Happy Monday, welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread, and all that jazz! I’m Wolfman Jew, and it’s time to get down to business.

I’ve been spending the past week just tearing through Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It’s really fun! But it’s important here for the general premise of it and the rest of the Xenoblade games (that aren’t the weird Wii U one, but I digress), that each one takes place on the back of a living, giant monster. Xenoblade 1 is set on the corpses of two behemoths who don’t know they’re dead, with their limbs and innards forming entire kingdoms. Xenoblade 2 is set on far more active monsters whose behaviors impact the societies and races who call their bodies home. And Xenoblade 3… ? Well, it’s not clear so far, but the remains of some kind of creatures cast shadows upon the lands you cross.

These games have an incredible amount of scale, but so much of it comes from how well they juggle this idea. You see creatures just tower over you from afar, knowing that they’re even bigger still. Normal, pedestrian things like bones or blood turn into spires or rivers. It’s incredible! But giants doesn’t even have to be nearly that large to wield their size. Think of the sixteen beasts of Shadow of the Colossus, who may have stood far over you even as they died by your hand. Consider the comically, absurdly sized bosses in God of War. And what of Lavos? Or Fell Dragon Grima? Or Ridley? Or the Reapers? Or even enemies that are “merely” giant in a relative sense but still imposing?

So here’s the prompt: giants and giant monsters. What are some of your favorites? How did they use their size? And what games did you play this weekend? That last one isn’t giant-related, but it’s always important.