Some week, huh? Yeah. How about some video games? That’ll take our minds off things…well, perhaps not entirely. Our minds may still be trapped in this modern hellscape of our times, but games will hopefully give us hours of fun. And if you happen to find yourself with a comfy 48 hours of time off ahead of you but aren’t sure what to play, that’s where we come in with our recommendations.
Read More: Everything We Saw At The September 2025 Nintendo Direct
Without further ado, let’s dive into what we’re looking forward to keeping ourselves busy with in the days ahead.
Borderlands 4
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Unknown”)
Current goal: Loot more guns and kill more shit
I love all the Borderlands games. Yes, even 3, the one people hate for some reason. To me, the mix of gunplay, co-op, weird sci-fi, and endless killin’/lootin’ is a perfect mixture that rips away days or even weeks of my life in a flash. And Borderlands 4 is maybe my favorite one yet. (I’ve not written my full review yet, so we’ll see where I land in a few days.)
The gunplay and combat are better than ever, the loot is more balanced, the story is less annoying, and the open world is more rewarding to explore. It’s the next step forward for the franchise, and I’m scared of how many hours I’m going to lose to it. Especially as my friends get the game and I start running different characters and builds. – Zack Zwiezen
Hollow Knight: Silksong
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch/Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Die a lot while loving every second of the pain
I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on Hollow Knight: Silksong. Hopefully, goddess willing, I get to spend even more time with it this weekend.
I never played Hollow Knight, but with the sequel, I just got swept up in the collective excitement and let myself enthusiastically purchase a video game–and what a joy it’s been! This game is just beautiful, especially on a quality screen like the Steam Deck OLED’s. The sound design? Ugh, to die for. And the challenge? Well, yeah, that’s awesome too.
As a fitness coach said to me once as I was gasping for air from some ridiculous bullshit he was making me do, “easy things aren’t worth doing.” It was serious and funny at the same time, but the sentiment helped get me through the workout and many more since. There’s something valuable in that kind of experience. Let me elaborate.
Siliksong has been a hit in my local IRL circles. So many folks I know are playing it on their handheld devices and the difficulty, the challenge, the effort it takes to make progress in it have turned this game about strange little bugs into a gravity well of discussion. We empathize with the frustration someone feels when a boss smacks ‘em down for the seventh time in a row. Hearing that someone cleared a particularly hard thing sees folks offer genuine exclamations of “congrats!” Upon departing, we often wish each other “good luck,” referring to the tough challenges that lie ahead.
Are some challenges unnecessary? Maybe. Could there be tweaks that might make the game a touch fairer? Maybe. But at what cost? The runbacks you often have to undertake upon dying seem to be a part of the loop necessary to get you to collect your shards and restock on any beads you may have lost, plus that’s when you should be practicing your attacks! Boss fights aren’t when you should be still figuring out the physics of the diagonal downward strike.
Challenges can be exciting to think about and talk about with friends. A hard game demands attention, a set of skills for you to build into muscle memory and then use to satisfyingly pull off memorable feats. And when those elements are in a game as pretty as they are in Silksong? Those feats are all the more worth achieving. – Claire Jackson
Shadow Labyrinth
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch/Switch 2,Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Defeat the G-Hosts once and for all
This will probably be the last time I mention Bandai Namco’s strange and wonderful Pac-Man-adjacent Metroidvania here because I think I must be near its conclusion and I’m hoping to finally roll credits on it this weekend. This game, which I purchased thinking it might be a pleasantly nostalgic off-kilter diversion that took me 15 hours or so, has proven to be the most captivating game I’ve played all year, uncompromisingly committed to its vision and far more expansive than I anticipated. It’s decidedly “not for everyone” (what game is?) but if you’re open to being thrown into a world that makes itself deliberately hard to understand for many hours and you have any interest in the lore and history of early arcade games, consider getting lost in this maze for a while. – Carolyn Petit
Sword of the Sea
Play it on: PS5, PC
Current goal: Get the Platinum trophy
Sword of the Sea is this year’s Journey and I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about it. Developed by the thatgamecompany alum who cofounded Giant Squid (the indie team behind 2020’s PS5 launch game The Pathless), Sword of the Sea is another beautiful platforming adventure that’s more about cool traversal than interesting friction. You surf across snow, sand, and water like a weightless train gliding along magnetic rails as you collect seeds to bring life back to the ghostly environments.
It’s very short–only two or three hours unless you’re going for a completionist run–and not too demanding. It’s a brief but beautiful adventure that is content to let you have fun performing simple but satisfying tricks on your hoverboard as you shred across dunes and waves. The music and visuals are excellent, the feel of the gameplay is top-notch, and it’s free with PS Plus. I’m not sure if it will make my top 10 list but the experience packs so much evocative energy into such a short runtime there’s no excuse to not give it a try. – Ethan Gach
2XKO
Play it on: PC
Current goal: Figure out what the hell I’m doing
I’m not a League of Legends person. I never even finished watching Arcane despite it being very much my shit. But an invite to the 2XKO beta test just landed in my lap, and I love fighting games, so here I am. I only know, like, two of the characters in the roster, so I have zero perception of how any of these characters will work in a fighting game context. Thus, my goal is to just mess around with these fighters with some friends and figure out if there’s a character or two I really gravitate toward. In most fighting games, it’s not usually a specific predetermined playstyle that pulls me in, but rather I just find characters I like and adapt to playing them. It’s why I play a brawler like Akihiko in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax but a range-based character like Green Arrow in Injustice 2. So who knows who I’ll end up maining in 2XKO? — Kenneth Shepard
And that wraps our picks for the weekend! What games are keeping you busy?