It’s not every year that you come across a game that has the innate ability to command your thoughts for weeks, even after completion. Perhaps it is the high bar that I am using as a filter. What I seek to elucidate here is perhaps obvious, still, there are only a few games that elicit a deep emotional response from me. I can list those games on one hand. I have been playing games for twenty-three years. I have been writing about games for twelve years. It is even rarer when a game vaults itself all the way to the top of said list. This is it. This is my favorite game of all time.

Only a week ago I wrote about the constant search for the perfect co-op game. While that search is never ending, I do believe that we’ve come one step closer. Second Extinction hit Game Pass on Wednesday, April 28th. The early access (Game Preview) title, on Xbox, pits up to three players against mutated dinosaurs in a post-apocalyptic action shooter. Imagine Turok and Deep Rock had a baby and you’re well on your way.

My family plays video games together, online. We recently introduced my daughter, Cara, to Sea of Thieves, a game, Ben and Caleb, my son and grandson (Cara’s son) and I had played countless hours before. Sea of Thieves with three generations of family members, aged from 28 to 67! Recently we sailed off of the known map into a region called The Shroud, with only a journal and a talisman to guide us.

Creature in the Well is the distillation of a dungeon crawler, and pinball. As if there were more disparate things in the gaming world. Despite having the urge to say something like, “you can count the number of games like this on one hand,” I am fully aware there aren’t any games like this title by Flight School Studio.

Playing Outer Wilds prompted a mental reaction I have never had before. Somewhere in the space between planets, as I sought out the clues to solve this rapidly decaying universe, I found the answer to a question I never asked. All the time I spent with this game was fraught with tension and trepidation until I knew what I was meant to do; A lesson with surprising connections to one’s journey through life.

Xbox is coming to Black Friday with some solid offerings. With systems lower then last year, you can look to find the Xbox One S in nearly any store (Walmart, Best Buy, Target, GameStop, and the Microsoft Store) for a cool $200, while Target and GameStop will reward you with a gift card for you console pick up ($20 and $50 respectively). Similarly, if you need to grab an extra controller, controllers are dropping $20 across the board, with the Microsoft Store also dropping their Design Lab prices by $10. If you are looking to bring home the beefy Xbox One X, Walmart and The Microsoft Store have both knocked $100 out of the MSRP, while Best Buy and Gamestop have the X for sale for 429.

Thief of Thieves released on Xbox Game Pass this week by publisher Skybound Entertainment and developer Rival games. The Point-and-Click, adventure style game shares a likeness to former Telltale titles like The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us (the former, also a Skybound property). Based on a comic series penned by Robert Kirkman (Creator of The Walking Dead), Thief of Thieves puts you in control of Celia, a punk styled spy protogé of master thief Redmond. Volume One, available now, is an interesting starter for the series but is a bit limited by its length.