Gaming During A Global Pandemic

Even before things went to shit, 2020 was supposed to be a gaming renaissance for me. 

In recent years, I noticed that I have been spending more time with fewer games. Hundreds of hours of my life were being invested into little else than The Division 2 and NBA 2K. Nothing against those titles, but that had to change. Not really helping matters was the fact that I was still buying nearly everything that was released, I just never got to them and it created a girthy backlog. 

Then the pandemic hit.

It was late-February or early-March when rumors started to circulate that this coronavirus might actually become a thing that we might have to deal with. Up until that point nobody had been taking it seriously. “Did you wash your hands for 30 seconds? Is that a cough I heard?” Everyone in the office had a joke. When my boss pulled me aside on a Friday afternoon and said that I was going to be working from home beginning that next week, I was confused. “Because of the Corona thing?” Everything changed. Lockdowns, social distancing, curfews, mask requirements, it all happened so fast. You had some people calling the entire thing a hoax, some people that wouldn’t leave their homes, the President suggesting that you inject yourself with bleach, and toilet paper becoming as hard to obtain as a Playstation 5. 

As an introvert that is rather resourceful with the amount of toilet paper that he uses, I adapted to that new lifestyle about as well as one could. It’s as if I had spent the first 30 years of my life preparing for this. For me, the biggest inconvenience of Covid-19 was that—without fellow spectators—professional wrestling, sporting events, and watching new movies were just not the same.

Gaming was the one thing that I could still enjoy.

As a kid, all that I wanted to do when I grew up was to get paid to play video games. I would always picture myself writing reviews for GamePro Magazine alongside Johnny Ballgame and Sushi X. That never came to be, but, in 2020, I did kind of get to live that dream of getting paid to game. Working from home full-time became a game changer. Whether I was on my lunch break, wrapping up work, or just killing time between team meetings, I found myself playing video games more than ever before. As the lockdown continued, that backlog began to clear out. Days Gone, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Control, Resident Evil 2, Outer Worlds, and that was just the first few months. I started going through games faster than they could come out. I even started to expand my horizons a bit and found that I was super into Diablo, Destiny, and Animal Crossing. (Still suck ass at Bloodbourne, though)

Nearly a year since the start of lockdown, the situation isn’t any clearer. There’s a vaccine, sure, but when will it be available to everyone? Will people take it? Will it work? Will Covid mutate into something else? Who knows. Everyone is anxious for things to go back to normal, but the longer that this continues the more it seems that we are going to have to change our expectations of what that normal is.

Without games, I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through these uncertain times. Isolation is hard, even for someone that hates social interaction. Somehow, even after a year, I find myself getting an idea for a trip or a fun lunch spot and I’m immediately reminded that I can’t. I miss doing things. It’s gotten to the point that I watch old wrestling events and see crowds of 10,000 people and it seems weird that used to be a thing we could do. Christmas never felt like Christmas, going to Kroger feels like you’re being lowered into the ocean in a shark cage, and you’re not allowed to see your parents or grandparents without the fear that you accidentally passed on a germ that will kill them.

And that’s for the lucky ones. 

Millions of people have died, and millions more will. Those that are lucky enough to recover may never be the same physically. If my only complaint during this time is that I can’t go to a movie  or that Cyberpunk 2077 is buggy, I’m very fortunate. 

If nothing else comes from this depressing write-up, I hope that this is an article that I can look back at one day and say, “Remember how crazy that was?” We all play these games that are set during these post-apocalyptic times or plagues, but none of those really prepared us for how challenging it would be in real life.  

mooshoo

https://leveledup.com

Husband. Godfather. Dog Dad. NBA Free Agent.

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