Sasha snorted over Discord. “Did you just pray to a corporation?”

Liam’s soul left his body. He jabbed at the game icon on the taskbar. Nothing. He Alt-Tabbed frantically. Nothing. The dialog box just sat there, smug and immovable. The sound of his character being eviscerated—a wet crunch—echoed from his headphones before the game minimized completely.

It started, as these things often do, with a moment of pure, unbridled frustration. Liam was twelve seconds into the final boss fight of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree . His Mimic Tear was at half health, the boss’s health bar was a sliver of sickly gold, and his heart was a drum solo against his ribs.

For a glorious half-second, nothing happened. Then—the dark translucent panel of the Xbox Game Bar slid down from the top of the screen. The clock, the audio mixer, the performance widgets. It was alive.