Um. Hello. *scratches head* Been a bit quiet around here. Spoiler for the next section, but uh, no- I didn’t hit the goal of starting my post series on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Or post anything else, for that matter.
No particular reason. Work has definitely been more demanding for the past couple of months, including more travel required but I’m not convinced that’s the whole answer.
I’ve played less this month in general (although as it turned out, not as much less as I thought would’ve been the case before putting the hours together), and there is definitely still some left over post-good-book-blues ‘game edition’ following my first play through of Expedition 33.
I’ve tried a few things to act as a palette cleanser, even dipping back into Borderlands 3. Somewhat surprising to me was that it was actually fun.
Once upon a time I knew doubt knew that. But over the intervening years, all- <checks> -6 of them, memory did its thing and I was left with only the disappointment of the antagonists and story in general.
Gone from memory was that, actually, however much Randy Pitchford might himself need to take a lesson or two in ‘The Art of Shutting the Fuck Up’, he leads a team capable of making really fun gameplay.
Enough so that I’ve gone from a lukewarm ‘Meh’ on the prospect of Borderlands 4 coming this year to actually rather quite excited. It might even be the game I decided to take some time off work for this year! Bring on September!
Gaming Goals
June (and July) Gaming Goals
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: Begin the story breakdown posts.
I went into a bit of details on how I thought this might be approached last month, and the thinking hasn’t moved on too much past that.
But I’ve hit something of a mental block in actually going back in and starting over. Not for any reduction in interest in the game, my YouTube is still a near constant stream of reaction suggestions, which I will happily consume.
But perhaps it has now reached a point where I just know too much, and doing a ‘spoiler free’ ‘this is what I thought the first time I hit this part of the game’ is just too difficult.
Still want to though.
So perhaps in July, I task myself with ‘giving it a go’ with just a post on the Prologue section? Yeah- let’s say that.
Games Played June 2025
| Rank | Game | Hours | % Gaming Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wuthering Waves | 19.1 | 33.5% |
| 2 | Borderlands 3 | 8.3 | 14.5% |
| 3 | Monster Train | 4.8 | 8.4% |
| 4 | Hitman 3 | 4.6 | 8.1% |
| 5 | Monster Train 2 | 4.6 | 8.1% |
| 6 | Foundation | 3.5 | 6.1% |
| 7 | Cities: Skylines 2 | 3.0 | 5.3% |
| 8 | Jump Ship (Demo) | 2.6 | 4.6% |
| 9 | Knock on the Coffin Lid | 1.9 | 3.3% |
| 10 | Riftbreaker (Co-Op Beta) | 1.9 | 3.3% |
| 11 | Anno 1800 | 1.6 | 2.8% |
| 12 | Settlement Survival | 1.2 | 2.1% |
I talked about taking something of a break from Wuthering Waves last month, but it still topped the chart. Although frankly, that is more to do with not quite clicking with anything else this month.
I have stopped religiously doing the dailies or even logging in every day to get the scraps of Asterite (premium currency) doing so doles out, but I did come in to play both halves of the 2.4 story.
As I hoped, 2.4 had more to offer than 2.3, and did indeed move things forward again. I don’t think it was quite as strong as some of the earlier 2.x patches story-wise, but further answers were given and the shape of the next few patches has emerged.
I’ve completed the main story from 2.4 now though, so we’ll see how much it features in my July play.
Books Read June 2025
Last month, having completed the entirety of Michael J. Sullivan’s current catalogue of work, I was left to ponder a bit on what I might next pick up.
I suggested a number of books that it might be, and then promptly found two different options.
Feist is an author I found in my teen years with Magician, and have continued with since even if not with quite the same degree of enamorment as my earlier years. Feist’s work has definitely commercialised over the years, but hey… I’ve come this far.
But where Feist might be in decline so far as my opinion goes at least, Mark Lawrence is a rising star. I think he might actually be my favourite author at the moment. I can’t think of another that would surpass him presently, but even if I could- point stands, he’s up there.
So the fact that The Library Trilogy had its final book published earlier this year cinched it. I bought all three and away we go!
Glad you posted this. I was a little bit concerned about you when a monthly recap posted didn’t show up!
I still haven’t finished Expedition 33!
Aww, no, all good here. Just… absent and rather non-reason-specific energy-poor. I almost wonder if the anniversary of Mum’s passing last month has had a latent impact, but if that is it it isn’t terribly conscious/front of mind.
Meh. Meh I say!
re: Expedition 33 — I hope it is one you end up going back to and enjoy, but certainly not something to push yourself through if you’re not!
Now I’m really confused. I know you were looking forward to hearing what I thought about the story segment you thought was under par but it looks like I somehow managed to skip it without even meaning to. I just looked up brief summaries of WW 2.3 and 2.4 and I can’t actually remember doing 2.3, although even as I type this I can feel my brain doing its best to retro-fit some kind of memory onto the details I just read. I have, however, done 2.4, which I really liked.
I’m not sure it’s even possible to skip a stage of the MSQ so you’d think maybe I must have done 2.3 but it was just so unmemorable I’ve forgotten it. I bet I would have taken screenshots though… and nope, I have nothing from between the upside down tower in the sky and the new Roman city except for a Resonator personal story… and now I just looked at a video of 2.3 on YouTube and no, I have definitely never seen or done it so apparently you can skip a stage even without trying.
Now I’m wondering if it’s possible to go back and do it… even if it isn’t the best, I’d still like to know what happened. Maybe I’ll just watch it on YT.
2.3 as a whole didn’t really move the story forward, except for Ciaconna’s companion quest (which would absolutely be skippable, as it wasn’t MSQ as such).
This was a large part of my disappointment with the patch, particularly given it was also the anniversary patch for the game, I was expecting big things in the story department. Perhaps that was my own fault and gacha games always go light on story to get their extras and ‘fun’ bits in for anniversaries, I’m not sure.
There was also the Somnoire ‘Movie’ event stuff, which I didn’t realise in my comment to you, but have since, is a permanent addition to the game, so you can do it any time. Like I mentioned there, it does have some interesting implications for the lore of that thing, but it had no forward momentum for the story as a whole.
So all in all, yep- you could have very easily skipped 2.3 story content, through no fault of your own whatsoever.
Monster Train 2 is sucking my time right now. I love the progression of Roguelikes.
I had Monster Train in my Steam library for a long time, but just never jumped into it- finally did, and after some advice in the Blaugust Discord, jumped straight into MT2. Which I think was a good decision, since it is largely MT1 but… More!
I enjoy the progression formula as well, and will no doubt give it some more time before long. :)