New Year's gaming resolutions we're definitely going to stick to

Like the frost on the cars and ground this morning – and the inside of my single-glazed windows in my flat! – a new year has arrived. It’s a time to take stock and look ahead and think what might be, and then run back into bed and hide under the duvet covers and refuse to come out. It’s a time to plan and to begin aspirational journals you’ll put down and forget about and never find again. A time to tackle the gaming backlog you keep talking about, fully in the knowledge you’ll probably double it this year. It’s fresh-slate time, promise time, all done in the hope you’ll look back next year and discover you did something you intended to do. So, what do you want to do, from a gaming perspective?

Here, we look back at our gaming resolutions from last year to see how we did, and then we set some anew. Are you brave enough to commit yours to writing?

Jessica

I wanted to pay more attention to indie games last year, and while I certainly played more of them than I did in 2023, I apparently had a secret ambition to start more massive RPGs than ever before. It was hard to squeeze in time for those indie horrors and puzzlers when games like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Metaphor: Refantazio, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard were all stealing 100-hour playtimes from me.

This year, I want to dial back the inventory management and take a bit of a breather, immersing myself in more peaceful landscapes. Spending so much time exploring Infinity Nikki’s cutesy, fairytale-esque world has made me realise that whether it’s a four-hour indie, or another 100-hour monstrosity, the time I spend feeling relaxed in one game is far more valuable than trying to work my way through a list – even if I am still looking forward to playing those games eventually.