Heads up, a few spoilers in this short story–mostly regarding the Artemis and Atlas questlines. I’ll blur some things out, just to be safe!

I recently moved to the other side of the country (from east coast to west coast US), and since then I’ve been challenged by a kind of anxiety that I hadn’t really experienced prior to the move: not knowing where my “place” really is.

Since arriving here, I haven’t really felt “at home”, despite my apartment being nice and comfortable. I live with my fiancee and our dog, and we generally have a pretty wonderful life together–but I can’t seem to shake this sense of feeling out of place. I sometimes get stuck in these thought loops of feeling like I shouldn’t be here in this new city, that I should be in a more familiar and recognizable place, which can definitely be hard to break out of.

That being said, I’m currently at the “Purge” part of the Artemis/Atlas questline, and I feel like it really helped me zoom out a bit and become more comfortable with the discomfort. Atlas’ “reveal” was pretty shocking, and knowing that I (the player character) had such a limited amount of time to live was a bit intimidating, but the comfort I got from Nada and Polo was so unexpected! I found myself really starting to challenge the “I shouldn’t be here in this unfamiliar place” thought pattern as I approached the end of this questline, and I am just so thankful for the experience. When Nada said something to the effect of “find your own happiness” I had to put my controller down and just kinda reflect for a while. Obviously, really breaking down anxious/harmful thought patterns is going to take more than just completing a video game quest, but I’m surprised and thankful that it helped, even a tiny bit.

Rediscovering this game after bailing on it shortly after launch has been a really wonderful experience, and I just wanted to share some of my thoughts. Thanks for reading, Traveller-friend.

https://preview.redd.it/wlek82ma25xa1.png?width=2945&format=png&auto=webp&s=e53c5d80a7093aea71166e9b4cec524faa411457