Studying abroad feels like joining an open-world game: vast, breathtaking, and endlessly silent. You wake up in a new land like Link, armed with only curiosity and a faint quest called “find your place.”

There’s no map at first, no tutorial to follow, and no team waiting at the village gate. Every step forward is your own.

In time, you learn to survive by talking to the NPCs who live here, the classmates, coworkers, the neighbors, the strangers who smile politely but whose stories were written long before you appeared. Some are kind, offering warmth like a flickering campfire in the cold. But not all NPCs are nice. Some will treat you like a glitch in their world, a traveler who doesn’t quite belong. You realize that even if you learn the language, slay the monsters, and complete every quest, you may still remain an outsider. The game continues, but you are never quite written into its script.

It’s been eight years for me in this world. I’ve built homes, collected friendships like rare items, and found joy in fleeting sunrises over foreign streets. Yet beneath every triumph lies that same quiet ache, the vast loneliness of knowing that this is not the same as being alone at home. And when I look back, I realize home itself has changed. Time kept moving while I was gone, reshaping what I thought I could return to. Home still exists, but only in another dimension of time, gentle and unreachable. So, I keep walking, carrying both the ache and the wonder, remembering why I began and why I must continue.

There is no “quit button” in this game. You cannot respawn or reload a simpler level. But even so, exploring this world still makes me excited. Every time I unlock a new part of the map; every time I meet someone new; it still stirs something in me.

The loneliness is real but so is continuing. Maybe that is what it truly means to live in an open world: to walk through it not in search of home, but in search of yourself.