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Another year around the sun, and it's already February, so I guess it’s time for another top 10 games of the year list.

ALT: a man with glasses and a beard is saying this is how i win

I lay this all out not to justify that Metroid is not about isolation, or to decry players who prefer a Metroid game with no talking or guidance and only ambiance and exploration, but to offer a roadmap on how what we’ve seen from Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is a natural evolution of where the series has been going.

ALT: a screenshot of a video game with the word start on the bottom

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By 2021, I had already started formulating a series of events mapping out VRs future based on current trends, previous experience, and upcoming news. I write now to recap those predictions, review the state of VR, and explain exactly how all roads could inevitably lead to one of the biggest players in the video game space: Nintendo.

Xbox’s victory condition in the games industry isn’t selling the most consoles, or the most games, or getting game pass on every device. Xbox’s victory condition is that the PlayStation 7 comes out, and it runs Windows.

The point is not that there is no handheld gaming anymore, but that the definitive handheld-ness nature of games as we knew them on Game Boy or Nintendo DS are no longer prevalent on modern handheld devices.