And yeah, on the subject of mods in general I’m a little split. On the one hand I don’t want to be irrationally prejudiced against them and things like Black Mesa and Long War do prove that modders can be at least as talented as the people who made the base games. On the other, I did go through a heavy period of playing mods from about 2000-2005 — basically the heyday of mods in PC gaming — and oh my god I played some absolute stinkers. Some modders are very talented, true. Most, however, are not, or at least are still learning. Arguably the same is true of actual game developers, but overlaying a professional game development process over the top does have a tendency to increase quality and filter out most of the idiocy; it does also tend to make things rather more bland than they would be otherwise, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay in most cases.

You are right about mods. There are too many good games now to be bothered with mods that are not patches/UI fixes/graphical enhancements. I may be fan of Paradox games and I may be interested in Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2… But then I try it and see that uncolonized lands are presented as immortal character with a special portrait who hates everyone and is susceptible to a special “Colonize” diplomatic action. Other mods have kitchen sink approach to feature development and have no sense of taste – such as Civilization 4 Fall from Heaven 2 mod which featured Guybrush Threepwood as a hero of one of the factions (not an Easter Egg, but a real Secret of Monkey Island protagonist with ripped VA lines) and Inquisition units are being a copy of Monthy Python sketch. Yep, things like that remind you why you need publishers and marketing and limits on artistic freedom.

You talk about focus in games and it reminds me of my problem with XCOM 2 which I started but stop playing. Even on Normal it was hard and unforgiving. Some time ago I completed XCOM 1 on Normal/Iron Man (and failed to progress much on Classic/Iron Man several times) so maybe it’s me degrading and becoming old (27 is one step in the grave basically). But it requires some special sort of focus and attention to details. It feels like a game that expects you to have fun on your second playthrough or read guides on your first. Which feels wrong cause it’s also an AAA game aimed at all kinds of people. You describe XCOM 2 LW as it amplifies this problem: it’s like it’s made to be enjoyable after you master it and want long campaign to optimize everything and have all kinds of challenges.

Meanwhile I’m playing Disgaea which is like a Japanese XCOM. Not that it’s easy – but it splits a campaign into chunks that can be digested, allows backtracking for grinding and is something you can play both when you’re relaxed and when you want a challenge.