The early part of 2017 has seen four games released that I've played to varying amounts. Horizon: Zero Dawn came out in late February, and I played it until The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was released. Both games are fantastic, but are similar thematically and in what your characters do mechanically, but different in how you execute the controller inputs to do those things, so I decided I would shelve Horizon until I had finished Zelda so as to not create short-term muscle memory confusion and poor outcomes when trying to do something in either game. Mass Effect: Andromeda followed those two, and my early time with the game was engaging and reminded me of how ready I was for another Mass Effect-style space opera adventure, but reports of technical problems that potentially limited quest completion made it an easy call to shelve that as well until I had finished Zelda and the developers had had the time to address these issue via patches. Finally, Persona 5 hit in late April and when faced with the sprawling, largely unguided world of Zelda and the tightly defined and regimented morning-afternoon-night gameplay loop of the Persona series, I decided my best bet at completing one of these 4 games in 2017 was to focus on Persona 5.

Throughout this, I've had handful of games I could and di go to for brief respites from grand, involved, story-driven titles. I still complete my daily Hearthstone quests and am trying to move up this month's ranked ladder, Marvel Puzzle Quest provides bite-sized fun with its match 3 style gameplay and frustration with the frequency of great rewards, and MLB The Show 17 allows me to imagine a world with a stable Washington Nationals bullpen and Wilson Ramos healthy and behind the plate for my team. These games and styles of games are familiar and comforting and easier to play in smaller chunks; where progress in Persona 5 is frequently measured in 10s of hours, these all allow for shorter bursts of play, but didn't present the kind of excitement from winning a difficult encounter in the other four, larger style games I have on my plate.

This week I finally tried PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds, a game in Early Access on Steam that has blown up as "the next big thing" in gaming by selling over a million copies in its launch weekend. A brief explanation: PlayerUnknown is the handle of an Irish modder who has created game mods for ARMA III and H1Z1 that created new modes of play for those game that replicated the theme of the Japanese film Battle Royale or American Young Adult fiction The Hunger Games. A large number of players are set in an expansive but limited play area; the winner is the last man or woman standing. The play area constricts as time passes, funneling survivors to a smaller and smaller area and forcing confrontation. PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds (known as Battlegrounds from here on out for brevity with no intention to shortchange PlayerUnknown) is one of the first stand-alone versions of a game like this. Players start with no useful items – just clothing of various looks – and anything helpful must be scavenged on the island you are fighting on. Guns, armor, healing items, and vehicles are all Procure On Site for you and up to 99 other people intent on using those tools to kill you in the name of their own survival.

BattleGrounds is not the type of game I usually play. The last multiplayer shooter I spent any real time with was...Call of Duty Black Ops II...I think? I"ve never had great twitch reactions, and this being PC-only for now was another barrier to entry – I've always preferred the simplified, less precise controllers for shooters to help compensate for my lack of precision and skill. BattleGrounds is different. There is no persistent progression that will impact gameplay in a meaningful way. Instead of needing to unlock the weapon I want to use and improving it via unlocked attachments, I have to start every match by finding a new gun, as does every other player. The tension of needing to find a weapon, ways to protect myself, and tools to survive ratchet up the tension more than the constant hail of bullets I remember from Call of Duty and its ilk. And once I've died in a solo player match, I'm free to walk away or start another round, which in my case will probably last about 6 minutes until I'm murdered by another player. Haven't gotten my fill? Ready up. Played three or four tense matches in a row? Walk away and let the shakes subside. I'm not missing out on anything; there's no grand story beyond each match's self-contained set up of "Parachute onto this island, and kill or be killed." There are no characters I'm invested in; even my own avatar from match to match is a highly disposable set of pixels.

Many years ago, I remember someone bringing up the idea of a video game "chaser," something you played after finishing a grand experience like Mass Effect or Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto. This could be a smaller, shorter game or something familiar to the player that helped recenter them after a long time spent with one set of characters, one art style, one set of mechanics. BattleGrounds feels different to me – more like a video game affair or a fling. I'm still completely invested in Persona 5. I care about the unfolding story, my character's redemptive arc, and the relationships being built between my character and the other people in this world. But sometimes it's all a little heavy and a bit much. Battlegrounds has offered a respite – something different and new and disposable that still provides a thrill but doesn't require the kind of commitment required for an epic that will last 100 hours. The quick, easily accessible thrill and charge of a BattleGrounds match will be there, at least for a while, when I don't have the time or energy for hours upon hours of dungeon crawling or shrine hunting or alien dialoguing. I still want to and plan to finish those grand adventures, but what's 7 or 8 minutes out of 100 hours enjoying something different?