Recently, I’ve been making a lot of gaming related lists; lists of games I want to play, lists of 2018 releases I want to get to before the Red Dead madness sets in, lists of games with the approximate times to complete next to them so I know what I’m getting into.

This isn’t news, but sometimes I overthink things. A lot.

It happens fairly often around this time of year that I start to think about all the current-year releases I haven’t gotten to; the list is often long. I start over-thinking it to the point I don’t play anything, thus making myself feel worse for being so behind. When I do manage to start a game, I almost feel like it’s an obligation, a chore, even, to play a game. A game. What on earth is wrong with me?

To be fair, often when I do finally hunker down and start a game, I’m immediately glad I did. I love all kinds of gaming experiences, and I love pushing myself out of my wheelhouse.

Lately I’ve been playing an awful lot of Destiny 2, and, as much as I hate to say this, it’s getting me down.

I’ve had love for Destiny since it first released. I still believe it has the tightest and smoothest gunplay and traversal out of any shooter on the market. I love playing with the people I play with. I’m just starting to feel almost obligated to play Destiny more than I’d normally choose to play Destiny.

With the Forsaken expansion, much was added to the game. Much was changed. With the addition of bounties for nearly every major NPC, and the addition of more weekly and daily challenges, I almost feel if I don’t log in every day, I will soon fall behind and become less and less relevant power-wise.

I don’t like that feeling.

I’ve seen lots of folks say they like Forsaken better than The Taken King, but I disagree. I feel like Forsaken added a lot of busy work. I feel more and more like Bungie doesn’t respect their players’ time. I also have a lot of other issues:

Masterwork cores should go back to what they were initially for: masterworking ONLY. Not having easier (or more reliable) ways to acquire them and requiring them for nearly every upgrade only ads tedium.

Mods should be available for purchase with currency other than mod parts. They are not found often enough to purchase and use them.

Banshee has become useless. They said he would require more weapon parts but that his packages would be useful. This hasn’t been the case.

Xur has also become mostly useless.

I like that the Dreaming City changes, but the trade off is a nagging feeling that if you don’t log in each day to do your dailies, you will miss things going on.

EDGE TRANSIT.

All the weird issues are making me wonder how Destiny finds itself here again. It makes me wonder for the grillionth time why they made certain changes with Destiny 2 at all. I may never know.

Basically, after all this and my Destiny 2 rant, I feel like I’m in a rut. I feel like I need to snap the heck out of it and find the fun again. There is so much joy to be found from the various experiences gaming holds, I know it’s easy, I just have to do it.

Do you ever feel like you’re in a gaming rut or that you find games to be more of a chore to tick off a list rather than enjoyable experiences to participate in? If so, I’d love to know your thoughts and how you broke out of that rut.

Now I’m going to go try to break out of this rut and finally start Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Here’s hoping I don’t fail again.