I used the game to reconnect with old friends and throw virtual parties and treasure hunts - talking to them more than I had in months or even years.

My island is very much a representation of me: a mix of вЂњ Murder, She Wrote,вЂќ вЂњNightmare on Elm Street,вЂќ вЂњFriday the 13thвЂќ and a variety of other horror films. While in reality I was stuck in my New York City apartment, I was also вЂњoutвЂќ - fishing, catching bugs, finding dinosaur bones and relaxing by the sea. In the game, youвЂ™re a human villager who lives on an island with anthropomorphic animals. When you die in Hades - and youвЂ™ll die a lot - a banner appears, stating, вЂњThere is no escape.вЂќ It is, to be sure, a real 2020 vibe.Д¬rystal Arroyo, senior staff editor, News TechnologyДЄnimal Crossing: New Horizons was released on March 20, just in time to become my lifeline in the pandemic. Kyle Buchanan, culture columnist, The Projectionist Seasonal updates and events keep time moving, even when the rest of the world seems to stand still. Players have a scorched town to repair and weaving quest lines, and they can engage in lighter forms of blacksmithing and alchemy. Blades, also available on Switch, bridges that gap. As summer came, I found myself with a new job, a dog and less time for SkyrimвЂ™s fully immersive world.

I first played Blades, released in 2019, on iOS in March - while job hunting, with suddenly higher stakes - before joining the rush to buy a Nintendo Switch. ItвЂ™s a game that suits the pandemic attention span: a quick reprieve between meetings, a distraction while the governor announces new restrictions, a balm in weeklong election-news cycles. Now, even though we have since graduated and started our careers, we play several times a week, chatting all the while on Discord.Д®mily Wilson, intelligence collections managerД«lades is not Skyrim, but it scratches the Skyrim itch. But we never had the time to play until this year. To our delight, a revamped version called Age of Empires: Definitive Edition was released on the game service Steam in 2018. When I was a kid, only one person in my friend group owned the game - stored on a golden CD-ROM. When the pandemic forced me back home during my final semester of college, I found one great way to pass the time: Age of Empires, a real-time strategy game first released in 1997, where players race their ancient civilizations through different eras of history, building vibrant economies and discovering advanced militaries as they try to conquer their opponents. Here are the games that 20 of my New York Times colleagues played the most this year, and why. In any case, what matters is that video games provided a much-needed outlet in a bizarre time. (You wouldnвЂ™t be alone the industry saw record spending and profits this year.) Or maybe youвЂ™ve been playing since you developed the motor skills to grip a controller. Maybe you were new to video games in 2020, each day of social distancing nudging you closer to an alternate reality. IвЂ™ve spent the last few months doing almost exactly what I was doing 20 years ago: suspended in deep space, riding undulating rainbow roads in Mario Kart.

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