I have a problem, but it took seeing myself in a video game to face it

digitaltrends.com:

On January 4, I received an email I had both been anticipating and dreading for months. My copy of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, one of my most anticipated games of 2024, had dropped into my inbox. Usually, that moment would give me a jolt of energy. I love critiquing games that have real substance, and I was still chewing on 2020’s unforgettable Yakuza: Like a Dragon several years later. That RPG tells a thematically rich story about an unlikely hero finding his confidence amid a quest to take on Japan’s criminal underworld.

But the desire to dive into the new game would come with one major caveat: I needed to give up the next three weeks of my life for it.

The game’s developer, Ryu Ga Gotoku, suggested that it would take 80 to 100 hours just to zip through the main story without stopping to enjoy side content. The studio’s boss, Masayoshi Yokoyama, went one step further and claimed that it would make players “sick” if they tried to binge it all.

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Unfortunately for me, I’d have 19 days if I wanted to have a review out when the January 23 review embargo lifted. With no way of knowing how long I’d be spending in the streets of Honolulu City, my anxiety kicked in as I entered the same marathon mindset that Yokoyama had advised against.

It’s easy to blame this crunch on untenable PR timelines; there’s a long history of press not getting enough time with massive RPGs likeBaldur’s Gate 3. The reality here, though, is that my fate was somewhat self-imposed. I could have spaced out my play time more instead of settling in for long sessions and still finished with time to spare. I know that my bosses wouldn’t have cared if we had opted to skip a review entirely, as it’s not exactly a mainstream game. The only thing compelling me to push