In September 2011, I was a college junior very willing to waste away the early days of her fall semester playing Epic Games’ new third-person shooter, Gears of War 3. I pre-ordered the highly anticipated title so I could guarantee I got the gold Retro Lancer skin for my multiplayer battles, and threw myself into the beta earlier that year with more energy than I put into my entire undergraduate coursework combined.
The following year, my fondness of Gears 3 grew and absorbed the place once reserved in my heart by the Halo franchise after the disappointment of Halo 4. But, like all multiplayer games with finite resources trying to keep the attention of a fickle fanbase, Gears 3 eventually faded away. I focused more on Call of Duty releases, then eventually on Overwatch 2 and the battle royales that began popping up like lanternflies on New York City vegetation in the early fal