Similar to 2024, with 100% more leopards eating faces.

Workwise, not much has changed since last time around… which is a good thing! I have put off the certification I needed, but procrastination won’t be possible in 2026. There are a few people who will be retiring in the next year or two, and I’ve been given the nod to take over for one of them. While the increased title will be nice, the pay bump is generally limited to 5% and is not really worth the added stress. Nevertheless, it is really the only form of advancement left where I’m at and I still have quite some time until pension-based retirement. Hope the world still exists in a recognizable state by then!

Family-wise, everything is fantastic. Wife managed to get her student (including graduate) loans forgiven literal weeks before Trump started fucking everyone over, so that’s good. The Little Man is making tremendous progress in 1st grade and overcoming all sorts of challenges that came his way. Also, he’s playing videogames now, so my life is just about complete.

Onto the games played this calendar year.

Steam (325.5h)

Under my normal “rules,” Abiotic Factor should not be on the list, as I played ~19 hours of it last year. However… seems a bit silly to not have it on there, no? The Steam Replay stats show that I had a 21-day streak of booting it up, with an overall count of 64 sessions. Which means that I played over two hours on average each time. Really a testament to how hard I fall for good survival crafting games.

Speaking of both rules and survival crafting games, I did leave off 7 Days to Die (Rebirth mod) and No Man’s Sky despite racking up about 40-50 additional hours apiece on them. The former has been getting a lot of very interesting updates on the base game lately, indicating a practically seismic shift in terms of dev attitude. For example, they brought back glass jars! Regarding NMS, I like what they’re doing with things, I just wish they’d put more than like three people on getting Light No Fire started.

Epic Game Store (10h)

• Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria [6h]
• Red Dead Redemption 2 [4h]

Yep. How embarrassing is that? Epic is even offering Battlefield 6 for $49 plus 20% back and I still had to have a long think on it. I’m actually passing on BF6 for now because I don’t want to get into another time-killing game when I have so many single-player experiences waiting to be, er, experienced. Many of which are, in fact, on Epic. Perhaps playing Epic games will lead me to opening the launcher more…

Xbox Game Pass (228.5h)

As always, one has to ask “was Game Pass worth the subscription this year?” Unlike in prior years, I had no banked cheap subscription cards, so I paid $148 total (including December’s new $16.50 price). Based merely on the games played and the hours thereof… probably not. Granted, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 retailed for $70 apiece, so technically just those two alone would have paid for everything, let alone Alters and Silksong. To say nothing of the other games I have installed and ready to go, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. Or the others I have bookmarked like Hogwarts Legacy, Dragon Age: Veilguard, Grounded 2, and so on.

In other words, if the subscription wasn’t worth it, that’s really on me.

Game-wise, it’s a bit funny seeing two Obsidian games up there at the same time, e.g. Avowed and Outer Worlds 2. They share a lot of the same DNA, including how traversal feels in the world, but also some of the same foibles, e.g. problematic Legendary weapons, lack of romance options for companions. Once I get around to finishing Outer Worlds 2, it will be interesting to gauge how it feels in comparison to its brother. The answer may end up surprising you! (Hint: one game allows respecs).

Switch (unknown hours)

• Super Mario Odyssey
• Super Mario Wonder
• Mario Kart 8

Yeah, buddy! Father-son game time! The Little Man has a long way to go in terms of solo play, but I really appreciated being able to play Odyssey with one person controlling Mario and the other the hat. Indeed, we straight-up beat that game a few months ago now, and have even restarted as my son wanted to play it again. This time, I’m a backseat driver at most (with Assist Mode on, of course).

Super Mario Wonder is another hit with The Little Man, but as a more straight-up platformer, it’s considerably more difficult. In Odyssey, you can get hit five times before dying, and even go hide somewhere to regain your health. If you drop down a pit in Wonder, you dead. Or rather, you will float back as a ghost and only lose the life if your partner can’t touch you within the five-second window. Still, the penalty is much harsher. And somehow we all raw-dogged this kind of shit back in the 80s?

The Switch has a lot of additional games at the ready, for when The Little Man gets a bit better and/or I have more inclination to play it by myself. For example, I have both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom on there. Oh, and Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 are on their way.

Guild Wars 2 (probably several hundred hours)

Yep, still playing every day since I re-re-restarted back in October. It’s probably the #1 factor in how little I have “accomplished” in terms of other game completion. Then again, if I were truly in the mood for whatever else, I probably would have just played that. I made time for Outer Worlds 2, for example.

As far as what I’m doing, well, I finally got around of completing the Secrets of the Obscure expansion story after months of slow-rolling it. I also started Janthir Wilds long enough to unlock Spears, as that seems to be a meta weapon for several classes. Chances are good that I skip Janthir for now and go directly into the newer Visions of Eternity, if only because that’s where most daily/weekly quests are pointing. Plus, you know, most people and/or most profitable activities.

Incidentally, I sprung for some gem store purchases a few days ago, after essentially talking myself out of a few Steam games. After all, if my argument is that spending money on games I’m not going to play immediately is silly, then that means spending money on games you are currently playing must be wise. That’s how it works, right?

Other Unmentionables

I stopped playing Hearthstone back in October and the streak of not playing continues. I even uninstalled it from my phone, freeing up like 8 GB of space. Still have it installed on the PC though.

Hmm… October. Isn’t that about the time I started playing Guild Wars 2 again? Surely a coincidence!

What’s Next

As always, I vacillate between “must finish games before uninstalling” and “stop playing when you stop having fun.” Last year was the latter, and this year will be the former. Sorta. I’m a reasonable guy. For example, I want to close out FF7: Rebirth because the final part of the trilogy is something I want to play. Elden Ring though? It’s been two years, so that is probably getting uninstalled. Anyway, the list!

1. The Outer Worlds 2
2. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth
3. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
4. Baldur’s Gate 3 (for real for real)
5. Death Stranding (for real for real for real)

Those are in order, although perhaps Death Stranding should be above BG3, I dunno. There are more games that I probably “should” be playing, but let’s be reasonable, shall we?