You don’t have time to get to a big, new game during the year, so you ask for it for Christmas. You get the game, and you’re excited to play it. And you do… for a week or two. But then the new year gets rolling. There’s a surprisingly great triple-A title that drops in January, or maybe a cool indie that surprises the world. Suddenly, there are big, new games demanding your attention. Do you keep playing the game from last year? It’s old now. Irrelevant. None of your favorite YouTubers or podcasters are talking about it anymore. So do you move on to the bright shinier games so you can be part of the current conversation?
I know which one I choose. Somewhere in thePlayStationcloud, there are my save files forFar Cry 6andDeath Stranding, each with less than ten hours logged. In 2021 and 2019, those were the games I was most interested in (at least among the ones that got a physical release) but didn’t have time to play. I asked for them, got them for Christmas, played them for a week or two, and then moved on. I feel bad, but no game is harder to make time for than the big game that came out last year.
I’ve been thinking about this recently because I just finishedMarvel’s Midnight Sunsa couple weeks ago. I’ve been playing the tactical RPG all year, borrowing the same library copy over and over and over, chipping away at its 40 hour campaign a few missions at a time. While I played new games likeThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomandCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Libertyquickly — one because I was motivated to keep up with the conversation, the other because I was on the review — I played Midnight Suns at a lackadaisical pace, sometimes taking a month off between sessions. I liked it a lot, so I finished it, but there are plenty of games I liked and left in the dust in the race to keep up with the new.
I have an even easier time keeping up with decades old games than with games that are only a year old. If I make the conscious effort to download and play an old game, there’s a decent chance I’ll stick with it under the guise of studying the medium’s history. When I picked upVampire: The Masquerade - BloodlinesandHalf-Life 2for the first time a few years ago, I had no trouble playing either through to completion. If I felt myself flagging at an annoying part (like the irritating shootout that ends VTMB) I could urge myself to push through because I was learning something about an earlier era. With a game that came out last year, what am I learning? Sure, you can pick up something new from any piece of art if you have your eyes open, but playing Far Cry 6 doesn’t scratch the itch of keeping up with the conversationoreating my vegetables. It’s somewhere in between and feels pointless as a result.
This, to be clear, is a bad way to think. Good art is worthwhile regardless of when it was made. But with the need to contentify my hobbies for work on one side and FOMO on the other, is it any wonder I’ve developed these brain worms? Which reminds me, I should really get back to 2023’s hottest release,Baldur’s Gate 3. It may not keep till 2024.
NEXT:Far Cry 7’s 24-Hour Time Limit Sounds Cool, But I Don’t Trust Ubisoft Not To Dumb It Down
