An Ode to the Grind
There’s something beautiful in it, of the relentless pursuit of something, no matter how draining or boring it may be, because the reward that will come is worth it.
We all know the grind. The endless hours spent repeating the same tasks in a game,over and over and over again. Sometimes it’s to gain experience and level up, other times it’s killing a boss repeatedly to try and get its rare unique drop, and sometimes it's just to gather the resources needed to assemble one great work. To describe a game as a grindfest is often considered a negative, and I can understand why. It can be maddening to have to repeat the same thing for hours on end, even if you do really want the reward. I will never get the hours I spent killing Diablos and Black Diablos in Monster Hunter World back, even if I did end up getting those spiral horns. But, if you’ll allow me, I would like to make a case for the grind.
A game is more than just gameplay. While that is the primary aspect, it is also music, character design, environmental design, a labor of love and artistic effort that deserves to be appreciated. Oftentimes when we play games in our modern day we can get so focused on just trying to beat the game and get through everything, that we forget to sit back and enjoy the simple beauty of what is before us. The grind forces us to stop and really listen to the music playing and see the care and thought put into every set piece in the game.
Now, this is dependent on the game having music worth listening to and art worth looking at. It’s obviously unfortunate to be stuck in a gray hellscape listening to the same shitty music for endless hours. That’s just working in customer service or retail and nobody enjoys that. But when the game is well crafted, it is kind of nice to just sit and not think too hard about what I’m doing. I can just let my brain go on autopilot for the gameplay while I can take more time to focus on the art of the game.
I’m simply not great at focusing on these things if I’m also trying to play unless I hear them endlessly, to the point where even while playing games that have incredible music (Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, Hollow Knight and Silksong, or Expedition 33), I often only remember a song or two. Importantly, the two I remember most are Skarrsinger Karmelita’s theme from Silksong and We Lost, the song that plays while fighting Simon, in Expedition 33. You’ll note those are two of the hardest bosses from those games who I spent several hours trying to fight. I need to exist in the spaces where these things play for extended periods of time to properly enjoy them, and the grind can lend itself well to creating those circumstances. So, as frustrating as it can be, I do find some joy in the grind, the endless search for bits and pieces that bring me into new areas and new experiences within the game.
But say there is nothing super fun to focus on in the game. This grind is just a boring repetitive task that must be done for a while in the hopes of getting to the next phase of gameplay. Perhaps you’re in an MMO, repeatedly killing the same mobs or doing the same skilling activity. Maybe you’re doing a roguelike run and going achievement hunting, endlessly trying to get that one perfect run that’ll let you unlock a new item. You’ve seen everything in this section, the music has gone from pleasant to mind numbing, and you can’t see any positives anymore. In this case I present to you: the humble Actual Play.
If you’re anything like me, which maybe you are, maybe you aren’t but who’s to say, there’s a lot of actual play and podcast content that you like to listen to. Between Critical Role, Dimension 20, The Mina Kimes Show Featuring Lenny, and GPS, there’s a lot of longform content that I enjoy, fantastical and otherwise. And that’s to say nothing of things I might be interested in like Project Ghostlight or The Goose’s Roost. Car rides are good for it of course, but I only drive so often. I don’t necessarily just want to sit and watch for several hours without doing anything else, as I have very little ability to sit and do just one thing for extended periods of time. I in fact, never have, so I can’t even blame phones for it. With a nice grindy game, I now can kill two birds with one stone: catching up on Critical Role while I level up my essential woodcutting skill in Runescape.
While this technique does fall a little bit into the “must consume content” trap of modern society, I just don’t have enough time in the day to do everything I want to do. There are so many cool stories out there and I want to experience all of them, and this lets me do both! If anything, it’s just providing the music and art that I have found lacking or repetitive in the game. It’s just another way to set my brain on autopilot while my consciousness enjoys something else. And then, when I’ve completed my grind, I can pause my Actual Play or Podcast and go enjoy the next story part of my game!
The Grind is of course not for everyone. Often, it’s not even for me, and I’m the one writing this. I have banged my head against grinds for hours and days, killing Mature Grotworms in their lair or slaughtering Corpus on Venus. I even took the time to unlock every Level 4 limit break in OG Final Fantasy 7 and get every ultimate weapon. Sometimes the rewards were worth it, sometimes they were deeply disappointing. And yet I still don’t turn away from the grind. There’s something beautiful in it, of the relentless pursuit of something, no matter how draining or boring it may be, because the reward that will come is worth it. Such a mindset can often be abused and corrupted, but when it’s pure and the reward is true well. Well that’s just a wonderful thing.
