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Passive skills are a huge help when completing open-world objectives. When Thoma is in your party, you will have a 20 percent chance of getting double the amount of fish caught. The only drawback is that this is only applicable to the fishing spots located in Inaz

Even when the game moves away from its exploration aspect and quest-lines become the focus. When players are dropped into one of many dungeons — or whose side activities laboriously have you hopping from A to B…back to A again…and then literally back to that same B point straight-after — combat too is another area where Genshin Impact makes both meaningful but also a pleasure in engaging with. On the surface the set-up may not entirely be all that special; characters have their own pre-determined role of regular DPS, two-handed heavy-hitters or ranged whereby one of six elemental classes is assigned. The appeal lies in dabbling with the make-up of your party, of which you can have up to four characters that you can switch in-and-out on the fly. Combat is fast, frantic and at its best allows players to go wild with the elemental possibilities on offer.

But rarely does the monetization side of Genshin Impact get in the way of what feels first and foremost like an open-world adventure brimming with diverse and intriguing content to invest in. Content that isn’t just another fetch quest or another handful of items to gather, but a puzzle to work out, a chest to reach, or in the briefest of spots, a curious little spot of world-building to unravel. Grind is an eventuality once you start to near the high-teens and low twenties of your Adventure Rank. Adventure Rank being your character’s defining “level” of sorts whose meter can be fed through completing quests and achieving certain milestones. That reliance on levels does unfortunately rub the wrong way at points, especially when it becomes a barrier to later quests, story-based or otherwise. And while setting a minimum level cap on quests can be read as gentle persuasion to explore more of the environment, the abrupt nature doesn’t always feel entirely warranted. Particularly when the main story takes a dramatic turn and you find you can’t continue on that thread because your Adventure Rank (or AR for short) is one or two levels too low. So it’s to the daily Commission Quests or some other similarly short-term activity on the side, for the time being.

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My normal taste in games leans towards arcade and action, but this year has been one where the extra focus to hone in on pinpoint-perfect reflexes just hasn’t been as available as I’d like. Instead I’ve been taking it easy, using gaming as a way to relax and escape into a more manageable world. The game that I’m thankful for this year is SnowRunner, which doesn’t have an enemy anywhere in the whole world but instead requires the player to use its tools to complete a huge series of jobs across hostile terrain. While sorting out the controls takes some effort, once learned there are a huge amount of tools available to tackle even the roughest wilderness. Mountain tracks carved by streams, muddy bogs, rivers frozen solid and snowdrifts that even the highest-traction tires can’t get a grip on all stand in the way of delivering Cargo to Place. You can tackle the challenges with brute force, careful plotting of the optimal route or relying on the winch to basically drag the truck to the goal, Eclipse dynasty curse but there’s always a way if you’re patient enough. Few events are timed and just about everything is optional if you decide that a particular job feels like a bit much. There’s pressure in navigating the tougher areas, of course, but otherwise SnowRunner is a game of choosing a task and tackling it however you like, driving across the beauty of a wilderness that’s just barely been touched by humans. It’s challenging, sure, but also relaxing and satisfying, and I’m thankful there are games that let me unwind into a simpler, more-focused world.

Pokémon has always been a series near and dear to my heart, and while I was always keen on the mainline titles, the first spin-off I was ever introduced to was Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. I fell utterly in love and this year got the surprise announcement that the first title was receiving a remake. It ended up being everything I wanted and more. A return to one of my absolute favorite games in a new style and yet felt like revisiting old friends I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. The story is entirely about friendship, a bond between Pokémon as they struggle to save the world together and solve the problems as they’re shunned away from their home after being accused of crimes they didn’t commit. It added great new things like shiny Pokémon, mega evolutions and a ton of visual upgrades for items that helped build on the world. It even fixed one of my biggest disappointments that was after the game your partner no longer said good morning to you, but now they will every day even after they’ve evolved. Heck, they even finally added bandanas on the main Pokémon duo while they’re still in their basic forms. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX is a comfort in every way. It’s familiar, yet changed, just as you would expect from an old friend and I’m thankful I had the chance to dive back into the wonderful experience once more.