Please wait while my Destiny screenshots load…

Just kidding! That’s some Destiny humor for you, right there.

Okay, okay, so it’s the end of a long week and my brain is fried and somehow, someway, I thought that was funny.

Onward.

I’ve written before (four times in fact!), about my joy with the PS4 screenshot functionality. I’ve used it to great effect in my early time with the PS4, then in my many, many hours with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (farts!). I’ve taken a grillion screenshots of my time in Destiny, as well as with various other games.

I’m in love with the screenshot function. So much work goes into making games immersive and beautiful, and I love capturing aspects of those experiences to share with others.

I mean, I write about games, so it would only make sense that I, a former photographer, might take an affinity to images within games. Sometimes an image truly is worth a metric butt ton of words.

So, without further rambling, allow me to present my fifth installment of PS4 screenshots for your enjoyment.

Abzu was a stunning game. I may never have quite gotten the hang of the controls as well as I’d have liked (combined with a couple of sequences where the controls seemed to be strangely backwards), but it was a moving experience I’m glad to have had. In this particular shot, I was riding a sea turtle around an intensely colorful environment.

It was fantastic.

This is one of the most beautiful moments of my gaming year thus far. The power of the scale of this moment took my breath away. And I mean that literally. I found myself holding my breath watching this scene unfold.

Another completely effective (and moving) moment of scale. This moment humbled me.

From the moment I played the original BioShock years ago, it rocketed to the spot of my favorite game of all time. No game has even come close to dethroning it. So when the remastered collection for the series came out last month, I was thrilled. The games play, and look, better than I remember them. And there is no opening quite like the plane crash where you escape to the lighthouse.

The first bathysphere. The reveal of Rapture, just after you descend in the bathysphere, is one of the most iconic moments in gaming.

Every reveal in this game is so well done. Here, your first splicer.

Get ready for an onslaught of Destiny screenshots.

I love so much about Destiny (and there’s definitely plenty I don’t care for), and the flavor text for various items is up there on that list.

I may not have loved this auto rifle, but I always enjoy its flavor text.

This image makes me super happy. For so long my partner and I wanted to be able to play together, and here we are, duo dancing like the silly guardians we are.

In the last couple of months, some friends and I have gone back to the older raids. Here, in Crota’s End, with the assistance of my extra jump boots (thanks, Bones of Eao!), I finally made it up there. It was a victorious view.

Destiny frequently amazes me at how beautiful it is. Also that cape took me forever to get (I literally did the Dust Palace strike over four dozen times trying to get it back when it first debuted on the scene). I love looking at it.

We wanted those bees so badly. We were both glad when we finally got them from someone in a random Crucible match.

I mean, just look at it. My beautiful Solar Flayer cape.

The new social space is beautiful, but it can go screw itself for that stupid jumping “puzzle.” I am the worst at platforming in Destiny, and I have yet to get to the higher area here. SIVA cluster be damned.

Probably my favorite thing about the Rise of Iron expansion: wolves that yawn. It’s adorable.

Inside is one of the most unique gaming experiences I’ve had, not just this year, but any year. It takes a great ability to make a game that appears simple, yet has incredible depth. Inside is such a game.

This image captures the scope, and loneliness, of the experience.

My time with No Man’s Sky didn’t really go anywhere (I played for maybe ten hours before I put it aside), but I did find this strange little ruffle monster with a sourpuss on.

I am a sucker for Halloween, and when Overwatch announced a whole slew of Halloween content, I fell over myself for this Mercy skin. Fortunately, I managed to get her in my first few loot boxes and literally squealed out loud when I got it.

I didn’t even know about this nifty Reinhardt skin, so when it popped up in a later loot box, I was super happy.

Valley was an unexpectedly delightful experience brought by an even more unexpected studio: Blue Isle Studios, the creators behind Slender: The Arrival (a very different experience). So imagine my delight upon finding this sketch of the tall, ominous one, behind a pillar in the game.

I am one of those people who reads everything I can in a game. So when I found this note in Valley, I was amused. Then I found this one:

This was even funnier than the previous one.

Virginia is a game I’d like to talk about more at a later time, but it blew me away. I sometimes still find myself thinking about it, weeks after playing it. It was not only beautiful to look at, but took storytelling to a place I didn’t know I wanted it to go.

There were so many more screenshots I wanted to share of Virginia but I didn’t want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t played the game yet. It was a beautifully presented experience, one certainly worth having.

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Do you take many screenshots while playing? If so, what are the games you most often find yourself taking screenshots from? I’d love to know.

With that I wish you a safe and game-filled weekend. Cheers, friends!