Diablo 4

Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows (Steam Deck OK)

My current goal: Find better-looking armor for my Rogue, don’t kill my fiancé IRL

For the first time in a very long time, my partner and I are playing a video game together. Diablo IV also marks our first foray into the world of Diablo, so the two of us are learning about its extensive systems and combat quirks side-by-side while also being viscerally reminded of the fact that we, while very much a strong, loving couple, are not the best team.

Diablo IV offers ample opportunities for us to grow (read: I learn to stop being so easily frustrated and snippy, he learns to stop agonizing over every choice he has to make). We are two very different people, and we play games very differently, so when he gets stuck walking into a wall because he “forgot which color” he was and I snap at him like an overwhelmed mother of two at Stop & Shop, it can either be a moment of brevity or the predecessor for a fight. When he snatches up all the loot on the ground (including the armor for my Rogue, who could do with a much better fit at the moment) and stays in his inventory for several minutes min-maxing while I’m impatiently waiting to go into a dungeon, will I have the fortitude to calmly ask him to follow me? Will we learn better communication skills? Will we survive this weekend in Hell and outside of it? Will he remember what color he is? (It’s blue.) We shall see. — Alyssa Mercante