This quarantine has left me incredibly overwhelmed and anxious — so if you give me an open world map to explore right now, like in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or HZD, I’m going to end up wasting my time puttering around on sidequests and searching for secrets, with nothing but a few achievement baubles to show for it. But with this game, there’s always a goal; somewhere to go, some switch to activate, some baddie to shoot. Unlike our real lives, there’s forever a light at the end of the tunnel in Uncharted.    

What’s more, these games act as a window onto the world for me. While I’ve been staring at the same set of walls for the past however many weeks, Drake has the freedom to hop from the steamy jungles of Borneo to secret South Pacific Nazi bases in the blink of an eye. One minute he’s infiltrating the National Gallery of Turkey, the next he’s fighting car to car on a train plowing through the mountains of Nepal. He gets to fight zombies and abominable snowmen. I have a cat that generally ignores me.

The only time Nathan Drake is wearing a face mask is when he’s keeping the sand out of his mouth while adventuring in the Sahara. He’s constantly surrounded by people, none of whom are in any way practicing social distancing. He even shakes hands. Oh I am so envious.