[For a 7 minutes and change, I'm going to need you to ignore that this is from a video game]

I was recently in the unfortunate but somehow all too frequent position I've found myself in the course of my adult life of trying to explain to a new person: "are video games art?". If I didn't enjoy this discussion, I wouldn't bring it up, right? I would just kind of go "actually, nevermind, it's stupid" but I do think one of the more interesting considerations of becoming an adult is to sit with the media you've consumed and/or experienced and go "wait, that's beautiful/touching/emotional" and realize that the creative output of a group of people who you have never met and will probably never meet, has the potential to rewire your brain and maybe your heart.

The song

Journey (featuring Kronos Quartet) (from the Destiny 2 OST)

The mood

You were humanity's last hope, a hero multiple times over of the Last City on Earth, but you were stripped of your powers and tossed into the smoldering remains of civilization. Slowly, you make your way through burning streets, alone, living your last life but determined to make it count.

The context

Despite all its troubles (and there have been many), it's probably safe to say Destiny 2 is my favorite game, playing through it over the many years it existed as a live service experience was special to me, it gave me a lot of solace throughout very difficult times in my life and the world; it does, as the group of people who once were in charge of making it said, focus on hope, even if it wrapped itself in the audiovisual equivalent of an interactive season of premier television. Journey has always been my favorite D2 song, and although other tracks in the game have come close, it still remained my favorite.

What's my second favorite? Well that's easy.

If you got all the way down here, I want to try something, a new interactive segment if you have a moment: hit reply, it should reply to my email, and let me know: what's your favorite song written for a video game?