Sable

If climbing was your favorite activity in Breath of the Wild, man, do I have a game for you. It’s called Sable, and from what I’ve spent with it so far, this open-world exploration game is fundamentally about climbing things. You climb sheer cliff faces. You climb derelict temples. If you see it, you can climb it. You have a stamina meter that dwindles with every passing foothold. When it runs out, you fall. Hey, at least there isn’t fall damage.

The first thing you’ll notice about Sable is its looks. You might point out the low framerate, a stylistic choice that would be weird for a game that demands precision but works because Sable emphatically does not. Sable is far less about doing than it is about seeing. Sure, in the demo, I had missions to tackle and people to talk to. But I wanted nothing other than to walk around and touch stuff. I genuinely think you could snap a screenshot of this game at any second—with any framing or composition, or with anything happening or not happening on the screen—and it’d be a MoMA-worthy piece of art. Pair that with a soundtrack by Michelle Zauner (whom you may know as the leader of indie-rock mavens Japanese Breakfast) and you’ve got the hygge game of 2021. — Ari Notis