Sometimes the videolamer staff always makes a commitment to play specific games in a new year and then fails to uphold that commitment. 2026 will be no different, in that it is a year in which we will or will not (in this case will) commit to playing some video games and then most of us will shirk the responsibility to play said games despite having sworn, hand on a Kid Klown in Night Mayor World manual, that we would in front of the entire internet. It is healthy to have aspirations, and it is even healthier to know your limits after initially not knowing them.
Jay
Calculating the exact proportion of new stuff, indie darlings, niche games, and retro titles to play in a given year is an exact science that I refuse to perform hastily or sloppily. So let’s say I’ll play 11, 8.4, 26, and 93 of those in 2026, respectively. Here are some more specifics, including large, non-specific categories:
2026 is the year of the arcade
More on this later through the medium of blog posts, but for now be content knowing I will be playing a lot of arcade games and then forgetting to take notes and either writing vague impressions or joke posts about the games. Whichever pleases fewer people.
Kings Field 4: The Ancient City
This should not be too hard as I think I’m already about 75% of the way through KF4. But I also think I am going through it at about half speed based on the estimated time to complete I have seen. A play through a slow, tense, kind-of-scary From game should take some time if you aren’t a maniac. The King’s Fields, and possibly even his mountains are very methodical games but still convey a similar dread as the Souls games. I have many factual opinions on Ancient City, specifically, and its relationship to Miyazaki’s eventual output but before I threaten to write them out I need to finish the game.
Blue Prince
This satisfies my high profile indie game for this list and I am patiently waiting for it to come to the Switch 2 for no real reason as it would run fine on my PC. But I am a steward of the economy and would rather pay more money and give Nintendo, a struggling start-up, a cut of the action. If that French RPG and Italianly named JRPG also want to come out on Switch 2, I would appreciate it. My back hurts from sitting in an office chair all day, at least give me the chance to walk away from my PC and hurt my back in the living room chair.
Mother 3
I have been planning on playing this every year for maybe 5 years now. Maybe 2026 is the year I get to find out what the reported anti-trans stuff is in this game. Very exciting! I did start it in maybe 2024 and got a few hours in so now I get to face everyone’s favorite dilemma of trying to remember what is going on and pushing onward or restarting, losing progress, and being mildly bored since it’s not new. Regardless of whether or not I ever play Mother 3, I have been enjoying its soundtrack for the past 15 years. Anyone who thinks love is gross and a vector for cooties should check out the excellent Theme of Love.
Mario Odyssey
I did not play Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, put a few hours into Bananza, played a few stages of Mario Wonder with my son, and generally have mostly ignored Nintendo’s big games for some years now. Of all of the well reviewed games they released from Switch onward, Mario Odyssey feels like the most significant hole in my professional gamer credibility. Also, I heard it is good and has jumping.
Emerald Dragon
This is an old Japanese PC game that is somewhat obscure but also very well regarded, and luckily for those who can read English (this may even include you), a fan translation just came out. The game has a convoluted history as, besides being on a few computers, it was also ported to the PC Engine and the Super Famicom; a translation of the latter version has been out for over a decade. Of course, this port is seen as inferior and so now I can put my expensive RGB mod on my Duo R to good use and play the superior version of Emerald Dragon. Interestingly, the scenario writer also wrote Fiend Hunter and Anearth Fantasy, two PCE games I really want to play in English. This same writer also directed the Dreamcast version of Record of Lodoss War (a mighty spell), which I enjoyed, but also the very similar Shining Force Neo, which I hate on principle for being a Shining game not made by Camelot.
Some niche indie games because I like obscure things you’ve never heard of
One of the lies we tell people is this site has some theme beyond whatever whim we are currently satisfying. That said, my goals for the new year are to have retired two years ago, to play more games only losers have heard of, and to read less. To achieve two of these, I will be browsing my Steam wishlist for games with under 300 reviews. By some people cooler than I’s standards, games with any reviews aren’t truly niche, but diving into the completely unknown seems less likely to yield hidden semi-precious metals.
Chris
It may be surprising to some (it certainly is to me) that I made it to two out of three of the resolutions I made last time around: Tyranny and SMT Strange Journey Redux, though it took me until 2023 to complete the latter and by the time I was ready to write about it videolamer had gone into cryogenic sleep. If I could remember everything I wanted to say about it (likely as, for once, I journaled things every week or so) you might be able to read it, but for now you will have to take my word for it instead of reading what I wrote and fact-checking to determine whether I actually played it.
While I can appreciate the impetus to play specific games that resolutions give, this year I will likely plan things more broadly than before rather than committing to multiple 60-hour RPG behemoths. My primary aim in 2026 is to have fun playing games, which doesn’t sound great as a bullet point so I’ll make some resolutions that generally aim that direction and justify them in a way that makes me seem refined.
Play more indie / AA games
This is generally a direction I’ve been going, although it’s also a direction I’ve been before. While games like Metaphor ReFantazio are great, it’s also nice to vary up the diet with less polished/high-budget games like the SaGa series or one of the dozens of indie games that try to recapture Chrono Trigger because no one has tried before.
“AA” is a descriptor that could fit a wide range of games, though – I’ve seen it applied to the Romancing SaGa 2 remake (Revenge of the Seven) which has over 800 people in the credits, so maybe I need to narrow things down a bit. But then, Final Fantasy XVI has almost 4000 so maybe it does actually make sense comparatively.
While “indie” can vary substantially in size and reach, and I’m not likely to go for Jay’s methodology of fewer than 300 reviews – I’d like to aim for some that are less appreciated than others. I’m likely to do that already, given The Spirit Engine is getting a remaster. I also tried Slipways, a weird puzzle-4X hybrid (maybe 3x, since it’s Xtermination-free) last month, so I’m on the right track for this one already.
Play a Soulslike or a Monster Hunter
When Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 came out, I played them for months on end. When Monster Hunter Tri came out, I likewise dove into it with abandon. While I don’t think I can manage as deep an appreciation for multiple mechanics-heavy games this year, I can and should pick up one and enjoy it for a good while, because it has been a while since I played one.
Mother 3
Like Jay, in 2022 I resolved to play Mother 3. Unlike Jay, I never played it in 2024 and so have the difficult decision of whether to start it, rather than whether to continue versus start over. I’ve also stayed largely oblivious to the actual content of the game, so I am going in almost totally blind.
Cunzy
Unlike Jay, I take my backlog seriously, that is, I meticulous catalogue and document where I am with every game and then like a forensic accountant I study the numbers to look for some secret, some data insight that might help me actually chip away at the thing. I’m also really interested in the psychology of the backlog. If I never bought another new game or console, there’s undoubtedly more on there than I will get through before I die – yet, there are a number of invisible barriers that make sitting down and playing games a chore. Sometimes, it’s charging a controller or swapping an HDMI cable. Maybe it is just laziness. Here’s the 2026 hit list.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
I bought two games at launch last year, and this was one of them. MP4 caught a lot ofonline discourse flak from those who hadn’t played it because it had an open area not as big as GTA 7 and a supporting cast who dared to speak. The former is a pleasant replacement for Samus’ ship travelling from one place to another cutscene (although there’s still a bit of that), the latter is a typical gamer ‘how dare they change something’ knee-jerk, overreaction. It thankfully largely remains a backtracking, shoot the boss’ glowing ballsack, scan ‘em up, but now there’s a motorbike sometimes. I got, I reckon, about half way through it in two sittings and anticipate all it needs is another two extended sessions to break the back of it.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Years ago, this game and the Frozen Wilds DLC were given away free to PlayStation owners, which was a very welcome gift but also incredibly selfish because this is a massive game. I have one last thing to do in it, I need to get first place in the last three challenges on the DLC hunting lodge. However, the massive effort of actually preparing my load out and remembering the controls has kept this last last thing from being achieved. Hopefully, in 2026 I can find the two hours to get back in the saddle and then free up some of that precious, precious hard drive space. In the meantime, PlayStation, no more free games please.
Splatoon 3
This is definitely one where the irrational rules to which my brain must adhere is blocking progress. I love everything about Splatoon 3, except the core multiplayer bit at the very heart of it. This should in no way impact playing through the various side modes or the main story mode, which is always a highlight of this series, or the excellent rogue-like DLC, but just the idea that I have loads of gear and collectibles that I’m not levelling up or collecting through online play creates a ludoangst. There’s also a frightfully addictive tile puzzle ‘card’ game that massively sidetracks me when I do get over the mental hurdle and load up the game. I need to knuckle down and hit double credits on this one.
Judgment
I have a thing for side games. Judgment is my first and only foray into the Yakuza series, if you can even call it that. The problem is, there’s too much to do. I know that my soul would be more at ease if I just ploughed through the main story first and then went through all the side bullshit at a leisurely, dare-I-say-it, fun pace, without the pressure to hit the credits. I think this to myself as I sink my third hour into the UFO machines, ponder what the perfect gift for my too-young, aspiring singer girlfriend would be, bait out and beat up a panty-sniffing pervert, and drink unhealthy amounts of coffee in order to progress a side story matchmaking two hapless baristas.
Wipeout Omega Collection
I was recently gifted a PSVR as a hand-me-down which has led to a journey through what were PSVR’s must-play games but at clearance bin sale prices. I’m glad I didn’t shell out for a headset at full price because there are precious few VR games on the PlayStation that justified the cost at the time, not to mention the back-breaking effort of gathering and connecting headphones, controllers, headsets, and the console to convert the living room into some brutal motorbike crash ER patient’s intensive care room. Wipeout Omega Collection is one such game. There’s not much in modern gaming that quite captures the feeling of sitting fully immersed in VR on the starting grid, AG pads thrumming, crowd roaring as the countdown starts.. 3.. 2.. 1.. I’d be happy to clock this one as ‘done’ once I play through all three of the collection’s event grids. Wipeout HD and Wipeout Fury really capture the Bladerunner meets Formula One meets rave culture feeling of the original games but it is 2048’s grittier, more violent and more challenging grid I’m really looking forward to finishing.
Pat
The 2022 version of this was very helpful to me so I continued doing it while the site was hibernating. I didn’t write it up, but ahead of each year I made a short list of games to play over the subsequent 12 months. I have at least started all fourteen games I put on those lists (for some reason I was ambitious in 2023 and had 5 games; maybe because no new kids joined my family that year), and finished eleven of them (Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Final Fantasy IV, Bladerunner, Wild Arms 2, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Monkey Island 2, Eiyuden Chronicle, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Yakuza Gaiden, and Dragon Quest V). I gave up on Valkyrie Profile because I didn’t like it enough to overcome some difficulty spikes, and I plan to continue playing Wild Arms 3 and Tomb Raider 3 over time. Not bad.
I have occasionally joked to Jay that I may give up on playing everything except RPGs that came out between 1990 and 2008, and while I have not done that yet, they are a significant share of my gaming diet and good candidates for the list, since I can deliberately choose which to play in a given year. So let’s start with…
Koudelka
I bought and tried this a few years after it came out but, distracted by life and other games, didn’t give it much of a chance. With the Double Kickstarter of games that will never come out happening a few years ago I realized I had always been interested in Koudelka/Shadow Hearts but never really played them. I also spent some time last year researching portable emulation machines and decided I should buy a Retroid or something similar (I am thinking the Retroid G2, but am open to suggestions) and this seems like a good forcing function to get me to follow through on buying one. I could also use it for Suikoden IV and V, unless the success of the remasters of I and II lead to more releases.
Final Fantasy III
I may or may not eventually play all the mainline Final Fantasy games, but I will at least try all those up until XII. VI was my introduction to the series shortly before the release of VII. I devoured VII, didn’t love or finish VIII, enjoyed IX and X, skipped XI, and played maybe half of XII (but may eventually go back to it). Then I started moving back in time, playing V then IV. With the Pixel Remasters now seems like a fine time to continue my journey back through history with 1990’s Final Fantasy III.
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
As I mentioned in 2022 (what, you didn’t remember?), Jay and I assign each other games and then he ignores me and I do what I am told. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has been on there for years because A) I have never really been into Fire Emblem, and B) it is challenging for me to play since I never had a Gamecube, Wii is difficult with my current set up, and the game has not been available anywhere else. In a happy coincidence, as we were putting this piece together Nintendo announced it will be available on Switch Online. I have started a few different Fire Emblem games over time but got a bit overwhelmed with figuring out how to build my party, and the risk of permadeath. I pledge to give it serious attention this year.
And there you have it, a new year and a new list of commitments. Will they be fulfilled or will it be like that time in the videolamer mansion, where we all live together, when Cunzy promised he would stop refilling the exfoliating microbead cleanser with apple sauce so he wouldn’t have to replace the bottle, leading to a breakout of broken promises? Only time and possibly next year’s post on this topic will tell.