The 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft

[Padrino]

No violence was done, and since I agree with most everything you wrote, I'll just take it as a lesson for how to better express myself in future posts

I would be a bit less harsh on the mission design. The missions are the most linear parts of the game for sure, because they support the very linear story. I generally want games to be able to deliver interactive narratives, because that's something that games can do, that other mediums cannot. But given how good the story of RDR2 is, it's hard for me to believe that I could or would have helped make the story better if I the player had more input. When it comes to the narrative, I can't complain too much that it's Arthur's story, and not mine

I just hate how unrelentingly narrow the mission parameters are, and how clunky the implementation is. It mismatches so mightily with the world they built and creates unnecessary player whiplash. Half the time, it's not even apparent why you achieve a fail state until it summarizes what you did wrong on the failure screen, which itself seems like poor design. RDR2's story missions need to provide either more pathways to success, fewer conditions for failure, or should be structured in a manner that invites further clarity around mission objectives.

 

[Turgenev]

Stardew Valley. Android.



One lonely Saturday afternoon I downloaded this simple looking game and was transported to a wholesome world of growing flowers, making cheese, fishing, foraging, and befriending townsfolk. Not too different from what I would like to do if my research funding runs out.

 

[Sluggah]

Title: Resident Evil 4
Format: GameCube
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Capcom

Another breath of new life for another franchise, with a change of scenery, compelling story, and the popularization of a handful of gameplay mechanics that’ll influence a number of my other (hopefully) picks make this an all-timer for me.

 

[Padrino]

Stardew Valley. Android.

View attachment 13733

One lonely Saturday afternoon I downloaded this simple looking game and was transported to a wholesome world of growing flowers, making cheese, fishing, foraging, and befriending townsfolk. Not too different from what I would like to do if my research funding runs out.

This is such a delightful game, a stellar example of what can happen in the modern indie space. I have it on Nintendo Switch, and it's a perfect relaxing play for winter evenings.

 

[SLAB]

Pick 3: Secret of Mana - SNES

Dipping my foot into the SNES pool with the game that shaped me into the gamer I am today. I remember this game was sitting in my Easter Basket one lucky Easter morning, and immediately needing to pop it in my SNES. I did, and epic large world action adventures remain all my style. It’s the first action RPG I can remember, no turn based nonsense, you had to actively move around the field while your meter refilled and enemies continued the attack. The ring menu system for magic / items / options was pretty innovative for the time and easy to use. And that soundtrack, oh my goodness that soundtrack. From top to bottom, nothing but audio gold. This game remains one of my favorites to this day, and I’ll go back and beat it every other year or so.

 

[Warhawk]

Half-Life
Developer: Valve
Year: 1998
Platform: PC (Steam)

This game came out with a fantastic single player game component (including puzzles, some tough enemies, and great set piece action), awesome gameplay, fun weapons (headcrabs!), and built-in deathmatch.

Long after I played the single player game Half-Life was the reason I would cart my PC over to a friend's house to play weekend-long deathmatches. Crowbars at 20 paces!!!

Half-Life was revolutionary for the FPS, with its approach to storytelling, design, AI, and environment. Everything was generated with the game engine (largely forgoing cutscenes) and there are no "levels" - the game is seamlessly continuously loading in the background and the story is advanced without interruption. Sometimes the most fun is in getting the monsters and human soldiers/Black Ops guys to fight each other and save you the trouble. I thought the gameplay in Xen was the weakest part of the game, though.



The game is considered one of the best ever, winning untold awards. From Wiki:

In 1999, 2001, and 2005, PC Gamer named Half-Life the best PC game of all time. In 2004, GameSpy readers voted Half-Life the best game of all time. Gamasutra gave it their Quantum Leap Award in the FPS category in 2006. GameSpot inducted Half-Life into their Greatest Games of All Time list in May 2007. In 2007, IGN described Half-Life as one of the most influential video games, and in 2013 wrote that the history of the FPS genre "breaks down pretty cleanly into pre-Half-Life and post-Half-Life eras". In 2021, the Guardian ranked Half-Life the third-greatest game of the 1990s, writing that it "helped write the rulebook for how games tell their stories without resorting to aping the conventions of film".

When video games are broken down to "before" and "after" your game is released, you know you did something special.

@Löwenherz - back to you.

 

[Löwenherz]

And exhale.

When I lost out on Link to the Past, I had two replacement options my war room debated at length which to take, with them telling me I would have to take one or the other, because there was no way I was going to get both.

It made it back to me. Color me pleasantly shocked and awed.

Hades (Switch) - 2020



I’m not really into rogue-like dungeon crawlers, and while Supergiant Games is royalty of the Indie circuit, this is the only entry in their prestigious catalogue I’ve ever played. So it’s a shade surprising this game connected with me at all, let alone as strongly as it did.

Comes down to 3 factors:

- The gameplay is exhilarating, with interesting combinations of weapons, temporary buffs, and permanent perks. If there ever was a game that demanded “just one more turn” this is it.

- The writing, dialogue, and voice acting are top notch. The developers accounted for hundreds of runs through the underworld and created dialogue accordingly.

- The art style is unique, flashy, and striking. This had the Internet debating which god should be thirsted after more.





This game is simply bursting with personality with a world built to weave the otherwise bizarre concept of the repeat runs of a rouge-like ina way that makes sense, in addition to simply being one of the finest of the genre ever.

 

[whitechocolate]

Resident Evil - PS1, 1996

For me nothing in the series beats the original. I think Resident Evil was at its best with the still camera shots and tank controls. It emphasizes the survival horror feeling. Ammo is scarce. The knife is scary to use. Saves are limited. The doors open slow, and it is awesome every time. The first zombie encounter sets the stage for every zombie encounter a player will have in all video games.

 

[SLAB]

Resident Evil - PS1, 1996

For me nothing in the series beats the original. I think Resident Evil was at its best with the still camera shots and tank controls. It emphasizes the survival horror feeling. Ammo is scarce. The knife is scary to use. Saves are limited. The doors open slow, and it is awesome every time. The first zombie encounter sets the stage for every zombie encounter a player will have in all video games.

Best voice acting in any game ever.

 

[Padrino]

With the 33rd pick in the 2025 Desert Island Music Draft, I select:

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (2021)

Developer: ZA/UM
Publisher: ZA/UM
Game Director: Robert Kurvitz
Musical Score: British Sea Power
Genre(s): cRPG
Platform: PC

I've been a bit uncertain about what to do with my third pick in the draft. I wasn't necessarily counting on Red Dead Redemption 2 being available, but I'm also finding that there are several drafters who seem to gravitate to the same kinds of games I do. And with a couple modern indie classics already off the board, I feel I have to take this one for fear of it being snatched. Perhaps it's an irrational fear, but that's what living in the drunkenly paranoid realm of Revachol will do to you.

Disco Elysium was initially released to rave reviews in 2019. However, it would be fair to say that it's completion and subsequent vault into masterpiece status didn't occur until 2021, when the game was expanded to accommodate a variety of player input and outfitted with fully-voiced narration totaling approximately 1.2 million recorded words of dialogue. This is a writerly game, a detective story of extraordinary originality set in a strange, adjacent kind of historical and political environment.

Describing Disco Elysium to the uninitiated is actually a tall order. Fundamentally, it's an isometric cRPG in which the player character engages with the world through dialogue trees and skill checks. There's almost no combat to speak of, yet it is one of the most thrilling experiences I've ever had in gaming. The writing and narration are so compelling, and the game has a marvelously unique approach to breaking apart the player character's psyche in order to mine it for suitable detective skills to check dice rolls against. With skills like "conceptualization" and "half light" and "savior faire" and the Twin Peaks-inflected "inland empire", you know you're in for an unconventional ride. Much like Baldur's Gate III, it's an RPG in which you feel encouraged to fail, and to see how that failure colors your experience within the game. Rather than optimizing your playthrough for the "perfect" run, failure helps define the path forward.

After all, Disco Elysium does open with the player character, alcoholic detective Harry Du Bois, naked on the floor of his hotel room, hungover and with no memory of his own identity. This is not a classical hero's journey. Harry Du Bois is not "The Chosen One" by any stretch of the imagination. But his utterly trashed psychological state makes for a tremendously engaging and novel role-playing experience. And the narration... my god, the narration. @SLAB pegged Resident Evil as having the "best voice acting in any game ever" in the post just above this one. I'd honestly throw Disco Elysium into that conversation for the talents of jazz musician Lenval Brown alone. He is responsible for over half of the game's dialogue, and narrates each and every skill check with extreme confidence and poise. It's phenomenal work, bringing life and nuance to the many disparate fractures in the player character's psyche, and it's left an indelible mark on me as a gamer.

 

[Löwenherz]

With the 33rd pick in the 2025 Desert Island Music Draft, I select:

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (2021)

Platform: PC

I've been a bit uncertain about what to do with my third pick in the draft. I wasn't necessarily counting on Red Dead Redemption 2 being available, but I'm also finding that there are several drafters who seem to gravitate to the same kinds of games I do. And with a couple modern indie classics already off the board, I feel I have to take this one for fear of it being snatched. Perhaps it's an irrational fear, but that's what living in the drunkenly paranoid realm of Revachol will do to you.

Disco Elysium was initially released to rave reviews in 2019. However, it would be fair to say that it's completion and subsequent vault into masterpiece status didn't occur until 2021, when the game was expanded to accommodate a variety of player input and outfitted with fully-voiced narration totaling approximately 1.2 million recorded words of dialogue. This is a writerly game, a detective story of extraordinary originality set in a strange, adjacent kind of historical and political environment.

Describing Disco Elysium to the uninitiated is actually a tall order. Fundamentally, it's an isometric cRPG in which the player character engages with the world through dialogue trees and skill checks. There's almost no combat to speak of, yet it is one of the most thrilling experiences I've ever had in gaming.

I may write more when I have more time, but for now, this is what I can offer. Do yourself a favor and look into this one.

Not irrational. Was on my list in the next few rounds.

Also, where do you always find all this amazing artwork?

 

[Spike]

So, during my freshman year at college, I had to choose my PE rotation. Everyone had to pass a swimming test (check), and then you could choose from a plethora of options. I, however, for reasons that won't be discussed, slept in and was left with just one choice: Ballroom Dance.

So, here I am, not really enjoying learning to waltz, and I have to invite a girl over to dance. I decide not to, and let the girl choose me. Revolutionary, I know. Anyway, so a girl comes over, and I introduce myself, and she says, "hi, my name is XXXX and my dad is the VP of Sega of America." My response, "Cool. Can he introduce me to Sonic?"

Sonic 2 (1992)

• Developer: Sega Technical Institute
• Publisher: SEGA
• Director: Masaharu Yoshii
• Composer: Masato Nakamura
• Platform: SEGA Genesis



Sonic 2 improved on the original in many ways. Smoother controls, faster levels, Spin Dash. It felt like Sonic was going to burst out of the side of my TV at any moment!
Tails was either revolutionary, or annoying AF, depending on your point of view. Each level was distinct and unique. Give me Casino Night and Metropolis - those were really fun levels. The soundtrack was pretty good, and really flowed with the game.

And no, I didn't get a second dance.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

So, during my freshman year at college, I had to choose my PE rotation. Everyone had to pass a swimming test (check), and then you could choose from a plethora of options. I, however, for reasons that won't be discussed, slept in and was left with just one choice: Ballroom Dance.

So, here I am, not really enjoying learning to waltz, and I have to invite a girl over to dance. I decide not to, and let the girl choose me. Revolutionary, I know. Anyway, so a girl comes over, and I introduce myself, and she says, "hi, my name is XXXX and my dad is the VP of Sega of America." My response, "Cool. Can he introduce me to Sonic?"

Sonic 2 (1992)

• Developer: Sega Technical Institute
• Publisher: SEGA
• Director: Masaharu Yoshii
• Composer: Masato Nakamura
• Platform: SEGA Genesis

View attachment 13746

Sonic 2 improved on the original in many ways. Smoother controls, faster levels, Spin Dash. It felt like Sonic was going to burst out of the side of my TV at any moment!
Tails was either revolutionary, or annoying AF, depending on your point of view. Each level was distinct and unique. Give me Casino Night and Metropolis - those were really fun levels. The soundtrack was pretty good, and really flowed with the game.

And no, I didn't get a second dance.

I am embarrassed by how old I was when I figured out the pun in Tails' name.

 

[Tetsujin]

Okay okay. Back on the clock which means it’s time for me to make probably the first “reach” pick of these draft.


Given the multi-billion dollar empire it’s spawned, there is no doubt in my mind that Pokémon is absolutely deserving of a spot on my roster of desert island video games. But which one?! With nine different generations of mainline video games not including remakes and random spinoffs (I’m looking at you Detective Pikachu!), there is a plethora of choices. Do I go with the classic Gen I (Red/Blue/Green/Yellow) gameboy games? These classics are where everything began and, starting fresh, there are no contrivances or nods to “the way things are” in the way that the later generations almost became self parodies of earlier generations, plodding chutneys going through the motions as the game’s developers just sorta ran down a checklist of things Pokemon games must have. Do I go with Gen II, the ‘sequel’ generation that introduced a bunch of new mechanics that in hindsight were surprisingly advanced for a Gameboy color game aimed at elementary schoolers?

No, I say…
With my third pick,

Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald Version (Game Boy Advance)


I know, I know. You’re thinking, “But Tetsu, this is the first generation in the series to do away with having every Pokémon available to catch in a single game/version cycle.” You’re right but my response to that is: Who cares? These games are fun!

Taking a bit of a visual leap from the first two generations, these games are the first (and, cynically, maybe the last) in the series to really feel vibrant in an organic way. This is before they started running out of ideas for new Pokemon so the designs are are generally good (No ice cream cone with eyes in this generation) and the story is bigger than the first two generations while still not getting to the ridiculously huge stakes of some of the later games.

The soundtrack for this generation is, and this is probably the most controversial thing I’ve written here yet, the best in the series with the composers really getting extra juice from the midi generators of the Game Boy Advance.

There’s no extra gimmick introduced for the sake of introducing a new gimmick like there are in later games (*coughcough*Scarlet/Violet*coughcough*) and the roster of Pokemon is still small enough that it isn’t exhausting trying to “Catch ‘em all!”

I was tempted to go with Sun/Moon but decided against it even though I really love those games because (a.) they run into the stakes problem I was talking about earlier, (b.) this is the start of the “oh crap we’re out of ideas for new Pokemon!” Problem, and (c.) the Mega Attack gimmick in this game was really dumb.

Was it probably too early to take a Pokemon game? Sure. But just like Joe Dumars trading an unprotected pick to move up a couple of spots to draft Derrik Queen when he probably could’ve just stayed pat and picked him anyways, sometimes you’ve gotta live a little.

EDIT: Since I did get a little pushback on this one, the reason I picked ‘three games’ is that they’re all essentially the same exact game with the one big difference being the version exclusive Pokemon. (Emerald has a bit more of a change to the story and your character is wearing shorts now but it is 90% just Ruby and Sapphire but Green)

 

[Capt. Factorial]

For my third round pick in the Video Games draft I select:

Metroid (1986, NES)

Metroid was one of the classics on the NES, and almost certainly the first "hard" game that I ever beat. I don't remember exactly how much time it took, but it was more of a feat than Super Mario Bros. - and there were no save points! You had to do it all in one shot!

At the end, you got a big "surprise" about the protagonist Samus Aran which my friends and I thought was pretty cool. Once again, just a very formative game for me.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

For my fourth round pick in the Video Games draft I select:

Astro Bot (2024, PS5)

I previously said that I'd only ever bought two game consoles specifically to play a single game - the PS5 was the other (but that game, sadly, was already off the board before my first pick). Still, I've found another game on the PS5 that I've enjoyed a lot.

As you can see from my early picks, I grew up on the classic side-scroller, and Astro Bot is of the genre of game that just has the *feel* of a side-scroller, just amped up to levels acceptable for modern gaming systems. Inventive and colorful environments, levels that have varying difficulties so that you can nail the mechanics of the game and then challenge yourself, and yes, a fun soundtrack.

I'm most of the way to beating this one (but have been stuck on one of the optional side challenges at the very end...and dammit, I'm going to get through that tricky beast before completing the game!

 

[Tetsujin]

You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts.

Oregon Trail (Essentially any platform you can think of although it’s pretty much a guarantee that you will never find the version of the game you’re looking for)


Yes, I chose perhaps the Cro-Magnon of the evolutionary ladder of video games. This game has gone through various updates and upgrades over the years but the basic conceit forever remains the same: Life in the 19th century sucked ass.

The original game really spared no time or thought for the lives of the, uh, non-trailgoers living along the Oregon Trail, instead choosing to focus on you keeping your small group of travelers and your wagon and your animals alive and relatively unmaimed on the long trek to Oregon. Unfortunately this wound up being much harder than you’d think thanks to the dysentery gods being sneaky bastards and sanitation apparently not being a thing until the late 1990s.

But still, it’s a surprisingly fun game and the nostalgic part of my brain still longs for the classic version of the game. You know the one I’m talking about, the one that’s roughly 80% just random boxes of text and little stick figures that die a lot.

Are the classic versions of the game problematic in the way that they ignore the Native American populations already living along the trail? Yes. But the new version of the game does its best to address this to a relatively solid degree. And admittedly, sometimes you can almost forget about the whitewashing of history because YOUR ENTIRE GROUP IS POOPING ITS PANTS LIKE THE ENTIRE TRIP TO OREGON and you constantly keep losing all your stuff because you’re terrible at crossing rivers. Also the hunting mechanics are pure garbage and you’re guaranteed to lose all your money buying bullets that won’t hit anything.

Anyways, this game is great.

Also a special shout out to the latest ‘reimagined’ version of the game (found on Apple Arcade and Steam amongst other places) for having a far better soundtrack than any Oregon Trail game probably has any right to.

Not bad for a 41 year old computer game made to educate students on life as a pioneer.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts.

Oregon Trail (Essentially any platform you can think of although it’s pretty much a guarantee that you will never find the version of the game you’re looking for)
View attachment 13748

Yes, I chose perhaps the Cro-Magnon of the evolutionary ladder of video games. This game has gone through various updates and upgrades over the years but the basic conceit forever remains the same: Life in the 19th century sucked ass.

The original game really spared no time or thought for the lives of the, uh, non-trailgoers living along the Oregon Trail, instead choosing to focus on you keeping your small group of travelers and your wagon and your animals alive and relatively unmaimed on the long trek to Oregon. Unfortunately this wound up being much harder than you’d think thanks to the dysentery gods being sneaky bastards and sanitation apparently not being a thing until the late 1990s.

But still, it’s a surprisingly fun game and the nostalgic part of my brain still longs for the classic version of the game. You know the one I’m talking about, the one that’s roughly 80% just random boxes of text and little stick figures that die a lot.

Are the classic versions of the game problematic in the way that they ignore the Native American populations already living along the trail? Yes. But the new version of the game does its best to address this to a relatively solid degree. And admittedly, sometimes you can almost forget about the whitewashing of history because YOUR ENTIRE GROUP IS POOPING ITS PANTS LIKE THE ENTIRE TRIP TO OREGON and you constantly keep losing all your stuff because you’re terrible at crossing rivers. Also the hunting mechanics are pure garbage and you’re guaranteed to lose all your money buying bullets that won’t hit anything.

Anyways, this game is great.

Also a special shout out to the latest ‘reimagined’ version of the game (found on Apple Arcade and Steam amongst other places) for having a far better soundtrack than any Oregon Trail game probably has any right to.

Not bad for a 41 year old computer game made to educate students on life as a pioneer.

Ah, dysentery on a flurosescent green screen! Pepperidge Farm remembers.

 

[SLAB]

Computer lab for 30 minutes once a week to squeeze in a single game of The Oregon Trail was my favorite 30 minutes of my school week from like 3rd to 6th grades!

 

[whitechocolate]

I mean; it's no Number Munchers.

 

[Padrino]

Not irrational. Was on my list in the next few rounds.

Also, where do you always find all this amazing artwork?

I generally scour the internet for non-official artwork when I participate in a Desert Island Draft, as I like evocative art over descriptive art. But here's a great resource I've been using for this particular draft:

Home

Download and share custom video game assets and personalize your gaming library.

www.steamgriddb.com

It's mostly for Steam artwork tiles and banners, and there's lots of garbage to sift through for any individual game you might look up. But you'll find gems amidst the junk.

 

[SLAB]

With the 33rd pick in the 2025 Desert Island Music Draft, I select:

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (2021)

. And the narration... my god, the narration. @SLAB pegged Resident Evil as having the "best voice acting in any game ever" in the post just above this one. I'd honestly throw Disco Elysium into that conversation for the talents of jazz musician Lenval Brown alone.

My post may have been just a little tongue in cheek, for the absolute best reasons.

 

[Spike]

Dammit. Not one, but TWO gone from my "I thought this was safe for now" list.

 

[Spike]

OK: I had to think about this one a bit.
No story of being left on the dance floor with this one, but this one holds strong since its release.

Minecraft (2011 - or 2009, depending on your POV)

• Developer: Mojang Studios
• Publisher: Mojang (originally)
• Director / Lead Developer: Markus "Notch" Persson, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten
• Composer: Daniel Rosenfeld (known as C418)
• Platforms: Pretty much all of them.

If you want to waste away hours doing absolutely NOTHING, this is your game. If you need to hold an intervention with a 12 year old because of how much time is spent playing a game, this is most likely the reason. Why is it fun? There's no end goal, and you can sandbox your own adventure. Build, create, survive...whatever you want to do, you can. Easy to begin to play, and even easier to keep going. You can get lost in a world of your own doing. Large modpacks, online fun. Oh, and Block by Blockwest (IYKYK.)

Not sure how this one slipped, but I don't think it would make it back to me so here it is.

 

[Löwenherz]

I generally scour the internet for non-official artwork when I participate in a Desert Island Draft, as I like evocative art over descriptive art. But here's a great resource I've been using for this particular draft:

Home

Download and share custom video game assets and personalize your gaming library.

www.steamgriddb.com

It's mostly for Steam artwork tiles and banners, and there's lots of garbage to sift through for any individual game you might look up. But you'll find gems amidst the junk.

Well @Padrino I’ve totally stolen that tool now, not only planning to use it for all future picks, but having gone back and added some posters I found with it to my previous ones.

It’s only fair considering the number of picks you’ve stolen from me already here only up to round 4.

 

[Padrino]

With the 40th pick in the 2025 Desert Island Music Draft, I select:

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

Developer: CD Projekt Red
Publisher: CD Projekt
Game Director(s): Konrad Tomaszkiewicz; Mateusz Kanik; Sebastian Stępień
Musical Score: Marcin Przybyłowicz & Mikolai Stroinski
Genre(s): Action RPG; Open World RPG
Platform: PC

It seems criminal that I should be able to select The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with the 40th pick in this draft, and just a couple months after it celebrated its 10th anniversary, no less. But I won't look a gift Roach in the mouth. While Elden Ring hung its hat on mystifying opacity and grueling difficulty, and Disco Elysium made its name on bold, inventive RPG writing, and Baldur's Gate III emphasized maximal reactivity and player agency, The Witcher 3 paved the way for a new standard of storytelling in modern gaming.

The first and second game in this series feel like light warm-ups for what CD Projekt Red would ultimately accomplish with its third entry. Set in the Northern Realms, the player inhabits Geralt of Rivia, professional "witcher", or monster slayer in the common parlance. The mutations that a witcher must undergo render Geralt an outsider and a freak to most, as he ventures from town to town in search of Ciri, his adopted daughter and the Lady of Space and Time. The overarching story is not particularly original. It is one of power and the forces that try to obtain it. However, where The Witcher 3 really made its mark was in the many smaller stories that populate its world. It's a game well-known for the muscularity, originality, and excellence of its side quests, and it bears more worthwhile ancillary content than any one game should ever be expected to deliver.

Truth be told, the moment-to-moment gameplay in The Witcher 3 is not particularly stout. Combat is a bit samey from one encounter to the next. Use of Geralt's "witcher senses" stops being novel very quickly. Traversal feels clunky whether on foot or on horseback. And the dialogue trees, while voluminous and full of choice, are not exactly rendered with much innovation. That said, most players who love The Witcher 3 will happily endure a bit of gameplay tedium to experience the world of the Northern Realms as CD Projekt envisioned it, with its many-layered characters and the compelling stories that wrap themselves around even the tiniest of the game's villages.

The Witcher 3 also began CD Projekt Red's tradition of developing robust post-launch DLC. Its Hearts of Stone expansion, in particular, features an absolutely stellar story in the "be careful what you wish for" tradition. And while its enormous Blood and Wine expansion is never quite able to scale the lofty storytelling heights of that first major DLC, its setting is absolutely dripping with charm and its a more than fitting coda for a character that the player grows to love in spite of all his rough edges.