In addition to October being spooky month, it’s also when the holiday releases really start to ramp up. Since I’m not reviewing games for any sites this year I had a little more time to play through in-progress and backlog games. It also gave me time to see if any of the newer releases that I want end up in a Black Friday sale! Let’s get into what I played last month.

Firewatch

Firewatch was one of those games that everyone in my circle played and loved so I put it on my Steam wishlist where it aged like fine wine. And then, when I had some cash in my Steam wallet and there was a decent sale, I picked it up. Some more aging in my uninstalled list, and finally in October 2022 I started my summer job. Adventure games of this nature (sometimes called walking simulators) provide a nice change of pace. They are all about observation and memory. Exploring the forest, poking around illegal campsites, dabbling in some rock climbing and spelunking… it was always beautiful, even when I ran through thick, suffocating forest fire smoke.

A quick run through the story should take under 4 hours. Once you’ve finished you can revisit in a sandbox style mode perfect for hunting down achievements, if you’re into that sort of thing. It doesn’t surpass Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture as my favourite walking sim, however it is in my top five.

Thanks for the adventure, Firewatch! And cross one more off of my backlog.

Halloween Events

October equals Halloween. This means that any video game that can will run some sort of holiday event. Both of my Bethesda MMOs, Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76, hosted events same as they have in years past and each with some new rewards to collect. Fallout 76 has players slaughtering the Spooky Scorched to collect legendary weapons, random plans, and oodles of candy. You could even set up a candy bowl in your C.A.M.P. to encourage Trick-or-Treating. On top of the daily and weekly bonuses, there were three unique items to earn if you successfully completed weekly missions both weeks. I did unlock all three, unlike last year when I missed out on the popcorn machine (and I may still be bitter about that).

Whenever there’s an event in ESO I have to run it twice: first on my husband’s account so he doesn’t miss out on stuff, and then on my main. The Witches’ Festival keeps me pretty busy since there are so many different types of bosses to fight for plunder skull drops and holiday crafting writs. We did clean up with most of the special armour skins and snapped up the Impressario merch we each wanted. Event tickets on my end were split between the new items I wanted and grabbing some of the old Indrik berries from a couple of years back. The fact that my fragment collection has too many incomplete Indriks irritates me a lot.

The last game with a Halloween event that I ran this year was Cult of the Lamb. It was the first time I’d revisited my followers since completing the game back in August. This event had some new follower skins and décor items for your base. You didn’t even have to go on any runs to unlock them, which meant I had acquired everything within about 20 minutes. Next time they run an event I think it would be fun to have a special new map open up. Maybe we can chase Santa through a map for Christmas and every time we defeat him at the end of the run he drops a new skin or décor piece. With themed weapons! Oh, I like this idea. Maybe I should email someone over there…

There was one more game I started this month, Yomawari: Lost in the Dark, but since it came out so close to the end of October I need more time to devour it. I’ve just made my way inside the school so there is a lot more to go. May have to dabble with it some more during my Extra Life sessions!

And that’s it for October! I will be running one of my Extra Life sessions in November and a second in December. If you haven’t yet, you can still donate to my fundraiser. Donations close on Dec 31, 2022.