Bethesda’s head of publishing Pete Hines posted a boilerplate excuse note on Twitter for any Starfield fan who, ahead of the game’s official release on September 6, is rapidly starting to feel a little bit…feverish.

Your stomach is twisting into tight knots. Your hands are slick and shaking, your whole body shivers with the exciting prospect of handing a multibillion-dollar company your $70. It’s okay. You’re safe now with Hines, whose name on Twitter currently specifies that he is “(not a doctor).”

“To Whom It May Concern: Please excuse ____ from work/school/chores for the foreseeable future,” begins his magnanimous excuse note. “They are currently undergoing treatment for an infection from [a dinosaur-like Starfield creature] Ashta bite after a recent expedition to [planet] Tau Ceti II.”

Hines’ note isn’t the first time a developer has tried to help you get out of responsibilities in order to play their new game. Ahead of Baldur’s Gate 3’s August 3 release, developer Larian Studios posted a “request for special dispensation” form, and encouraged players to hand it to their boss so they could spend hours upon hours in an expansive RPG world. Starfield, which similarly promises a thousand explorable planets and side quests, seems like another game that might suck up all your free time.

It’s also not the first time Hines has offered gamers a sick note to play his company’s latest game. He shared a much shorter, simpler sick note two days before Fallout 4’s November 10, 2015 release date. “I figure some of you might need a note from your doctor for your upcoming ‘sick day(s)’ this week,” he wrote then. As far as running gags go, it could be worse.

Will this Starfield sick note work? It’s unlikely, but your boss, professor, or mom can judge for themselves if Pete Hines, described on the note as an “MD, LAN, PhD, ARS” and “Head Physician, Constellation,” wants what’s best for you.

Read More: Here’s When You Can Actually Start Playing Starfield
Pre-order Starfield: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

“Whether you need time off to play Starfield starting tomorrow in early access,” Hines said on Twitter, “or next week at launch, Uncle Pete has you covered.”

“Already asked my boss earlier this week (and was approved),” said one commenter. “But, man, you should’ve sent this earlier.”

“Literal people are going to use this,” another Twitter respondent said. “Genius.”

Starfield launches in Early Access at 8 p.m. Eastern on August 31.

I did not expect Starfield to have so many useless items lying about that I could pick up and do absolutely nothing with. A few hours into the sprawling sci-fi blockbuster and my first ship is already full of junk I’m just dumping on the floor, unsure where to place it, and apparently I’m not alone. Starfield players just can’t stop themselves from turning their space wings into portable junkyards.

If you think I’m the galaxy’s only Michael Scott driving around in a dumpster’s worth of fish filet wrappers, you’re wrong. One of the biggest posts on the Starfield subreddit right now is user swampyswede sharing a money shot of their space load. “Just because you can pick it up, doesn’t mean you should,” reads the first comment. “Succulent farmer should be a side quest. I would be on the leaderboard,” swampyswede wrote back. Other Starfield players confess to filling their ships up with foam cups, spoons, plushies, and more.

Thirty years of playing video games have taught me that if you can press a button to grab a thing and add it to your inventory you should definitely always do that. Space bases in Starfield are full of notepads, glass vials, cutlery, and all manner of found objects that you can take with you. None of it does anything, and as far as I can tell you can’t even scrap it for crafting materials like you could in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.

All you can do is sell it, which the game incentivizes you to do by displaying tantalizingly inflated prices next to each item description. There are just two problems with this. Becoming a NASA-punk pawn star requires 1) finding a place to actually sell the stuff with no real map and 2) transporting it there with a laughably low encumbrance threshold (carry too much stuff around in Starfield and your lungs will fill with CO2 until you die).

But Starfield does give every player a ship right at the start, and you can dump all your crap on the ground in it and it will…just stay there. Succulents, sandwiches, shotguns—you name it. Is there a cargo hold you can stow stuff in? 100 percent. Did I figure out how to use it? Not for several hours. And even now it’s so much faster and simpler just to toss new things on the existing pile.

Space hoarding can be quite lucrative if you stick with it though. Some players are already dreaming of paying off their first house (though you can start with one and a big loan if you choose the Dream Home perk during initial character creation). But me, personally? I’m kind of in love with my little trash mound and don’t know that I’d be willing to part with it. Go explore the great unknown they said! I got the great unknown pile of crap right here baby.

Update 9/5/2023 11:28 a.m. ET: Junkyard ships were apparently only the beginning. One enterprising Starfield player loaded up their entire cockpit with potatoes. It’s incredibly to behold and terrifying to ponder, just like the cosmos themselves. I can’t believe the game didn’t break:

Behold 2023’s Game of the Year: Spudfield.

Sonic Frontiers, Sega’s latest (and surprisingly well-received) entry in the speedy hedgehog franchise, received its final free content update on Thursday. It seems this new update is proving to be way more difficult than the base game, as players who once bragged about how easy the game was are getting their generous blue asses handed to them.

Sonic Frontiers’ final update, appropriately titled The Final Horizon, advertised itself as bringing a new story; new playable characters in the form of Knuckles, Tails, and Amy, and new challenges. Apparently, Sega meant that last part with its whole chest because players are struggling to get to the finish line of The Final Horizon.

Since the update’s release, players have taken to social media in a mix of frustration and excitement over how difficult it is to either:

– Adjust to how differently Sonic’s companions move while completing challenges

– Complete trial towers (which don’t have checkpoints)

– Defeat the update’s tough-as-nails new boss Tank+, a spider tank that’ll riddle Sonic with bullets on sight, exploding the blue streak into a fountain of coins

Buy Sonic Frontiers: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

To add more kindling to the blazing difficulty fire players are experiencing, some players are reporting that the game now requires them to perfect parry enemies during trials. That’s rough, buddy.

Read More: That New Sonic Game Is A Weird, Lonely Mess (That I Can’t Stop Playing)

While some players are finding The Final Frontier’s evident difficulty spike as a welcome update to the game, others are hoping Sega patches the free update to make its boss fights less of an uphill battle.

“God damn, [Morio] Kishimoto seriously took offense to people calling his game too easy. I love the challenge, but god DAMN,” SonicFanatic67 wrote on the r/SonicFrontiers subreddit.

“Sonic Team really took everyone’s complaints on how OP the parry was and just said ‘Aight, bet. Now you gotta time your shit. Have fun, jackasses.” xXWarriorAngelXx added.

“This shit ain’t even fun. There’s fun/challenging difficulty and then there’s spiteful/cheap difficulty. This feels like the latter,” YesHai wrote on Reddit.

“Hit the last challenge before the final boss in Sonic Frontiers DLC and yeah it’s probably the most difficult thing they’ve ever put into their games,” KZXcellent tweeted. “DLC has been the most fun I’ve had playing a Sonic game, but it’s not gonna be for everyone.

On the upside, The Final Horizon has a new Super Sonic form for players to enjoy. Hopefully, aside from being aesthetically pleasing, the newly minted superpowered Sonic will functionally aid players in conquering Sonic Frontiers’ final slew of challenges.

Buy Sonic Frontiers: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

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The just-introduced RuneScape battle pass has nowhere near the longevity of the 22-year-old game to which it belongs: after debuting the pass on September 4, developer Jagex plans to terminate it on December 3, it wrote in an October 6 update post.

RuneScape fans have won the war. They initiated it immediately after Jagex debuted the Hero Pass, which tacks onto the $80, 12-month, premier membership tier that unlocks every RuneScape area and gameplay mechanic. The Hero Pass was meant to give players a new event every three months in which they would do things like earn points for cosmetics—so, your typical battle pass, but players already couldn’t stand RuneScape’s increased reliance on microtransactions in its Treasure Hunter loot boxes.

Their anger erupted with Hero Pass’s debut in September, and, according to recent negative Steam reviews, people who have been playing RuneScape for 15, 16, or even 20 years decided to give it up.

“Jagex have always been controversial in their updates, mostly due to their cash grabs through microtransactions, and the latest [battle pass] update takes the cake,” a negative review with 160 “helpful” ratings as of this writing says. “[Microtransactions] have killed this game. As a player of 16yrs of grinding, I am out. Time to find other alternatives.”

Jagex tried pacifying fans on September 6, writing in a blog that it was “looking to work towards areas where we can make this [battle pass] system better for everyone,” but players maintained they were disturbed by a battle pass in any form. It didn’t help that this one was so lackluster, though.

“I’m a whale and I hate battle pass,” said one Reddit post on the Runescape board with over 1,000 upvotes. “The constant in-game pop ups are intrusive, most of the cosmetics are lackluster at best, […] who is this battle pass even for?”

The feedback stacked until Jagex got the message.

“Every single player of RuneScape—whether currently active or taking a break—matters,” it decided in its October blog. “RuneScape has a long future ahead of it, and we intend to make that an ever-better experience where players have more influence on how the game evolves.”

And so, “we will not be releasing another Hero Pass after [current season] Underworld ends on December 3rd,” “we have done this to recognize questions it raised that do not reflect our direction for the game,” and “if we pursue a new reward-system, it will be built with players and not involve Content Buffs with Membership/paid disparity.” Power to the people.

Overwatch 2’s Halloween-infused seventh season, Rise of Darkness, went live on Monday, bringing with it a swath of creepy new skins for its heroes, including a hotly anticipated skin based on Diablo IV’s Lilith for sardonic healer Moira. Unfortunately, players who eagerly dived into the season for a chance to acquire Moira’s devilishly good skin now feel like its existence is a price-gouging trick rather than a treat thanks to its hefty cost and paywalled availability.

You see, Lilith Moira can only be unlocked by purchasing the game’s Ultimate Battle Pass: Season Seven Bundle which costs $40. Last season’s Premium Battle Pass also cost $40, but at least that one came with three new story missions. Usually, OW2 skins can be acquired by completing levels in its Battle Pass but the Lilith Moira skin, as well as Pharah’s Legendary Inarius skin and Bastion’s Epic Pumpkin skin, can only be acquired by purchasing the Ultimate Battle Pass. Lilith Moira’s price tag isn’t going over well with fans who see the bundle as yet another example of Blizzard fleecing players for new skins.

Read More: Overwatch 2’s New Patch Has A Lot More Than Sombra’s Rework

“Casual reminder that Overwatch, the ENTIRE GAME was $40 on release,” Arenyr wrote in a r/Overwatch thread. “Now we’re paying that amount for a couple of skins and a Battle Pass.”

“Blizzard is so fucking gross for this,” Drewboy13 replied in the same thread. “Not only is everything so crazily overpriced, it’s also paywalled and locked behind even more expensive bundles.”

“I thought the only reason the previous season’s Ultimate Bundle was $40 was due to the Invasion ‘campaign missions’ as well as the fact that you got three legendary skins,” LeKrahka said. “Actually bonkers.”

“I’d rather buy a nice game on sale or at the same price without a sale than a disgustingly overpriced pack,’ Sharashaska said. “Every time they have the opportunity to be decent they fail and make the shittiest decision possible regarding their consumers.”

Read More: Overwatch 2 One Year Later: Why Am I Still Doing This?

Last August, Blizzard sent out a survey asking players if they’d be willing to pay $45 for new hero skins. At the time, a Blizzard spokesperson told Kotaku the survey was “entirely intended to better understand player preferences for different types of Overwatch 2 cosmetics” and prices offered in it were “randomized per user and are not indicative of final pricing.” I suppose Blizzard’s survey led to the conclusion that Moira mains like myself would be willing to pay $40 to get the support hero a good skin that wasn’t her David Bowie-inspired one from 2017. I’m going to stick with the Bowie one.