I’m a fiend for resolutions. In the same way my dog can’t resist food left on the table, I can’t resist the urge to make a bunch of ambitious goals for the upcoming year. As a kid, getting a bunch of Christmas gifts was the most exciting part of the holiday season. But as an adult… Well, it’s still the gifts. But the opportunity the new year presents to imagine how life could change in the next 12 months is the second best gift I could ever ask for.
And so, each year, I make a resolution for how many games I want to beat in the months to come.
My goal this year was 60 and I’m currently at 41. PCGame Pass' “Take a game break” tab, which recommends games you can complete in under five hours, will be doing some heavy lifting this month.
How To Finish The Unfinishable
Multiplayer games are included on that list if I get past a certain hour count. Originally the time to hit was 50 hours, but I lowered it to 30, because that’s how much time I spent withXDefiantbefore it became clear that all of its players had jumped ship toBlack Ops 6. I wasn’t just gonna play 20 more hours against bots. I added such a rule as an incentive to multiplayer games because for the first few years I took part in this gamer ritual, making a resolution to finish games was steering me away from games that were, by definition, unfinishable.
But even with that goal in place, I’ve been exclusively playing multiplayer games that I could play alone. No co-op games like Content Warning or Black Ops' Zombies mode, and no squad-based shooters likeApex Legends,Overwatch 2, orValorant. I put 30 hours into XDefiant, but did so entirely solo.
This has always been my hang up with modern gaming. I enjoy playing games with other people, but I’ve never had a regular gaming group. As a kid, this is what sleepovers were for. On the GameCube, my friends and I put endless hours into multiplayer games likeSuper Smash Bros. Melee, Kirby Air Ride, Sonic Riders, Mario Kart: Double Dash, and Worms 3D. In college, I didn’t game a ton, but would drop in for some Melee or Pokémon Stadium if people on my floor had a game going. After school, I moved in with friends from high school and we played, yet again, Smash Bros, and also passed the controller around during Until Dawn.
These were all in-person experiences, which is still my preferred form of multiplayer gaming. The most I’ve ever enjoyed playingFortnitewas squading up with friends in the same room, across PS4, Switch, and a laptop.
As a game critic, I’ve obviously had to engage with online multiplayer — especially when I was a freelancer and was taking any project a website would throw my way. I reviewedRisk of Rain 2with a friend from college, and had a great time catching up with him. We got intoLeft 4 Deadafter that, and enjoyed it a lot. But he lives in Thailand and, after a while, the 13-hour time difference became untenable.
Changing Up My Gaming Habits In The New Year
So, as I look ahead to 2025, I want to finally change this. My goal is to make playing with friends a weekly part of my gaming diet.
The timing for this change is great.Baldur’s Gate 3adding crossplay will be a game-changer; I know a lot of people who play the game, but not all on the same platform. My wife will be able to play on PS5, I’ll get on my laptop, and our friends can play from whatever version they have. It’s a game I love and playing with other people is a good excuse to dedicate the time to another playthrough.
I also want to use games as a way to keep in touch with my high school and college friends. I make an effort to text my friends once a week but, generally, guys don’t like talking on the phone. If I’m going to actually know what’s going on in their lives, multiplayer games are the best path forward. So I also resolve that, in 2025, I will say yes to whatever game any of my friends want to play.
I have a pathological aversion to being on mic with strangers but, in 2025, I am at least committing to being on mic, regularly, with friends. And, if some of that gaming can happen in person like the old days, even better.
