The whole story with this guy as far as I understand it is very weird.

He had written a number of songs that he self published to his youtube about a year ago. They did good enough to be noticed by a publisher who presumably approached him with an offer.

So in september 2022 he or his company create accounts on Spotify, Soundcloud and Instagram, likely as part of the publishing deal. At the same time, on his youtube channel, a playlist is created, titled “Videos that make you think”.

Soon after he stops uploading music to his youtube channel, but continues with some non music videos. Shortly before his first single (the song in the title of the post) is released, he posts a video explaining the story behind it and him. This by itself is not weird, he knew when the single would be released and because he signed a deal, he knew it would be promoted.

But the way it was promoted is not normal. From what I’ve seen it was promoted by right-wing personalities, including daily wire people, as an organic sucsess, immediately after release. And because Oliver Anthony was pretty much unknown before this song was released I doubt that the song was naturally sucsessful before it started being promoted.

The song itself got some sus lyrics. Like that the fat people on welfare got more verses than the rich people north of Richmond. Also since Richmond was the capital of the confederacy, north of Richmod could refer to just DC, or to Union states, making it, intentionally or not, a dogwhistle.

And then there’s the playlist. Not gonna lie, some videos in it have really bad vibes. There’s some Peterson, some random videos and also some 9/11 conspiracy videos like 2 videos about “dancing israelis” or a video about how some real estate developer (also jewish) took an insurance on the towers before the attack.

My opinion of him after all that was really unfavorable. But then he started saying things like “diversity is our strength” which earned him criticism from the right, and now this. I still think the lyrics in his single miss the mark and that the conspiracy videos in his playlist are really bad, but maybe he personally does not believe those things.

I’d say that doesn’t just apply to social media users, but rather to people in general.

That looks very interesting! Thank you!

From a cursory glance the spell system looks like close to what I’m looking for. Thank you for the suggestion!

I think part of the problem last time was that some of my mods were nexus and some were steam 😃 I guess I’m reinstalling Skyrim then. Thank you for the link!

I’ve played Noita. It’s fun but not exactly what I’m looking for.

Divinity isn’t a magic game I’m looking for, but it is an RPG I want to play at some point, I’ve only heard good things about it.

With Psychonauts, I’ve heard of it as a cult classic that every True Gamer™ has to play, but I’m not really into platformers.

AFAIK Witcher’s combat isn’t really about magic, it’s an RPG with some magical abilities that help you win swordfights, which is not what I want to play at the moment. It’s a maybe, but I think there are better fits.

Legend of Grimrock 2 looks very interesting, it looks like the RPGs that were made before I was born and I wanted to play one for a while. A game in that style that can run on modern PC? Sign me up!

I have conflicted feelings about Persona. I’ve never played one, I haven’t even seen the gameplay. From what I know of the gameplay it’s unique and interesting to me. Visual style looks cool. But I also know that some of the story and character decisions made by the devs are really weird even by Japan weirdness standards, and very weird to me personally. Considering that the story and characters are the main part of that game, I would rather wait for the next one, and hopefully they’ll stop doing that weird stuff and fix it.

I’m playing both Prey and Dishonored 2 right now. I really like them both, which makes me think that the game I want is an immersive sim with extensive magic system. Given that an immersive sim is a rare genre, I don’t think a game like that exists. Still, thank you for all your suggestions.

I wanted to avoid mods for now especially with skyrim since last time I’ve tried I’ve spent like 3 hours straight on nexusmods, only to run into conflicts and be too tired to even attempt to fix them. Although with a total conversion I assume it’s all-in-one which should help avoid that problem. Thank you, will check it out!

Thanks for reminding me about specs, I’ll add them to the post. Though I assume that it’s mostly on Hogwarts being unoptimised, because my laptop can play Cyberpunk2077 and X-4 foundations well enough. It’s 8gb ram; Ryzen5 3550h so the processor is only 3 years old. I guess 4g VRAM isn’t enough for the physics sim of MC’s clothes (seriously why is it enabled even on lowest settings).

In a game I want decent magical combat. I want to have magical attacks that have varied effects and counters. Something that makes you think which spell to use and when. I guess the most important part for me is counters. So for example, if the enemy has a magical shield, you have to somehow deal with it first, you can’t just spam click your best spell.

Looks interesting. Thanks for the recommendation!

I’ve seen it on steam, and while it’s combat is kinda what I’m looking for, the top-down perspective and more arcade-like gameplay aren’t what I want to play right now. Still, thank you!

I’ve played Bioshock 3 a long time ago and while fun, it isn’t what I’m looking for in terms of magic. I’ve heard 1 and 2 are a bit more deep in this regard but afaik it’s still mainly a shooter. I’m currently playing Dishonored 2 and Bioshock seems more similar to that than to Hogwarts.

Control was something I’ve wanted to play for a while, mostly because of SCP-inspired story, I didn’t know anything about it’s gameplay. Will 100% check it out.

Currently Noita is my magic game and Hogwarts was in part attempt for variety. I’ve seen Magicka on steam and I dunno why, but it didn’t click for me.

Anyway, thank you very much for the recommendations!

The hottest June so far.