in the opposite stats you’re looking for. This ends up feeling awful, especially considering the effort that goes into completing Destiny 2’s difficult endgame content.
Bungie should look into improving Legendary armor to be more compelling at all times and across all difficulties. This could also end up benefiting the new players experience as well, but that may be a topic for another time.
As a huge fan of action RPGs and anything that loots after I shoots, when purple armor drops there should be more rolls to consider. I know the argument for more RNG isn’t always a popular one, but if every single drop has the potential to drop as a god roll — with slightly higher chances in difficult content — then that should make each drop all the more compelling.
I think it would be a net positive for the Destiny 2 experience for players to not only fawn over every new gun, but every armor drop too; just like they would in every other ARPG in existence.
Image Credit: Bungie via Twinfinite
It wouldn’t be that hard to implement either, or at least to design a framework to build such a system around. One solution would be to give pieces of armor their own traits and origin traits like what guns currently have. These new armor traits would be what gives the armor its gear stat bonuses. Now, imagine three columns of traits that represent metal, fabric, and stitching. Each column’s trait could give two gear stat bonuses. A trait called Tight Weave could give, say, 12 Mobility and 8 Strength, while another in that same column could give 7 Mobility and 14 Resilience instead.
With such a system in place, players would look at each piece of armor dropped and compare the various armor traits to see if a high roll in two or three gear stats would be possible. I know I would certainly experiment with every drop if that were the case.
Additionally, a slight tweak to mod sockets could further improve excitement around Legendary armor drops. The change could be as simple as each drop rolling between three and six mod sockets, with four being the average roll. This would make it so current builds and loadouts wouldn’t be changed all that much, while allowing for future drops to give players more mod customization if they get lucky.
It’s easy to get carried away with RNG on top of RNG, but I’m confident that changes like these would be a net positive. They’d make half of the loot pool all the more interesting and worth playing and grinding for, while also giving players a reason to care about Legendary Armor drops for the first time in forever.
About the author
Ali Taha
Whether its new releases, or a new Destiny 2 season, Ali will flex his gaming and freelancer skills to cover them extensively. He started off writing features for Game Rant but found a better home here on Twinfinite. While Ali waits for the next Monster Hunter title, he enjoys publishing his progression fantasy novels as an indie author.
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription service is having another banner year in 2023, with over 450 games now available for console players and over 400 for PC players.
The service has recently been bolstered with the addition of two huge Xbox Game Studios exclusives, Starfieldand Forza Motorsport, while Cities: Skylines 2 is a big-deal day one addition for the PC crowd. Atlus’ JRPG classics Persona 4 Goldenand Persona 3 Portable made their debut on Xbox consoles earlier in the year, and Tango Gameworks’ surprise release Hi-Fi Rushtold a cathartic rock ’n’ roll story with clever mechanics. Blockbuster titles are well represented with the likes of Assassin’s Creed and Hitman, cult favorites like Lies of P popped up, and Game Pass has continued its strong tradition of curating the best of the indie world with the likes of Cocoon. Even Grand Theft Auto 5 — and its extremely popular online mode — has returned to the service once more. That’s a lot of “free” video gaming to be done!
With the sheer size and the bounty of choice it offers, Game Pass can be a bit overwhelming to digest. But we’re here to help. Here are the 25 PC and Xbox Game Pass games that you should be checking out if you subscribe to Microsoft’s flagship service.
[Ed. note: This list was last updated on Oct. 24, 2023, adding Cocoon, Lies of P, and Party Animals. It will be updated as new games come to the service.]
Assassin’s Creed Origins
Image: Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft
Assassin’s Creed Originshas always been good — but it was only in hindsight, three years after its release, that I began to consider it great.
It’s a phenomenal concoction of historical tourism, sci-fi storytelling, and open-ended combat. It also displays a confidence that the more recent Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla can only partially match. Whereas the two most recent entries embrace the insecure ethos of “content” that has so defined the last decade of open-world games, Origins is content to leave vast swaths of its world empty and to let things burn slowly, in ways both narrative and explorative. Its map unfurls over deserts, mountains, oases, and sun-swept cities slowly being buried in sand, all while its two central figures (Bayek and Aya) navigate one of video games’ most compelling romances.
It’s not completely averse to daily challenges and cosmetic DLC packs. But it’s the rare open-world game that trusts my attention span. It understands that pastoral beauty and tragic storytelling, successfully interwoven, are worth more than any number of distractions its successors can throw at me. —Mike Mahardy
Assassin’s Creed Origins is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Image: Greg Lobanov/Finji
Chicory: A Colorful Tale tells the story of a small dog who accidentally inherits a magical paintbrush. As you travel around the black-and-white open world, you use your new paint powers to bring color back to the environments. Everything is your canvas, and you can color it all to both solve puzzles and customize the setting to your liking.
The gameplay of Chicory is cute and relatively simple, even as you unlock new powers. But the reason it made it to the No. 2 slot on Polygon’s 2021 Game of the Year list is the story it tells about the destructive powers of self-doubt — the way it cruelly infects even the greatest artists out there.
Chicory is a game that’s not about coloring in the lines or even making something beautiful. It’s about making something — painting something, in this case — that you are proud of, that makes you happy. And if that creation also brings joy to those around you? Hey, that’s great too. —Ryan Gilliam
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Cities: Skylines
Image: Colossal Order/Paradox Interactive
There’s a reason Cities: Skylines is often held up by literal city planners as the pinnacle of the genre: It doesn’t fall into the trap most city-builders do of treating all its resources and systems as mere data points on a list, gaming by way of a spreadsheet. Cities: Skylines is the real deal, letting you get into the weeds of urban micromanagement and understanding how and why metropolises morph in response to the needs of their citizens. (It’s also proof that planned cities are a crime against humanity.)
Cities: Skylines forces you to grapple with the beautiful, messy truth of what your citizens are: people. In other words, Eric Adams, please play Cities: Skylines! —Ari Notis
Cities Skylines is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Citizen Sleeper
Image: Jump Over the Age/Fellow Traveller
Citizen Sleeper is a hyper-stylized tabletop-like RPG set in space. In a capitalist society, you find yourself stuck on a space station. You’ll need to manage your time, energy, and relationships to survive the collapse of the corporatocracy and the anarchy that follows. You’ll roll dice and make decisions to get paid and help those around you.
Aside from its interesting setting, Citizen Sleeper features a vibrant cast of impactful characters, making each interaction memorable. It follows an excellent trend of table-top inspired games to encourage you to find your own objectives, and to revel in the story when things fall apart. It’s packed with tense decisions, great writing, and striking visuals. —Ryan Gilliam
Citizen Sleeper is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Cocoon
Image: Geometric Interactive/Annapurna Interactive via Polygon
A mysteriously beautiful, exquisitely paced puzzle adventure from some of the minds behind Limbo and Inside, Cocoonshares those games’ wordless delivery and stark aesthetic. But it’s more abstract and contemplative, and perhaps even more involving. It’s a game of pocket universes, one inside another, inhabited by buglike techno-organic life-forms — including the player character, a scurrying little beetle-thing. The conceit is that you can step up out of one reality and move it around another on your back, in a gently glowing sphere that also interacts with the world around it, before diving back in — or swapping it for another entirely.
Like so many puzzle adventures, it’s essentially a game of locks and keys, plus the occasional ingenious boss fight. But like the very best of them — Fez, for example, or Portal — Cocoon plays games with perception and reality that rewire your brain in pleasantly tortuous ways. —Oli Welsh
Cocoon is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Crusader Kings 3
Image: Paradox Interactive via Polygon
Imagine if Succession unfolded between the years 867 and 1453, in the throne rooms, banquet halls, and torchlit back corridors of European castles. Monarchs rise and fall, small-time fiefdoms become bona fide kingdoms, and nonmarital children exact revenge after decades of being shunned. Crusader Kings 3is the story of the Roy family if we could pick any character, see them through to their death, and assume control of their orphaned heir — at which point, we can completely alter the course of the dynasty through petty gossip and underhanded murder attempts.
In Paradox Interactive’s vast suite of grand strategy games with complex systems that give way to thrilling emergent storytelling, none have made me cackle with glee quite as much as Crusader Kings 3. In one playthrough, I wed my firstborn son to the daughter of a powerful neighboring king, only for said daughter to declare a holy war on me one decade later. In another, I strong-armed one of my vassals into remaining loyal, shortly before knighting his cousin and sworn rival; I didn’t want to be a jerk, but my characters were jerks. I was just following the script down the path of least resistance.
Much like Succession, Crusader Kings 3 is at its best when tensions finally boil over between the emotionally stunted members of a dysfunctional family. Unlike Succession, though, Crusader Kings 3 never has to end. —Mike Mahardy
Crusader Kings 3 is available via Game Pass on Windows PC and Xbox Series X.
Death’s Door
Image: Acid Nerve/Devolver Digital
Death’s Door is a cute little Soulslike game. You play as a raven who works as a kind of grim reaper for the bureaucratic arm of the afterlife. It’s your job to adventure in the world and claim the lives of a handful of bosses. The world of Death’s Door is charming, as are its characters, with excellent dungeons to explore and puzzles to solve. There are also giant enemies who will test both your skills and patience.
Still, Death’s Door has a friendly air around it. It wants you to succeed, and does a nice job easing you along with easy-to-read enemy and boss patterns. It’s a great, challenging Game Pass game to cut your teeth on before venturing into even more difficult titles. —Ryan Gilliam
Death’s Door is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Doom (2016)
Image: id Software/Bethesda Softworks
2016’s Doom builds off of one of the oldest franchises in gaming history with speed, acrobatics, and an absolutely killer soundtrack. Doomguy moves extremely quickly, swapping between a variety of guns, grenades, melee attacks, and a giant chainsaw to blow up demons off of Mars.
The game is bloody, metal as hell, and surprisingly funny. Doom makes you feel like a god, capable of clearing any hurdle the game could throw at you, and it doesn’t offer a single dull level in its lengthy campaign. —Ryan Gilliam
Doom (2016) is available via Game Pass on Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Forza Horizon 5
Image: Playground Games/Xbox Game Studios via Polygon
Forza Horizon 5 is the latest racing game to land on Xbox and Game Pass. It’s a visual feast filled with some of the most realistic-looking cars you’ve ever seen. But anyone who loves any of these Forza games will tell you that the Horizon series is so much more than its graphics.
Horizon 5 takes place in a fictionalized Mexico, and gives you the freedom to drive around a massive map in whatever car you want. You can drive a nice sports car while off-roading, or drive a hummer off a massive ramp.
Forza Horizon 5 gives you the freedom and choice to drive how and where you want inside a legion of incredible cars. —Ryan Gilliam
Forza Horizon 5 is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Grand Theft Auto 5
Image: Rockstar North/Rockstar Games
Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the most celebrated games of the last decade. In that time, it has appeared on three different generations of consoles, seen numerous graphical improvements, and gotten new modes, like its sweeping first-person alteration.
The main story focuses on three criminals from three very different backgrounds bumbling their way through numerous heists in the city of Los Santos — a fictional version of Southern California. And in order to tell the stories of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor, the game implements a feature that allows you to swap between the protagonists at will, offering a new perspective on the city and letting you play multiple roles per heist.
Grand Theft Auto games usually live long past their time, but GTA 5 has remained especially relevant due to GTA Online, the sprawling MMO-like experience that Rockstar Games created inside the world of San Andreas. It’s the massive GTA 5 sandbox — plus a little extra — without any of the constraints found in the story mode.
The parts of GTA 5 that annoy — such as the more misguided aspects of its American commentary, or the occasional tailing mission — are distant memories compared to the chaos you can cause every five minutes. If futzing around a semi-realistic metropolitan area is something you really enjoy, it’s hard to imagine anything on this list entertaining you for as long as Grand Theft Auto 5 will. —Ryan Gilliam
Grand Theft Auto 5 is available via Game Pass on Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Image: 343 Industries/Xbox Game Studios
The Xbox brand might never have taken off without the Halo series, the first-person shooters that helped to popularize local competitive multiplayer on consoles before taking the party online after the launch of Xbox Live. The Master Chief Collection package includes multiple Halo games, all of which have been updated to keep them enjoyable for modern audiences.
But what’s so striking about the collection is how many ways there are to play. You can go through the campaigns by yourself. If you want to play with a friend but don’t want to compete, there is co-op, allowing you to share the games’ stories with a partner, either online or through split-screen play. If you do want to compete, you can do it locally against up to three other players on the same TV, or take things online to challenge the wider community.
These are some of the best first-person shooters ever released, and they’re worth revisiting and enjoying, no matter how you decide to play them. Sharing these games with my children through local co-op has been an amazing journey, and this package includes so many games, each of which is filled with different modes and options. It’s hard to imagine ever getting bored or uninstalling the collection once it’s on your hard drive.
This is a part of gaming history that continues to feel relevant, and very much alive. —Ben Kuchera
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker
Image: Blackbird Interactive/Focus Entertainment
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is another game poking fun at corporate greed and its general indifference toward the working class — seen in other excellent building games like Satisfactory. But Hardspace takes it further than just tongue-in-cheek poking by asking: What happens when the workers have had enough? Hardspace: Shipbreaker’s pro-union message is a delightful backdrop for an incredibly deep and stress-filled puzzle game.
As a Shipbreaker, your job is to break apart and recycle small spaceships. With your handy welding tools and futuristic gravity tethers, you’re able to carefully carve up these once-great hulks and repurpose them for the future. Sometimes that means throwing all the metal plates into the furnace to be melted down, and other times you’ll need to comb through the skeletons, grab salvageable items, and extract them still intact.
As you improve your skills, the game will test you with harder and larger ships. Suddenly, you’ll have to start worrying about the active nuclear reactors that are still in these vehicles, or pressurized cabins that explode if you open them in the wrong order.
And all of this danger circles Hardspace: Shipbreaker back to the conversation it starts at the very beginning. Hardspace is a game about focus, and how taking your eye off the ball for even a second can end in explosive death, or worse: a career spent toiling under forces that couldn’t care less about you. —Ryan Gilliam
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is available via Game Pass on Windows PC and Xbox Series X.
Hi-Fi Rush
Image: Tango Gameworks/Bethesda Softworks via Polygon
Rhythm games, for players who prefer to shoot, dodge, punch, and jump on their own time, can be a tough sell. But such is not the case with Hi-Fi Rush, the action game from Ghostwire: Tokyo developer Tango Gameworks. It provides an array of visual cues to help rhythmically challenged players, but crucially, it doesn’t require that protagonist Chai attacks according to the game’s metronome. Instead, its rhythm elements are an optional layer to interact with, offering score chasers something to aspire to. For everyone else, the game’s vibrant world, rock n’ roll storytelling, and entrancing traversal stand well enough on their own. It’s a cathartic triumph of a game.—Mike Mahardy
Hi-Fi Rush is available via Game Pass on Windows PC and Xbox Series X.
Hitman World of Assassination
Image: IO Interactive
Hitman, Hitman 2, and Hitman 3 are some of the best sandbox puzzle games ever made. As Agent 47, you’ll climb buildings, sneak around parties, and murder spies and debutantes with all manner of tools. Hitman World of Assassination includes the campaigns from all three of the games in IO Interactive’s recent World of Assassination trilogy, giving you more than a dozen maps to play on. Just last week, it also added Freelancer mode, which functions like a roguelike as Agent 47 kills his way through four major crime syndicates, fleshing out his safehouse as he goes.
The Hitman series may be about violence and murder, but it manages to stay lighthearted and fun with its wild physics and silly scenarios. It’s the perfect series to goof around in if you feel like being stealthy, or just want to see what happens when you drop a giant chandelier on a crowd of snobby jerks. —Ryan Gilliam
Hitman Trilogy is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Lies of P
Image: Neowiz
One of 2023’s most delightful surprises, Lies of P is a Soulslike starring a noticeably hot Pinocchio, of all things, from relatively unheralded Korean developer Neowiz. It turns out to be one of the most original and interesting takes on the genre from outside FromSoftware — although more so in its strong storytelling and themes than its gameplay, which is heavily influenced by Sekiro and Bloodborne in its aggressive, rhythmic focus on parry-and-thrust.
As Pinocchio lies and battles his way around a crumbling Belle Epoque town that’s been overrun by its servant class of automatons, Lies of P’s grim tale bends to the player’s choices in ways that convince and intrigue. This works particularly well with Pinocchio’s dual nature as a half-human half-puppet who can be modified with gameplay-altering tools; Lies of P presents an illusory society that you can tinker with and change, just as it tries to manipulate you. —Oli Welsh
Lies of P is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts
The Mass Effect franchise was gigantic for the Xbox 360 era, but it didn’t transfer to future platforms well — purchasing and downloading the entire story became confusing and expensive when moving to the Xbox One and Xbox Series X. But 2021’s Legendary Editionfinally made the entire Mass Effect trilogy accessible in one package.
The story follows Commander Shepard, a futuristic military hero, who’s tasked with gathering a collection of alien misfits for a variety of missions. Each game is wonderfully crafted, with stand-alone stories and breakout characters that don’t rely on the series’ wider narrative. As a trilogy, the games build on each other with meaningful choices that carry over to the next entry, giving weight to your choices.
The Legendary Edition is the way to experience Mass Effect, and it’s a must-play whether you’re on your first run to save the galaxy or your fifth. —Ryan Gilliam
Mass Effect Legendary Edition is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X, but only for those that have Game Pass Ultimate.
Party Animals
Image: Recreate Games/Source Technology
Look, it’s not rocket science. Sometimes you just want some truly dumb, violent nonsense to play with your friends, and fulfilling that need is just as important for a well-rounded subscription service like Game Pass as serving up expansive RPGs and intriguing indies. Party Animals is a multiplayer party brawler about cute critters knocking the stuffing out of each other. That’s it. It’s not Smash Bros., and nor does it pretend to be; it’s more like an aggressively cute Gang Beasts, or a Fall Guys that’s just about fighting. It’s a little slow, but that just makes it easier to revel in its soft-bellied slapstick. Turn your brain off and enjoy. —Oli Welsh
Party Animals is available via Game Pass on Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
Pentiment
Image: Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios
Pentiment is the most immediately striking and recognizable game on this list. Inspired by the art of classic manuscripts, Pentiment sucks you into its beautifully designed version of 16th-century Europe, when books were still being written by hand in monasteries.
You play as Andreas, a young artist looking to make his fortune in an ever-changing world. And as you explore a small village and the grounds surrounding it, and go to work drawing magnificent pictures in custom manuscripts, you’ll meet new people and further flesh out Andreas’ personality and background.
The story will take you through murder, scandal, and a variety of other dramatic events in Andreas’ life. But the plot is secondary to the game’s incredible style and dialogue. —Ryan Gilliam
Pentiment is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Persona 4 Golden
Image: Atlus via Polygon
Persona 4 Golden follows a boy who goes to stay with his uncle and cousin in a small Japanese town. But almost immediately after his arrival, a serial killer starts murdering civilians, all of which have an unknown thread connecting them.
As with all Persona games, Persona 4 Golden allows you to play out your time in school, improving your character’s social stats and friendships before diving into dungeons to help further the plot. But the cast of characters in Persona 4 Golden is unlike any other in the series, offering some of the most memorable party members in any RPG.
Now on Xbox, Persona 4 Golden looks wonderful and plays beautifully. It’s a smart turn-based RPG that’s loaded with conversations to be had and mysteries to solve. —Ryan Gilliam
Persona 4 Golden is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
PowerWash Simulator
Image: FuturLab/Square Enix
PowerWash Simulator is the perfect game to sit on your couch and space off to. As the name suggests, you’re a professional power washer, and your job is to use your washing tools to obliterate grease, grime, and goop off of vehicles, buildings, and even entire playgrounds.
There are some minor upgrade and currency systems, but PowerWash Simulator mostly takes a minimalistic approach — you power wash stuff, no more, no less. Sure, you can take special jobs where you wash something wild like a Mars rover, but it’s really just about making things clean. And while it might sound like boring yard work, it’s actually quite meditative.
Blasting the black film off of a colorful slide provided me with one of the biggest serotonin bursts I’ve gotten from any piece of media in years. It’s a delightful, peaceful game that never fails to relax me after a long week. —Ryan Gilliam
PowerWash Simulator is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Slay the Spire
In Slay the Spire, I play as one of three unique characters, in order to fight my way through a randomly generated map filled with battles, treasure chests, and RPG-like encounters. Combat is similar to that of a turn-based RPG, but instead of selecting attacks and spells from a menu, I draw cards from each character’s specific pool of cards. These cards allow me to attack, defend, cast spells, or use special abilities. Each character has their own set of cards, making their play styles radically different.
I also learned to buck my expectations for the kinds of decks I should build. The key to deck-building games is constructing a thematic deck where each card complements the others. In card games like Magic: The Gathering, this is easy enough to do, since you do all your planning before a match — not in the moment, like in Slay the Spire. Since I’m given a random set of cards to build a deck from at the end of each encounter, I can’t go into any run with a certain deck-building goal in mind. I have to quickly decide on long-term deck designs based on what cards are available to me after a battle. The trick with Slay the Spire is to think more creatively and proactively than the typical card game requires. —Jeff Ramos
Slay the Spire is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
You start the game by inheriting a farm from your grandfather, and you then move to a sleepy town to take over the diminishing acres. For the next 10, 20, 50, 100-plus hours, you work to turn that farm into a modern utopia.
This is easily the most relaxing game on Game Pass. All you do is plant seeds, care for animals, mine some rocks, and befriend the villagers. There’s plenty of drama to be had — with the Wal-Mart-like JojaMart and an army of slimes trying to stop you from mining — but at the end of the day, you’re still going to pass out in your farmhouse and get ready to plant more strawberries the next morning. —Ryan Gilliam
Stardew Valley is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Image: Tribute Games/Dotemu
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revengeis already a classic Turtles brawler. If you could’ve overheard a bunch of kids talking about their dream TMNT game while playing the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade cabinet at a local pizza bar in 1989, or Turtles in Time in 1991, this is the Turtles game they’d be imagining.
But over 30 years later, Shredder’s Revenge implements some features that distinguish it from the days of the coin operated arcade. There’s a world map, side-quests, new heroes, experience points, and online matchmaking that help modernize the throwback trappings. Shredder’s Revenge manages to balance itself nicely between the world of retro and revamp.
With only 16 “episodes,” it’s the perfect Game Pass game to jump into with some pals at a sleepover — as long as there’s pizza, of course. —Ryan Gilliam
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Special Edition
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks
The Elder Scrolls 5, better known as just Skyrim, is a classic. And while you can play it on almost any console or device known to humankind at this point, it’s still worth playing on Game Pass if you’ve never given it a chance, or are just craving another journey in its sprawling world.
Like most Bethesda RPGs, Skyrim is a first-person game with a giant, living world. There are dungeons to crawl, stories to uncover, and a variety of guilds to join. But you can also go off the beaten path and discover your own fun in Skyrim — it rewards you for being curious. It’s the kind of Game Pass game that you can play for hundreds of hours and never get bored. —Ryan Gilliam
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Special Edition is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
The only control you have over the game is what character you select, what items you choose during your run, and where your character moves. Depending on your weapons of choice, knives, whips, flames, magic bolts, bibles, or holy water fly out of your character in every direction, decimating hordes or pixelated movie monsters, earning you cash for your next adventure.
Though extremely simple on its face, Vampire Survivors is one of the best games of 2022. It perfectly walks the line between peaceful and stressful, requiring the perfect amount of attention for success. It also facilitates growth through skill and through roguelite progression, ensuring that each run is a bit different from your last. —Ryan Gilliam
Vampire Survivors is available via Game Pass on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
The eagerly awaited game, Ghostrunner 2, developed by One More Level, is set to hit the market on October 26, 2023. The trade press has recently published reviews, confirming the high quality of the new game, which has received positive votes.
Critical Reception on Metacritic
Metacritic, a renowned ratings aggregator, currently shows an average Metascore of 80 for the PlayStation 5 version of Ghostrunner 2. This score is based on 32 reviews at the time of writing.
Excerpts from Trade Press Votes
Here are some excerpts from the trade press votes for Ghostrunner 2:
Dual Shockers – 9.5
IGN – 9
Finger pistols – 9
VideoGamer – 9
Noisy pixel – 9
CGM Magazine – 9
MP1-9
WhatifGaming – 9
Game Informer – 8.5
Hey poor player – 8
District Jugones – 8
Prima Games – 8
PSX Brazil – 8
Eurogamer – 7
Click Start – 6.5
Press Square – 6
Positive Reviews for Gameplay and Art Direction
Most of the trade press reviews for Ghostrunner 2 have praised the game’s gameplay. Additionally, many reviewers have commended the game’s art direction, noting that it is consistently captivating without being cliché.
Highlight on Motorcycle Usage
One of the standout features identified by several editors is the use of motorcycles in Ghostrunner 2. Critics consider it to be one of the most significant additions in the new game.
Reminders and Demo Version
Ghostrunner 2 is set to release on October 26, 2023, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S consoles, and PC. Don’t forget that a demo version of the game is available for those interested in trying it out.
Whether it be novels, films, or games, sequels have been a dice roll in quality through the years. Some of the worst games in a series have been sequels, such as the archaic and difficult Final Fantasy 2. And then, you have true success stories like Diablo 2 and Starcraft 2 that really outdid their prequels and set a new benchmark for quality games.
Many decades have passed with tremendous sequels. 2010-2011 alone gave us Portal 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2, some of the greatest games of all time. Let’s see how many great sequels come out in the decade from 2013 to 2023. Here’s our updated list of top 10 game sequels from the last 10 years.
10. Psychonauts 2
Image Source: Double Fine
Psychonauts 2 takes the amazingly unique concepts from the first game and realizes them with upgraded gameplay. That’s not a total rip on the first game, just that the sequel really polished up the platforming ten notches.
Raz and his fellow cadets of psychonauts uncover the mystery of where their leader was taken and enter the minds of some truly wild characters to solve the case. There’s some wonderfully presented dark humor with clever gameplay/story integration throughout the game. The Casino level is particularly impressive with its 3D platforming challenges and narrative.
Psychonauts 2 does everything a sequel should. It takes the original concept of the original and improves the gameplay while continuing the intriguing story in satisfying ways. With great voice acting, a solid script, and some genuinely great 3D platforming levels, Psychonauts 2 is a must-play for any fans of the genre.
SARASOTA, FL – SEPTEMBER 28: Wind gusts blow across Sarasota Bay as Hurricane Ian churns to the … [+] south on September 28, 2022 in Sarasota, Florida. The storm made a U.S. landfall at Cayo Costa, Florida this afternoon as a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds over 140 miles per hour in some areas. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Getty Images
The analytical rigor and discipline that we see in modeling and managing mortality risk in life insurance policies is almost completely missing from managing climate risk in U.S. property and casualty (P&C) industry. Are one year P&C policies to blame? In this first of three posts, I will compare the largest European insurance company, AXA, with the largest P&C U.S. firms that publish a climate report: Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and Travelers. Part I is an overview of the topic. Part II examines insurance practices or the liability side of a P&C’s balance sheet. Part III examines investment practices or the asset side of their balance sheets.
One would expect the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry to be at the front lines of the fight against climate change. Hurricanes, floods, and forest fires hit the pocketbooks of the insurance industry before anyone else’s. On top of that, it is well known that population growth since 1990 has been above average in the U.S. in regions that are at a high risk for hurricanes and wildfires. These climate catastrophes are also becoming more common. For instance, Travelers states in its 2021 TCFD report, “California wildfires…we now view events such as those of the past few years as being less remote than we thought previously.”
Climate risk affects both the asset (investments) and the liability side (obligations to make good on losses) of an insurer’s balance sheet). These companies should have expertise in climate as they process a vast number of claims relate to climate induced threats. Hence, if there was ever an industry where doing good coincides with doing well, it must be insurance. Moreover, the analytical rigor that actuaries bring to prediction and management of mortality risk in U.S. life insurance companies is worth celebrating. Why is that formidable intellectual and managerial talent absent in the management of climate risk of U.S. P&Cs? SwissRe, a prominent reinsurer’s 2021 climate report states, “from 2010 to 2020, realized loses have exceeded expectations in almost every year. Very likely, part of this gap can be attributed to trend effects due to climate change.”
The usual assumption in the U.S. P&C business has been that the possibility of a wildfire in say California is not correlated with a possible hurricane in Florida. What if these events begun to become correlated on account of climate change? Would a simultaneous wildfire in California and a large hurricane in Florida potentially jeopardize the capital position of an U.S. P&C insurer? More worrisome, a massive climate related disaster or a series of big losses will make the hit to the insurer’s capital exponential, as opposed to linear, over time.
My assessment is that the P&C industry in the U.S. has not been as visible or active as it could have been in leading the climate risk conversation. This is partly because the social, political and economic pressures in Europe are different, and partly because incentives for U.S. policy holders are somewhat more myopic.
Annual policy writing incentives
Is the annual policy writing cycle to blame? An insurance company that writes a life insurance policy for the next 15-30 years has incentives to devote actuarial resources to forecast your mortality. However, P&C insurance contracts, covering losses from climate events, are usually written for one year only and the incentives for the industry to look far into the future are necessarily limited.
The top ten U.S. P&C insurers
To understand the landscape a bit better, I started digging deeper into the sustainability disclosures of a top French insurer AXA XL (latest available 85 page 2022 climate report). AXA’s revenues were 99 billion euros, half of comes from the P&C business and around 20% from health-related insurance. I consider AXA to be the gold standard of thinking about how climate risk affects both their coverage and investment decisions.
To benchmark AXA with an insurer from the other side of the Atlantic, I found the top ten P&C insurers, ranked by revenues in the U.S. Those are State Farm, Berkshire Hathaway, Progressive, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, Travelers, USAA, Chubb, Farmers Insurance, and Nationwide. The returns were somewhat disappointing.
Berkshire Hathaway is well-known skeptic of ESG, and their sustainability discussion of their conglomerate covers a grand total of one page. Progressive puts out a 51-page sustainability report but the CEO statement in that report focuses heavily on Progressive’s DE&I efforts, not on climate. Progressive devotes one page to a generic discussion of risks (page 13 and 14) and publishes half a page of generic text on climate (page 15). On the investment side, Progressive states that 80% of their bonds have an MSCI ESG rating. They also state they have started tracking the LEED status of buildings in their CMBS (collateralized mortgage-backed securities) portfolio. Roughly $35 billion of Progressive’s 2021 $47 billion revenue comes from auto insurance for which climate is not such a big concern. However, around $2 billion of annual premiums comes from insuring physical risks where climate should be a risk factor. Moreover, the assets side of all these insurers’ balance sheets is exposed to climate risks.
Allstate’s 2021 10-K states that out of their $40 billion of premiums revenue, $27 billion relates to auto but a sizeable $10 billion comes from insuring homes. Allstate puts out a 106-page sustainability report but the word “climate” appears only on page 65. The climate discussion spans three pages after page 65. Allstate says it has enough capital to withstand climate stress.
The efforts of USAA, Farmers and Nationwide in the climate area appear to be minimal. USAA has a webpage labeled “environmental responsibility” where they talk about recycling, reduction of paper usage, savings in water and energy usage. Farmers publishes a page called “corporate citizenship” where their focus is mostly on their employees, diversity and inclusion efforts, cutting usage of plastic, paper, planting of trees, charitable contributions, involvement with charitable NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the “Farmers Insurance Open,” a golf tournament they organize with the PGA (Professional Golf Association).
Nationwide puts out a 15-page corporate responsibility report that covers communities, giving, food security, work with the American Red Cross, United Way, investments in affordable housing, health care, education, clean water, children’s wellbeing, diversity and inclusion efforts, diverse boards of directors, ethics and governance. They devote one page to the environment which touches on reducing their own carbon footprint, reducing waste, water usage, paper usage and landfill diversion.
Liberty Mutual has put out its second TCFD report in 2021. Travelers and Chubb have also published a TCFD report. So, it seems worthwhile to compare the efforts of AXA with these three U.S. firms Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and Travelers. Before embarking on a deep dive, it is worth reiterating that seven of the top 10 U.S. P&C insurers do not report a serious discussion of the implications of climate risk on their balance sheets. The default answer might be to argue that their climate risk exposures are not large enough to warrant a bigger discussion. I doubt that hypothesis. I have to assume that absence of reporting implies absence of either an internal consensus on the importance of climate inside their companies or a lack of investment in understanding that risk.
The discussion follows a series of questions and different strategies followed by AXA relative to the three American insurers: Chubb, Liberty and Travelers. The comparison is simply meant to be a benchmarking exercise. I understand that every firm would likely follow its own strategy given their opportunities and constraints. Moreover, every company has its own learning curve in building infrastructure required to support such thinking and institute organization wide buy in and processes.
Here are some high-level findings that cover both the liability and asset side of the companies’ balance sheets.
High level findings
Has the insurer articulated a climate strategy?
All the four companies have articulated their climate strategy. I will leave the discussion of the details to the next part. As a summary, AXA is the only company that linked strategic goals to specific KPIs (key performance indicators). The U.S. insurers produced high level statements without clear links to numerical targets.
What are the insurer’s views on double materiality?
AXA is a staunch supporter of double materiality while thinking about ESG. For the uninitiated, “double materiality” simply means thinking about the impact of climate on their investments but the externalities imposed by the operations of the firms underlying these investments on climate. The other insurers do not devote much or any space to double materiality.
Is a full dashboard of metrics presented?
Ideally, the firm should present a dashboard of its metrics benchmarked to some objective target or standard and time series data of its metrics over time so that the user can track progress, both over time and keeping time constant, to a benchmarked portfolio. AXA has an excellent dashboard along these lines. I could not find such a detailed dashboard for the other insurers.
Voluntary audits of climate data
PwC has issued a limited assurance report on AXA’s processes and underlying assumptions. The other insurers do not discuss assurance of climate risk metrics and processes.
Is executive and staff compensation tied to climate goals?
AXA, states that the following three key performance indicators (KPIs) will be included in the compensation packages of executives and 5,000 AXA employees: (i) Dow Jones Sustainability Index ranking; (ii) reduction of operational carbon emissions; and (iii) reduction of investment-related carbon footprint (for its general account assets). I did not find such a commitment in the disclosures of the other insurers.
I will show in Parts II and III that AXA is similarly quite distinctive compared to its three selected U.S. counterparts. I have not done an in-depth analysis of the differences in the regulatory environments of these four companies regarding corporate reporting and this may explain some of the differences.
In Part II, I will compare AXA to these three companies in terms of their insurance business or the liability side of their balance sheet.
Image: Warner Bros. / Devolver Digital / Bandai Namco / Innersloth / Kotaku / Mia Stendal / Bibadash (Shutterstock)
On an average day, my friends might ask me how my job is going. I’ll smile, tell them “It’s going great,” and then launch into a story about one of the most fucked up things they’ve ever heard of. And now I get to give the recap to you.
Spooky season is upon us, but the chronically online gamers at Kotaku know that terrifying shit is happening in our space all the time. It’s not just the games that are occasionally horrifying—it’s also how the industry grinds humans into dust, how giant corporations are increasingly looking to put the screws to the average consumer, and how abuse of power comes as no surprise.
Some of the spookiest gaming news stories this year are sad. Some of them are funny. Others will make you want to pull your hair out over the general state of the world. But hey, me too! Let’s be scared and [some other unidentifiable emotion] together!
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