Many of us spend embarrassing amounts of time cultivating our Animal Crossing town, or Minecraft world, or even Sims creations. With pandemic restrictions over the past year, we’ve all had a lot of time to do just this. Below, Edge writers recap their own video game worlds, from Terraria to Stardew Valley.
Terraria
Forged in the uncertain times of the first coronavirus lockdown (and a brand-new content update that completely revolutionized Terraria), “The Hive Of Lies” began its life.
Returning to my world today I was met with a realm I had painstakingly crafted. From the underground potion supply farms, the themed villages created for each of my needy NPCs, the enormous battle arena (replete with lava traps, honey vats and intricate wiring) “The Hive Of Lies” was clearly a little piece of the gaming landscape I had taken great care in making my own. Traveling across biomes returned memories of failed boss encounters, reminders of the times meteors destroyed building projects, or (because I had clearly left the game in the middle of a significant event) enormous extra-terrestrial towers of writhing flesh tasked with removing me from the world I had worked to hard to build.
Terraria is a game I hold very dear in my heart, and its immense opportunity for customisation and personalisation is a significant part of that. No two worlds are the same, and every time you generate a new save file, Re-Logic are happily handing you a brand-new blank canvas for you to enact your vision.
– Callum Holgate
Stardew Valley
Lockdown has brought a variety of new obsessions to my life, and Stardew Valley is certainly one of them. Set in the fictional world of Pelican Town, you’re a farmer who is given the at first seemingly simple task of fixing up your grandfather’s old farm. Straightforward, right? Nope. As you work toward building your own little slice of heaven, you’re met with a myriad of quests and issues, from fixing up the town’s community centre to delving deep into an intricate (and dangerous) mine system. I feel like I’ve poured hundreds of hours into my farm at this point (and if you look at my Steam, you’ll find that I have racked up a concerning amount of time in this game), working day and night to perfect it to my vision.
Stardew Valley itself, however, is already pretty perfect. It’s a little wholesome village, full of interesting and fun characters, and hundreds of secrets; it’s a little bubble of a tiny imaginary utopia. If I ever have a stressful day, I know I can just turn on the game and spend a couple hours watering my crops (or going on a mining rampage), and feel right as rain afterward. It’s so easy to come back to, even if I haven’t played for a while, because I always know that all my fun neighbours will be sat waiting for me as soon as I load up.
– Alice Fortt
