a couple hours in to endwalker, i became aware of the belief that nothing fundamentally is going to change here. an mmo is built to be endlessly playable for everyone online, zones persist, the world persists. the sun is under no real threat.

that thought kinda continued to grow as i went on, and with that my emotional engagement with the storyline wane. everything just felt so "safe", the despair never truly working its way into my chest. the more characters were killed only to be brought back five minutes later, the more i considered if these some two hundred hours were something i regret.

and i think my conclusion is, maybe. its clear a lot of heart went into this, and i did absolutely love certain parts of it (shadowbringers) and enjoy most of the characters, but i think i would have found more joy in a more condensed traditional jrpg length game with a game engine that did not make me feel like i was trying to connect to a server at the bottom of the pacific.

i would imagine there is a lot more to love in this game were you to really sink into the gameplay enough to get that urge to try to make a digital life in its world. i was never truly able to, and i think in the end, im left feeling mostly indifferent.