Looking for some weekend Wordle help? There’s a hint for today’s puzzle waiting just below, ready to offer a clear path through the grey letter fog. Need something a little more direct on the weekend? You’ve got it. The answer to the December 23 (917) Wordle is only a quick click away.

A win in three quick guesses on a Saturday morning? I love it. Just a nice case of almost being right, almost being right in a slightly more accurate way, and then sitting back as today’s Wordle answer revealed itself. What more could I ask for? Other than for tomorrow’s puzzle to turn up a little earlier than usual so I can play again, that is.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, December 23

See that beautiful fight stick? It’s not just a controller: it’s a symbol. A symbol of me running out of excuses to git gud (or at least crawl my way out of scrubhood) in Street Fighter 6. Earlier this year I was so excited for the new Street Fighter that I decided to build my own Hit Box, AKA an all-button arcade box without an actual “stick.” As with most fighting games I’m excited about, before release I vowed that this would be the one I committed to putting real time into. I’m the first and only fighting game amateur to ever tell himself this lie.

When Street Fighter 6 landed in June, I only had the project half-finished, so I figured I’d wait on diving in for a month or two, just until I could finish things up. Considering I finally hooked up all the wires and screwed the box together on December 19, it’s safe to say things didn’t go exactly as planned. But 2024? 2024 will be the year I definitely pour some real time into Street Fighter. 

After my Baldur’s Gate 3 bonanza in August and September, I was Baldur’s Gate 3 hungover, and needed the videogame equivalent of a Full English Breakfast to fill the Baldur’s Gate 3-shaped hole in my being. I turned to Larian’s previous RPG hit, Divinity: Original Sin 2.

I’d known I had to give our 2017 game of the year another playthrough even before falling in love with everyone’s 2023 GOTY-apparent because the weird thing was, I left my first playthrough of D:OS2 kind of sour on the whole thing.

I was definitely along the ride for most of the way, but the final act seriously pissed in my soup, both mechanically and story-wise. With Baldur’s Gate 3 an easy all-timer for me and D:OS2 100% my kind of game, I figured this was at least partially a me problem and not just a Divinity: Original Sin 2 problem. It deserved the old college try.

Gear up

A big part of my issue, I now realize, is how different gear, skills, and the basic flow of combat are in Original Sin 2 versus any other CRPG I’ve played. Even though I haven’t dabbled much in 5th edition, Baldur’s Gate 3 still plays like the D&D videogames I grew up with. My old friends like saving throw, AC, attack bonus, and multiclass were all here and accounted for.

What’s more, BG3 has the sort of gear economy I always crave in a single player RPG: magic items feel special, with a one-off quest reward or an amulet purchased from an erudite hobgoblin having the potential to change your entire character build while remaining usable for the rest of the game.

D:OS2 has an almost Diablo-like system of semi-random, leveled gear by comparison. I thrashed against that in my first playthrough⁠, holding onto gear for longer than I should have or choosing equipment pieces based of secondary or tertiary benefits (stat bonuses, on hit effects) as opposed to their cold, hard DPS/armor values. That left me with underleveled gear and underpowered characters, especially in the final act of the game.

I fully embraced my equipment’s throwaway nature this time, making the rounds every time I leveled up to purchase the latest stuff for my key slots. Once I went with the flow of D:OS2’s constant stream of disposable magic swords, the game really clicked for me like never before.

I’d still rather have an RPG where the best gear is deliberately placed by a designer, lending this feeling of it being a reward and something you can sit with for a long stretch of the game, but Original Sin 2 is now the lone single player RPG whose leveled, semi-random loot system I don’t mind, and even kind of appreciate.

Minoring in Divinity buildcraft studies

Original Sin 2’s skill system intimidated me with its myriad complexities, but now that I understand it better, I’ll be damned if it’s not a thing of beauty. The completely modular system has no classes, only skills and attributes, with character creation choices offering helpful archetypes to inspire your builds.

There’s no reason not to pursue fun, hybrid characters, especially when some of the game’s best abilities are its goofiest and most unique. Even my edgelord dual daggers protagonist would cut loose with some chicken polymorphing and malicious teleportation.

I had to dig into Reddit, YouTube, and Steam guides (shout out to Sin Tee, who’s also probably the best in the game when it comes to BG3 builds as well) to get my accreditation on this stuff, because I still find Original Sin 2 a harder game than Baldur’s Gate 3. I’ll probably bump the difficulty from normal to Tactician my next go around of D:OS2, but I don’t know if I’ll ever touch its permadeath Honour mode. Meanwhile, I’m already halfway through one such playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 as I write this.

Today Bethesda posted a recap of the year Starfield has had in the form of a few fun facts: in 2023 players visited a collective 1.9 billion planets, spent 26 million hours building ships, and ate more than 18 million battlemeal multipacks. (Weirdly, no sandwich tally was provided.)

The same post also sheds more light on the major updates Starfield will receive in 2024, including an expansion. Beginning in February Starfield will receive updates “roughly every six weeks,” with those updates including new features we’ve already been teased with like “all new ways of traveling,” official mod support, and city maps.