We're all searching for paradise. It's an unavoidable facet of life — we grow through hardship, but we desire peace.
Well, the joke's on all of you, because I'm heading to paradise twice in 2025, and you're not invited.
That's right, my favorite musical artist and my favorite video games studio has (or is) releasing new media this year inspired by the fictional paradise of Arcadia, an idyllic utopia of rest for the gods and the dead.
Let's just forget that the former released an album where Arcadia symbolizes reaching new heights only to discover that pain both new and old still exist, while the latter is releasing an RPG exploring the depthless dark side of capitalism and its unyielding bias toward the rich.
Okay, it may not be true paradise, but I'm still eating up every morsel.
My first trek into the paradise known as Arcadia
I love music, and I don't tend to ruin it for myself and others by becoming overtly attached to reductive genres, like some of you do (you know who you are). Good music is good music.
I absolutely have favorite artists, though, and sitting very pretty at the top right now is Sleep Token, the genre-bending masked collective fronted by lyricist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, Vessel.
I've already been to Vessel's version of Arcadia, the pseudo-paradise explored in Sleep Token's fourth studio album, Even in Arcadia, which released earlier this year after months of anticipation.
The gorgeous title track I linked above does a far better job encapsulating the themes of the album than an idiot like myself ever could, but I'll do my best to summarize anyway.
After finally accepting that he can never return to the nostalgic paradise of Eden, Vessel at long last reaches a new paradise... Only to find that the demons of old have joined forces with new enemies in an attempt to drag him down.
The album expands Sleep Token's established lore, heavily inspired by fantastical and mythological elements, but also explores Vessel's relationship with the band's sudden rise to fame.
It goes to show that no paradise is free of strife, but I'll surprisingly have another opportunity to explore a different Arcadia later this year.
The Outer Worlds 2 and its lawless "paradise"
As much as I could make a whole career off blabbing about Vessel and Sleep Token, my editors would likely frown on that. So, enough yapping, I'll get to the point of this article.
During the recent Xbox Games Showcase 2025, one upcoming first-party Xbox game took the spotlight as the main event: The Outer Worlds 2, the hotly anticipated sci-fi RPG sequel from the wizards at Obsidian Entertainment.
We got a gameplay trailer revealing that The Outer Worlds 2 is officially releasing on Oct. 29, 2025 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox PC, Steam, and Battle.net, and PlayStation 5. We also got an in-depth breakdown of The Outer Worlds 2 sharing a ton of new information on this upcoming sci-fi fantasy RPG.
Part of that information? The Outer Worlds 2 is departing the Halcyon Colony in which the first game was set in favor of Arcadia, an even more remote colony originally designed for the wealthy — but now a war-stricken dystopia torn between opposing factions.
In The Outer Worlds 2, you're not even given the option of pretending that Arcadia is a paradise. Caught between the militaristic Protectorate, religious Order of the Ascendant, and greedy Auntie's Choice megacorporation, there's never an opportunity to delude yourself.
This Arcadia was never a paradise, and now it's unequivocally broken beyond repair. All you can do is react, using your power to guide the aftermath into the mess of your choosing.
Obsidian is dominating Xbox's second half of 2025
Sleep Token and Obsidian Entertainment are both crafting entirely different versions of Arcadia, but I still can't help but imagine the experience of delving into the latter with the former as the musical backdrop.
At the end of the day, "Arcadia" being the focal point of both was a funny happenstance that appealed to the incredibly obnoxious nerd inside me. Even in Arcadia is easily my album of the year so far, and I was already looking forward to The Outer Worlds 2... Which is now officially set in another fictional Arcadia.
If there's any lesson to be learned here beyond appreciating the coincidence, it's that Obsidian is easily the MVP of Xbox's 2025, and is absolutely dominating the second half of 2025. It's not just The Outer Worlds 2, it's also the arrival of Grounded 2 in early access.
I actually already wrote about how I can't believe we're already getting Grounded 2, and that's after I reviewed and loved Avowed earlier this year. Now we're getting The Outer Worlds 2, an ambitiously expanded sequel that aims to be deeper, wider, and more dynamic than ever.
Entirely new ways to build your characters, expanded combat and more creative weaponry and abilities, a more dynamic and reactive world, The Outer Worlds 2 claims to have it all. All that remains is seeing if Obsidian's Arcadia can even begin to capture my attention the way Sleep Token's did.
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