I’m not entirely sure how this is going to come out given that I hardly remember the last time I wrote a review. There came a point where I no longer wanted to expose what was inside to the outside, including my own perception of whatever I was experiencing. Why bother? Finishing Requiem gave me reason to write a review again; it’s not very often I manage to finish a video game these days. Most of them are bland and I feel no desire to, I simply uninstall. Depression can’t be the sole cause of everything.

I remember when I played the first Plague Tale. It must’ve been back in October or November of 2019. I certainly remember that it was fall, at the very least. The game was so good that I’d think about it all day at work and then make my way home through the colorful leaves and crisp cool air to play it. I was enthralled, and I even noted on my last review that a game hasn’t captured me like that since I was a kid.

It is now October of 2023. Writing this, the feeling is coming up again. That there is no point to this. That I have nothing to say. Nothing substantive. The inclination comes up as I remember my past and how I felt at one point writing, and then before my finger even hits the first key, it collapses into nothingness. I become devoid of all desire to share my thoughts. Things are not what I thought they were. The inside cannot be exposed to the outside.

Noise cancelling headphones are not enough. They are designed for low-frequency background noise, such as that of an airplane or a lawn mower. I’ve yet to own a pair that can cancel out the rancid cackling of voices. Or the sonorous landfill of modern music blasting at full volume while I sit at a cafe.

I was fascinated with Diablo II as a kid because of what looked like a grim reaper on the front. Convincing my parents to buy it for me, I eventually got around to playing it while being scared shitless. Later on, I also got a hold of the first Diablo CD, but never got around to playing it.

I come from a place where analysis and predictability are prized. Where anything that comes close to creative bursts of energy are controlled, honed into finely tuned cybernetics, tested over and over from every possible angle. Optimized, stripped of all of its humanity, barren and desolate in its mechanical prose; I come from software development.