Jusant on Game Pass is a great palate cleanser amid Big Game season

polygon.com:

2023 has been a great year for games, no doubt — but it’s a lot, isn’t it? There are so many brilliant games clamoring for our attention, and a lot of them are quite busy, noisy, or complex in themselves. Alan Wake 2 is an intense, fractured, and scary psychotropic horror game. Spider-Man 2 is a whole, bustling city full of slick distractions. Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an ever-shifting psychedelic fever dream of a platformer. Or maybe you’re considering resuming one of this year’s weighty role-playing games mid-playthrough — Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, or Baldur’s Gate 3. Somehow, Diablo 4 is already deep into its second season. It’s all a bit overwhelming.

It may seem counterintuitive to recommend another new game to you as the answer to this brain-scrambling glut — but trust me, I have just the thing. And it’s sitting right there on Game Pass. (It’s on PlayStation 5 and Steam, too.) It’s Jusant: a gorgeous, meditative rock-climbing adventure from Life Is Strange developer Don’t Nod.

Previewing Jusant back in August, I ventured that it might be the chill-out experience of the year; playing the final version now, my mind hasn’t changed. If it’s possible for a video game to be mindful, this one is. That’s not just because it’s very pretty, completely nonviolent, and generally calm in its aspect, with a minimal soundtrack that’s often no more than silence, footsteps, and a whisper of wind. It’s also because the game is all about being in the moment. There’s no leveling here, no endgame, no customization, no meta goals to tick off. It’s just you and a rock face, pulling yourself up one handhold at a time.

Set in an arid post-apocalypse after a great flood, Jusant has our young, well-shod solo adventurer