Elden Ring. I’ve never really played a souls game, and it looks really great.

Not a lot of joy this year, got laid off last year and now find myself in a job where I’m making less and commuting more, but there were a couple of bright spots. I’ve been running a D&D game set in Mythic Greece, and it’s been the best TTRPG I’ve run or played in years - my players have been absolutely loving it. Plus, I recently spoke to a retirement advisor and found that I’m in very good shape to retire in 10 years, and that makes me very happy.

Thanks for doing this. Happy Holidays!

Ultimately, the world is not a grid. So while grids may be great for pure strategy games like XCom (and I really enjoyed XCom, not knocking it at all), I think a lot of people would say that for more story-focused games like RPGs, they break the immersion. Thus, BG3 (which I’m also really enjoying) does not use one. Neither do any of the party-based RPGs that I can think of off the top of my head. For me personally, it depends on the game. I am perfectly happy without one in BG3. But I enjoyed having one for XCom, and more recently for Warhammer 40k Mechanicus. I would offer that as a suggestion if you are looking for a gridded turn-based strategy game.