In 2025 my gaming goals didn't quite go as planned. Again. Time to make a few excuses and then look to the future! Again.
Well, I don't know what I expected. I set a new version of my playlist one year ago, and I beat a mediocre-at-best 6 out of 13 games planned. That's not my worst result ever, but still pretty disappointing. Naturally, I'm going to halfheartedly explain why it happened, claim that I've learned something, and try basically the same thing this year. My 2026 gaming goals are equal to my 2025 goals in quantity.
There are two massive culprits to this year's lack of success on the videogames front: ennui and Final Fantasy XIV. The former because I went for weeks-long stretches feeling listless and struggling to enjoy playing video games; the latter because I relapsed badly into Final Fantasy XIV from May through November, investing a few hundred hours of my time into games off the list. Yikes. But maybe this year will be different! I'm going to re-use a lot of games from previous lists, but with a slightly different breakdown. This year I pledge to play seven games in my PlayStation backlog and six games in my Nintendo backlog.
I know I'm changing from my typical 5 PlayStation, 5 Nintendo, 3 new releases distribution of games, but there aren't many 2026 games I'm interested in getting; I ultimately decided to make the list entirely backlog but also to include two recent games I bought in December. I may yet buy a few games in 2026 (more on a few of those later), but at present I am pretty excited about the thirteen I chose and will make a genuine effort to commit to them. However, games absent from the list below CANNOT count towards my official gaming goals unless there are extenuating circumstances.
I don't know if I even need that last clause this year, because it typically applies to new releases that get an unexpected delay (which has happened a few times for these posts). Maybe if one of my discs or files is damaged or unusable? Also: the subtitles on the images below seem extra unnecessary, because each picture shows the title prominently. But enough talk! Let's start listing shit. As always, a passing grade is officially 11 games beaten out of 13.
2026 Gamers' Dozen
Making its first appearance on one of these lists, Astro Bot is a delightful-looking platformer that celebrates all things PlayStation, with a spaceship that looks like a PS5, animations and mechanics full of quirk and charm, and more cameos than I can reasonably list here. This is the third Astro Bot game, but the first two were much smaller in scope; this a major push to establish a Sony mascot. And hey, it kinda worked! Astro Bot won a lot of Game of the Year awards in 2024, and I got it on sale a few weeks ago.
Baldur's Gate III is one of the most acclaimed RPGs of the modern era, with particular attention to its dialog and wide array of narrative outcomes. BG3 was in a dead heat with Tears of the Kingdom for the title of 2023's most talked-about game; Larian seemed to have inherited BioWare's grasp of great characters and the D&D Forgotten Realms setting beautifully. BG3 appeared on my 2025 goals list, but I sadly never touched it. This year I'm going to play through it together with my partner (she wants to date Astarion).
I have a particular fascination with game director Hideki Kamiya, in which I love his personality and design philosophy, but have only finished a few of his projects (Devil May Cry 1 and Okami). Bayonetta is dripping with action, style, and excess, and has been around for over 15 years. I don't have a great excuse as to why I haven't gotten to it yet, and it first appeared on these lists in 2021. Maybe 2026 is the year?
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Following GOTY winners from 2023 and 2024 a few paragraphs ago, 2025's most acclaimed game makes an appearance! Clair Obsur: Expedition 33 is a gorgeous cinematic RPG developed in France, blending high science fiction concepts with turn-based gameplay that includes button timing elements. It's the fusion of Mario RPG and NieR: Automata that nobody asked for, but everyone loved! I picked up E33 at a Black Friday sale not too long ago, and immediately put it on the list.
Dark Souls II was on my list last year, as I was trying to continue my streak of playing a FromSoftware Soulslike game every year, but fell short as my time and mood never cooperated. I'm concerned about how to handle DS2, as it has a few gameplay bits and locations even more oppressive than anything I dealt with in Dark Souls 1, but I'm so intrigued by the concealed lore, mechanical depth, and melancholy tone of the Souls games that I couldn't stay away for long.
Another returning contender from my 2024 list (but skipping 2025), I've had the Director's Cut of Ghost of Tsushima on my shelf for right around two years, but have yet to try it. Which is too bad, because GoT (no thrones here) is a beloved title that I've always been interested in. I love samurai cinema, I enjoy open-world action games, and I love (most of) Sucker Punch's inFamous series. Maybe those three interests can collide into a playthrough this year.
Our first contender for "most embarrassing non-play" on this list (out of three), I bought God of War on release in 2018, played through maybe 40% of it, then in 2021 I got a digital version and sold my physical copy. I placed PS4 God of War on these lists twice but never got further than that first attempt almost eight years ago. And the game's good! Great dialog, massive number of options in combat, and a gorgeous world to explore are all bullet points to that conclusion, but... I never even got to the top of the mountain. Time to climb.
A first-time entry for this list, I got a PS5 version of this game in late 2023 after hearing plenty of positive buzz for Midnight Suns for at least a year. Bringing together characters from Avengers, X-Men, and various other corners of the Marvel universe into an RPG with tactical combat, skills governed by TCG deckbuilding, and character-driven relationship dialog? Plus Nico Minoru's in it? I'm usually more of a DC guy, but this Marvel game crosses too many of my boxes for me to ignore it much longer.
My second entry in the "most embarrassing non-play" list for this year is Paper Mario, an RPG I've attempted to play at least three times since the late 2000s, gotten pretty far two of those times (5 or 6 stars collected), and have yet to finish because, well, other things came up. I even played its sequel to completion in 2011 (love TTYD). Paper Mario first appeared on one of these lists in 2015, and it's been so long that now I can play it on Switch's N64 Classics instead of the Wii Virtual Console (I never owned an N64). Thus, it should be easier than ever to get done. In theory.
And now for some completely different Mario! By my count, I've beaten every major Mario platformer ("major" is a loaded adjective but I won't get into that here) other than Lost Levels and Sunshine, and I know which of those two I'm more interested in. Sunshine has an uneven reputation, but modern Mario is always at least pretty good, so my expectations are moderately high. I've had a copy of this for ages, but instead of dusting off my Wii I'll probably play the Mario 3D All-Stars version on Switch. I'm gonna try to Shine Get for the first time!
Yikes, I've had this game on these lists four of the last five years now and have yet to touch it. And I guess the reason is that I'm intimidated by the potential time investment - strategy RPGs of Triangle Strategy's ilk tend to suck me in and take a long-ass time, but they're also frequently slow-moving. But hey, it's a genre I love, Team Asano is a development group I love, and Tactics Ogre is an iconic influence, so maybe I can steel up the willpower to actually start Triangle Strategy later this year.
Probably the biggest Japanese RPG of 2022, which I bought in 2023 and placed on these lists in both 2024 and 2025. I've played the first ten-plus hours of something like five games with Xeno- in the title but only managed to finish one of them (Xenoblade 1). However, Xenoblade become an increasingly celebrated series to my niche RPG circles, and I really want to finally play XBC3 instead of just listening to a few songs from its soundtrack over and over.
And here we have the runaway winner of the "most embarrassing non-play" prize, a legendary Legend of Zelda game that I've owned since 2007 (Zelda collection for GameCube), then bought again several years later (Majora's Mask 3D), and found a third way to play it in recent days (N64 Classics on Switch). This bad boy has been on these lists six times since 2013.
I played the first several hours of Majora's Mask on I think two of those six years, but no further. There's something about the urgency of the gameplay loop that just makes me anxious instead of excited. I've always seen the value in that kind of experience but didn't feel like it was for me. But I need to try again. I want 2026 to be the first year I get 100% of my goals.
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My first of these lists was in 2012, and I finished a sterling 11 out of 12 that year. Since then I've finished with an 11 out of 13 in 2020 (nice!), 10 out of 13 in 2019 and 2022 (not bad!), and 7 games or fewer the other 10 years (woof). Maybe 2026 is the year I finally get all 13! But there will certainly be distractions from that aspiration, and here's where I'll bring a few of them up.
Contingency Plan: In the case one of my thirteen above goals becomes unplayable or somehow invalid, I'll replace it on the list with Dragon Quest II HD-2D Remaster. I played the remaster of DQ1 a few months ago and thought it was fine, but everything I've read and everyone I've talked to concerning those games says the remake of DQ2 is truly transformative. Sounds great to me! I might just play this thing anyway, regardless of some disaster befalling one of my game consoles (knock on wood).
Final Fantasy XIV: I spent A LOT of time in Eorzea in 2025, and when I ended my subscription in November I pledged not to return until FF XIV 8.0 releases. I don't know exactly when that'll be at the time of writing this, but my best guess is early 2027. But I will not eliminate the possibility of relapsing, because it's always a threat. Those Arcadion Heavyweight raids look really, really cool....
2025 and 2026 Releases: I know I made a point to mention that this year's list of gaming goals is all backlog, but I will undoubtedly buy some new games this year, or at the very least a few 2025 games on sale. And if I'm tempted or hyped enough, these could distract me from my established goals. A few of the 2025 and 2026 games I'm keeping an eye on are: Avowed, Bloodstained: The Scarlet Engagement, Blue Prince, Dispatch, Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, Ghost of Yotei, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Marvel's Wolverine, Octopath Traveler 0, Phantom Blade Zero, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, collections of Lunar and Suikoden games, and more I'm sure I'm forgetting.
There will definitely be more games that I'm not aware of or are yet unannounced to release in 2026 that I'll want to buy. I dare not expand the DQ12 acronym for fear of jinxing either the project or Yuuji Horii's well-being. Also of concern to me is whatever Pokémon ends up doing in 2026, because I think we're due for generation 10 announcement in February. However, I don't own a Switch 2 at this time, and I'm sure my girlfriend will want full access to hers when the new Pokémon drops. Pocket Monsters will have to wait.
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Another year, another 13 games to (attempt to) play. Will I get to most of them? My heart says yes, and my brain says statistically unlikely. But I'll keep dreaming, keep playing, and keep writing. Happy New Year, folks.
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