Time to Loot Journal: April 2025

April was a fantastic month for gaming. Less good for the goals I set myself. All because I’d forgotten while writing those goals that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would be landing.

I had no inkling just how good Expedition 33 would be, though. I’ve ‘finished’ it now (more endgame content exists, but I’ve been through the epilogue).

Expedition 33 has blown my mind several times throughout. I have enough thoughts that it warrants a post of its own, but since I know myself and the likelihood of that happening… I will say here you owe it to yourself to give Expedition 33 a try. And to pre-empt Pete on this one: Yes, it’s available on Xbox Gamepass at the moment (for PC as well as console).

There is no question in my mind Expedition 33 is my Game of the Year so far (Yep, even in a year where Monster Hunter got a new entry), and almost certainly going to be my GOTY full stop. I cannot remember the last time I played a game so good, and on so many levels.

I’m struggling putting this post together far more than usual simply because I want to get back in and see what else it might have to offer.

Soon!

Gaming Goals

April Gaming Goals

• Monster Hunter Wilds: Beat the Title Update 1 content!

• Mini Motorways: Rise to Frosti’s level one more time! (It still counts if he takes it back later, hah)

Mrm, Nope- didn’t do either of those. I suspect Wilds will likely not be returned to until the expansion at this point. The steam has also gone from the Mini Motorways run. (At least… for now!)

So I won’t carry either of these over.

May Gaming Goals

Technically, I finished Expedition 33 in May. But I procrastinated this post in order to do so, so a bit difficult to include now. (I regret nothing.)

Hm.

I’d love to put something in for Elden Ring Nightrein, but it lands in the final days of the month.

• Lords of the Fallen (2023): Continue the co-op campaign with friend.

Lords of the Fallen 2.0 landed, and with it some substantial improvements to its co-op treatment. Not least of which, there is a free friend pass now, which allows you to play through the tutorial/intro area alone, and then join the game of anyone who owns it.

So a friend and I have been playing through, and- well; unfortunately, the co-op is still fairly rough. There are bugs and design issues still apparent. Not least of which, the item to upgrade your healing item doesn’t drop for co-op players on the friend pass.

Which really makes it hard to say what legs this co-op run has left. A terrible shame, because outside of this, we’ve having a huge amount of fun with it.

Games Played April 2025

Wuthering Waves’ 1st Anniversary patch landed earlier in the month. It is fun enough, but not heavy on moving the story forward.

I managed to get Zani, the latest character, and she is great. But… Perhaps a little too much so.

One thing Wuthering Waves has been pretty good at in its first year is holding back the rate of power creep such that limited characters released with the game were still of comparable power to the latest releases.

Zani feels like a shift away from that.

Outlier or trend, though, yet to be seen.

Books Read April 2025

I finished Nolyn (The Rise and Fall #1) and have moved on to Farilane, the next entry, which jumps ahead some 800 years in the story of the empire after the end of Nolyn.

Farilane is in a new style to some degree as well. Nolyn had multiple point-of-view characters, where Farilane focuses exclusively on the titular character. (Or at least, this seems to be true, a little over a third of the way through.)

Too early to say what I think of the change. Both styles work for me, but I will admit it was a little jarring to find this switch occurring within the series.

I’m looking forward to getting up to Esrahaddon, Book 3, but so much so that I think it might be overshadowing what is going on right now in Book 2. Hopefully, as I get a little further, that will change.