Of Diablo IV on Xbox, Steam Deck, and Racing across Skyrim

 I have a short list of video game releases that I am looking forward to in 2023. We are a little less than a month out from the first of them: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I am excited for 12 May. It is a bit odd that I am because I didn't find The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as captivating and awe-inspiring as others. It is a solid game with some very annoying game mechanics. It is redeemed by an immersive open world and a heavy dose of my Legend of Zelda nostalgia. 

Honestly, I am quite a bit more excited for Diablo IV.  With the exception of that mobile entry that was pay-to-win and shall-not be-named, I have hacked and slashed by way through every entry in the Diablo series multiple times. There is some temptation on my part to make a run through II & III before the release of IV.  I have friends and family with Diablo II & Diablo III on the Nintendo Switch. I am fairly certain we could have a full party for both runs. It is extremely tempting. 

Diablo IV presents something of a problem in that it is not available on the Switch.  I have a gaming PC which makes it easy for me to jump into the game. Part of the charm of the Diablo series has been conquering evil with the people I love. I only have one friend with a gaming PC. Could I make it work on my Steam Deck? Probably. Do I want to loan my Steam Deck out to family so we can take on the next generation of hellspawn? Not really. 

The saving grace for Diablo IV is going to be the Xbox. Taila and Tyler have an Xbox One that they can play on. This gave me the excuse to buy myself an Xbox Series X. I will write more about that in a minute. Yes, I am likely buying Diablo IV twice just like I did Diablo II Remastered. We get one game going with the family. I grind on the other by myself or with Amy. I don't mind this at all because I own all of the Diablo games on PC. The catch is I probably need to buy Whitneigh an Xbox One as well to get everyone in on the Diablo IV action. Damn it, Blizzard, why not bring out a Switch version of the game at launch?! We all have those!

Okay, so I admit the Xbox Series X wasn't a hard sale for me. Let me start with the weakest reasons and work my way up.  With Microsoft owning Bethesda, I am going to have to play my Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield on PC or Xbox. You might be thinking to yourself, "You already have a PC, David. How does buying an Xbox help you out." The answer to that is native controller support. Oh, sure, I own Oblivion  and Morrowind on PC. Unlike Skyrim they don't want the best controller support when playing on PC or Steam Deck. You find yourself wanting at least a keyboard if not necessarily a mouse. Since the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series have made their way to Xbox Game Pass (though not in their entirety) having an Xbox console to play on is great. Oh, and Starfield is on the list of one of the games I want to buy this year. Clearly, I will be playing it on the Series X. 

The second weakest reason I wanted an Xbox Series X was for the disc drive. I like to watch movies in the bedroom. Sometimes what I want to watch isn't on a streaming service. I pop out a DVD and I am off to the races. In my office I watch DVD and Blu-ray on my PS4. I do the same in the living room on the PS3. I just cannot find a place to shove a disc into the Switch or Steam Deck. The Xbox Series X gives me a movie player. 

Oh and that disc drive does another important thing thanks to backward compatibility. I can finally play offline co-op Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. It was a nice bonus that Back 4 Blood was on Xbox Game Pass as well. There are a few games in the Xbox and Xbox 360 generation of games that I really enjoy. The first Saint's Row game is only available on Xbox. I own the game and have justified using an emulator since my 360 crashed, but it feels really good to load it up on the Series X. Add in Mortal Kombat and a half dozen other titles and I was pretty well sold just on backward compatibility. Between PC games and the Xbox rocking out four generations of games on one console, I am giving Playstation a ton of side eye. 

On the subject of Saint's Row, the reboot that launched in 2021 has been on my radar. Since it has been PC exclusive to the Epic Games Store I have been holding on an waiting patiently for the Steam release. With the Series X mounted on my bedroom wall, I find myself wanting to bring all of the Saint's Row games to a single console. The Series X makes that possible and you cannot pull it off anywhere else without an emulator. 

I suppose in a way I have chosen a side for the moment. Two of the games I am looking forward to this year are from the Final Fantasy series.  That would be Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. They are launch date exclusive to the Playstation V. It may be surprising then that I didn't go Playstation for the Diablo IV problem. The kids already own their Xbox One, and it is cheaper to buy one console than it is to buy two. This does mean that I am not going to get the aforementioned Final Fantasy games on launch day and will have to wait a year or even longer for them to hit PC. 

I am happier waiting. I own the first fifteen Final Fantasy games on Steam. It already hurts my brain that Final Fantasy Origins: Strange of Paradise is only currently available on the Epic Games Store. Rather than waiting I bought it to play on PC. Then I got my Steam Deck and got frustrated with the idea of jumping through hoops to side load the game. I haven't even bothered to play it. When it hits Steam I will buy it again and give it a go. If I can wait it it, then it is no problem to wait on VII Rebirth & XVI. Meanwhile, I am holding out hope God of War: Ragnarok will port over eventually as well. Though, I may be playing on the Steam Deck 2 by then. 

I do love playing games on PC.  I am anxiously awaiting Hades 2 even though I have only completed two escapes on the first game. I have a little over one hundred hours into the first game. I suspect before I see the real ending I will have more like three hundred. That is a ton of bang for my gaming buck. If the sequel gives me half so much enjoyment it will be worth the price of entry. My Steam deck purchase has likely justified itself just on Hades, several Final Fantasy games, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  

Speaking of Skyrim, I recently sat down my play through of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in order to run through it again. Taila has been streaming the game on her Microsoft Surface. We spent several days chatting about it until I dropped a challenge. We would race on a new toon from level one to level 50. I let her pick the race, class focus, and affiliation. We are both running female Bretons. We are both running Thief Wizards. We will both choose to join the Imperial Legion. 

The race is interesting because we are tying it to achievements we both haven't earned. I am playing on Steam Deck/ PC. The achievements are the same. We are both trying to hit level 50, build three houses, and have 100,000 gold. First of us to pull off all three wins. 

I have a strategy for all three goals. It started with getting the Aetherium Crown which lets me have both the Thief and Wizard stone active. I can level two thirds of my skills more quickly. This works pretty well since I have already ran my way up to level 17 in two days of play. I have been focusing on getting my magic, speech, and sneak leveled with an occasional bit of time spent on Smithing as I have materials to make arrows or bolts. 

Next I focused on getting married. Oddly enough my normal path of marrying Ysolda fell by the wayside. Since I am going to run through the Thieves Guild quests I decided to do the Book of Love Quest both to get a free Amulet of Mara and also to make friends with Calcemo the court wizard of Markarth. While doing that I also did the quests to become thane of Riften forgetting that I would need to layout 8.000 gold to buy Honeyside. (D'oh!) The good news is that when I walked in and met Iona for the first time she immediately wanted to get hitched. She is the same model of Nord as Ysolda, but is also a sword and board fighter. I like having a tough wife for no valid in game reason. Since my adopted kids (always Lucia and Alesan) need to be tough to live in the wild I figure she can keep them safe and train them up. Currently we are living in Whiterun because I don't want them to see me murder Grelod the Kind later. 

Anyway, I better get back to the grind. I figure I can manage the levels and houses by the middle of the week. The money will either take a ton of adventuring or a good investment in some merchants and a fair amount of smithing/ enchanting. Either thing will help me along the way. I just hope Taila gets distracted on some non-profitable but fun quest line while I am building up. Yeah, I need to make up for $8.000 gold squandered, but now the guards won't arrest me for most of my shenanigans in two holds.