Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 2-3)

Is The Veilguard calling?

by Ben Kerry 12pm

Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (November 2-3)

November is here, and we have another weekend of gaming on the cards! There've been some huge releases recently like Black Ops 6 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard that will no doubt be taking up lots of our time this weekend - but we've also got a fresh Free Play Days selection as well.

Here's what we're playing this weekend:

Ben Kerry, Staff Writer

After blasting through lots of games for review in recent weeks, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, I'll probably be having a bit more of a chill weekend this time around. That's not to say I won't hop onto the new Call of Duty for the odd round of multiplayer though — especially because it's a 9/10 video game — and I might play a little bit of The Crew Motorfest ahead of its upcoming free map expansion as well.

Over on PS5, I might actually have a go at Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, too. Our sister site Push Square had glowing things to say about it in a recent review, and for a small $10 upgrade, it might finally be time for me to give this one a proper go.

Wherever you're playing, have a great weekend folks!

Liam Doolan, Staff Writer

Like Ben, I'll also be hitting up Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 over the next few days (in case you missed it, Nuketown has dropped). I've also been testing out the Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta - so far it's been quite fun!

Apart from this, there are also a few other games I'm still jumping between. This includes Sonic X Shadow Generations and Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. And if I get enough time, I'm going to try out Dragon Age: Origins. I've played the majority of BioWare's games over the years, but one series that did slip by me back in the day was Dragon Age.

After all the talk about the new entry this week, now seems like a good time to boot up the first entry with Game Pass.

Game on, everyone!

What are you playing on Xbox this weekend? Let us know down in the comments below.

Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin' in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he's not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that's far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.

1
StaminanX
12:04pm

Somehow I'm going to try and juggle Black Ops 6, Veilguard and New World Aeternum. Somehow...

2
BIG3
12:08pm

On Gamepass I just finished CoD 6 campaign. That was a good one. Moving on to zombie mode now.
On PS5 Im playing Dragon Age Veilguard, or Manfred Dating Sim as I like to call it. I've gotten pretty far and this game is a GOTY contender in my book. Absolutely love to be back in Thedas.

Last night I finished off Jack Holmes: Master of Puppets which honestly had some great moments, but was pretty bad overall. The controls are terrible, the story is nonsense, the enemy variety wasn't there, boss fights were awful, voice acting was abysmal, puzzles were dumb, glitched out more than once.. On the other hand, graphics are decent, very colorful, the atmosphere is there, and some of the attractions at the carnival were a blast - specifically the parodies of Animal Crossing and Pirates of the Caribbean. That was good stuff and almost made the rest of it worth it.

The rest of the weekend I'll be playing more Batman: Arkham Shadow which continues to be brilliant, and also for the first time in my life, I'm playing a COD campaign. After checking out a bunch of reviews, all singing praises for being so unique compared to prior entries, I dove into Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The one gun at a time limit is pretty lame imo, but it's still been decently fun overall so far. Very curious to get to some of the more interesting missions I heard about.

4
gollumb82
12:41pm

I’m playing Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 (fantastic game) and been increasingly looking into getting a Series X again. Stalker 2, Indy and a few upcoming Xbox games are making me want to go back.

5
RiverGenie
12:45pm

Curiosity got the better of me & I tried CoD 6 campaign.

Two of the missions were really awkward & out of place. While i get them from a narrative perspective they were just not fun especially the drug interrogation one (the other being the zombie hallucination.) When I finished the campaign I just thought well that was a thing & uninstalled it. Best i can say is it was ok.

Will be finishing up Dragon Age Inquisition dlc & probably some Minecraft chill while catching up on some podcasts.

6
Dimey
12:46pm

Alan Wake's American Nightmare for me... mixing up older and newer games in the backlog!

Black OPS 6 main campaign...I'm enjoying it quite a lot.
Trying to fight the urge to buy dragon age Velo guard. Hopefully after Christmas there's a good discount on it. I really liked what I saw...more streamlined experience to just sit and relax which is what Im looking for.

8
Kraven
12:50pm

For the last week and a half I’ve been in a gaming slump and I wasn’t aware of it initially. It has been strange. Once I obtained the platinum trophy for Silent Hill 2 Remake, I subsequently dove head first into Metaphor ReFantazio. And then it hit me.

I was enjoying it, particularly its UI, combat, characters, story, setting, and political strifes. However, it wasn’t fully grasping my attention. I was feeling overwhelmed. I found this peculiar because P4G is my favorite RPG of all time, and P5R is exceptional. I’m accustomed to the calendar structure, knowing content will be missed by choosing to do one activity over another. It was bothering me immensely even though time management is a core game design.

This feeling carried over with the Archetype mechanics. I was I immensely engulfed by options and it was ruining my experience. It was difficult for me to switch up my vocation because I had certain archetypes maxed out, with great skills, but switching classes and starting from scratch felt counterintuitive because I’d have to change armor, weapons, and be underpowered. I appreciate the flexibility, but not when it’s almost essential.

My brain just couldn’t handle any of it. In fact, it’s odd because of my affection with Atlus games (not just Persona), and while I was liking the majority of aspects of the game, I just wasn’t having fun. Ultimately, I set the game aside and will come back to it another time.

I then scrolled through my cross-media bar on my PS5 and saw Kunitsi-Gami: Path of the Goddess. I’m a huge Capcom fan and love their odd side projects. The glowing reviews for this game definitely piqued my interest. I played for five hours and was enjoying it; but it wasn’t holding my attention as well.

This trend repeated itself two more times; once with Shadow of the Damned: Hella Remastered; and secondly Ys X: Nordics (my favorite RPG series). At this point, I decided to take a break from gaming altogether and decompress. Maybe the depressing nature of Silent Hill 2 Remake took more of a toll on me than anticipated.

And suddenly, something changed. Monday rolled around and the reviews for Dragon Age: The Veilguard went live. The positive reception the game has been receiving from critics (and definitely not random strangers on the internet who hadn’t played the game but want to hate on anyone who likes it; seriously, the vile things said all over YouTube channels—Eurogamer, IGN, and other mainstream outlets—is absolutely out of control and incredibly disheartening) brought back that sense of excitement for games.

I started Dragon Age: The Veilguard on release day and have put 15-hours in it. I’m having an absolute blast. I’m an Elven rogue, part of the Antivan Crows association, with a slight affection for Neve. I’m slowly swooning her, but unlike my organization I work for, I won’t be stabbing her in the back.

TL;DR - Gaming is fun again; thanks, Dragon Age.

Also juggling games on Series X! Started Veilguard, very nice so far, although I’m at an early stage and clearly there are systems and mechanics I’ve yet to unlock.

I also intend to do more of the CoD6 campaign and maybe more of my BG3 Dark Urge run. I’m into Act 3 now and apparently this is where the Durge plotline really opens up.

I also bought Life is Strange Double Exposure although I think with all that on the go, it may have to wait! Plus I’ve got Monday off. 🙂

Same as last week for me: Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance.
Recently passed 90 hours of playtime so it might end up surpassing my playtime of the original SMTV.

I may play a bit of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chornobyl on the side though, on Switch.

Along with more Zombies on CoD Black Ops 6 which I am becoming addicted to lol, I have also returned to Forza Horizon 4 - my fave of the entire series.

Have a happy gaming weekend everyone!

12
Odium
1:14pm

I should be able to get a good amount of time in with Metaphor tomorrow, my wife is taking the kids to watch football at my in laws and I’m staying home. I also played some Skyrim on Steam Deck but am debating setting that to the side for now for Persona 5 Royal because I bought it for $23 on Steam. I’ve played P5 but never beat it.

Black ops 6 multiplayer and campaign and maybe a bit of elden ring possibly ha!

There are absolutely TOOO many games that are worth playing right now: COD: Black Ops 6, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred. I'll likely be diving into DA, but with breaks for BlOps6.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure for sure and possibly Banishers too. I anticipate those will be my only games til I finish them both.

16
Bleacdemon
1:24pm

I’ll probably play some more COD BO6 and enjoy the nuketownmap. Besides that Diablo 4 vessel of hatred. Games has my hands full.

17
awp69
57m ago

DA: Veilguard and BLOPS 6 on Series X. Silent Hill 2 on PS5 and Fear the Spotlight on Switch.

Put it this way, Xbox isn’t short of games for us to play!!!

19
Pigrotto
48m ago

hello 🙂
I'm playing a bit of Halo Infinite MP (PvE - Firefight) on Steam with a controller.
I like the game even if I prefer Quake Champions but it doesn't support a controller, so...
have a great weekend everyone ⭐️

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. I'm really enjoying it.

21
LostInBlue0
37m ago

I'm playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Only 2 hours in but I was able to create a gorgeous character and that goes a long way with me!

22
Romans12
33m ago

Not Dragon Age, lol. Black Ops 6 for sure on Game Pass. Nothing this weekend on the PS5. Waiting for my PS5 pro to come in before I start anything new.

@Kraven I hear you on that weird feeling toward games where they just aren’t clicking. I’ve had the same thing most of the year. When the year started though, I was thinking this was going to be the best year ever in gaming perhaps. Tekken 8, I enjoyed even more than Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1. Prince of Persia shocked me. After thinking it looked awful, I was sort of surprised by the response and then floored when I played it. Then I started Balatro on a trial and the creativity and simplicity of it impressed me so much that I bought it ten minutes into the trial. Then I started hitting a few indie flops while waiting for Rebirth and I was starting to question if I should maybe hold off buying new games for a bit, but then I sank into Rebirth in such a huge way. I was completely in awe of the game to the point where it felt like I could’ve cried by how much I loved the game. And then… the year stopped. For a long while. I still played games, sure, but I was playing Dave the Diver very casually as a side game against other games, but I gave up trying to find a main game and just finished Dave the Diver and it felt like there was nothing I really enjoyed playing. I played and beat several games for a while, but I was really critical of them. I was playing games that were considered good too. Dragon’s Dogma 2, Helldivers, Erdtree, etc. They didn’t feel great to play. The indies I were playing felt like I had to beat them because I bought them. It didn’t feel good.

Then the first wave of the Alan Wake DLC came out and I was like, “Whoa, I love this! Gaming is awesome again… oh, that was an hour and a half of gaming.” And my malaise lasted most of the rest of the year til Astro Bot knocked my socks off. And after that, much like you, I jumped to Silent Hill, and it just made me feel gross, and then Metaphor, which I kept falling asleep playing, so I went back into the malaise. Games weren’t hitting again. But then, you know what, this week has been picking up for me. I dropped Silent Hill and Metaphor last Saturday and swapped over to Banishers and honestly it sort of revitalized me. I had a hard time picking up the game. I preordered it and just couldn’t start it for whatever reason. It was never the right time, you know? I’m glad I waited because it’s what I want to play now. And then the wife and I play Life is Strange together every time one of those come out, and the new one might not be my favorite one so far, but it hits the spot, you know? And I picked up Mario Party Jamboree and the kids and I are loving it. So slump is officially over for me now. I’m going to resub to Gamepass when Stalker comes out and I’m feeling optimistic about games again. I’ve felt RPG burnout for most of the year, but now I’m sort of like maybe I should get Dragon Quest 3 for myself for Christmas because I know the game will hit me right too. It feels like a lot of people went through the slump this year for whatever reason, but glad to hear yours is over (as is mine)!

24
mac_da_man
26m ago

Dead Island 2 - finished the story ealier in the week but was having so much fun I decided to go for the platinum as I didnt have that much left anyway. Very fun game, very fun platinum 🙂

Max Mustard VR - still very fun, the camera isnt the best and the checkpoints can be a bit far apart but other than that its a good game 🙂

Horizon ZD remaster - love this game! Its a very nice upgrade and the game looks amazing. Been wanting to replay it for a long time so this is perfect for me 🙂

Halo 2 and Black Ops 6. My xbox getting work until M&L drops.

26
OldGamer999
11m ago

@gollumb82
I thought that as well but then thought.
Be patient, Stalker 2 and Indy on PS5 and probably Pro enhanced early next year.

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