The moment at which I knew this game would go down as one of my favourites was when I found the Lomei Labyrinth. I was venturing up the northeast part of the map, making my way to the Ancient Tech Lab. On my way I ran into a grounded guardian, an encounter which ended with me getting blasted off a cliff. It was raining, so I couldn’t climb my way back up, so instead I decide to venture north along the shoreline. As I made my way around the cliff base, the rain escalated into a thunderstorm, that’s when through the rain, illuminated by the lightning, I spotted the silhouette of this massive, imposing, monolithic structure off in the distance. This incredible, atmospheric sight, like a scripted vista you’d see in something like Shadow of the Colossus, is something I happened across by chance, just one of the many, many, many times this game’s world and mechanics all coalesced to create something breathtaking.

Say what you will about this game’s shortcomings when it comes to dungeon and enemy variety, but I’ve yet to play another video game that gives me the same feeling of exploration and wonder that comes with this one. Moments like this, like the first time I climbed a rock formation looking for ore and it stood up and tried to kill me, like the first time I realized lightning was about to strike my sword so I quickly threw it at an enemy just in time for the thunder bolt to strike and blast them away, like the time I decided to take a chance and make a frantic sprint for my sand seal to try and outrun an angry Molduga bearing down on me, jumping out of my seat as I make it by the grit of my teeth, these moments have stuck with me and will continue to stick with me far longer than any scripted random encounter I'm seeing for the 27 millionth time in any other open world game.