2022 Recap and What Comes Next
2022 was an interesting year for me when it comes to gaming. I made the commitment to purchase only one game, focusing on playing more untouched games in my library instead of new titles. I ended up purchasing Horizon: Forbidden West as my one game, which was a blast to play, and I’m looking forward to the recently announced Burning Shores DLC. The rest of the year was focused on playing through games that I’d been meaning to get to but hadn’t, for one reason or another. I had meant to follow each game with at least one blog post about the meaning I was able to find in each game, but that ended up tapering off in April. Because of the sheer size of my library of games (thanks to Game Pass, Xbox Live, PlayStation Plus, and various Steam sales over the years) focusing on the games I already owned forced me to evaluate what I actually wanted to play in a different way. I ended up going back to games I had once been excited about but got distracted from, or games I had more limited access to because they were leaving Game Pass. I’m glad I took on this challenge. I have no doubt there are games I played that would continue to be untouched otherwise. It also gave me a greater appreciation for the quality games I already own – Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy from 2019 may well be my personal game of the year, right up there with God of War 2018. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the whole thing is just how often I’ll start something only to let it fall by the wayside when some hotly anticipated title happens to release before I’ve finished what I’m currently playing. Either that or how frequently I’ll go back and play a game I’ve beaten already, just because I enjoy the familiarity of it – hello Mass Effect Legendary Edition. I’m not sure how many games I started this year that remain unfinished, but offhand I can count at least ten.
So that’s kind of where the goal for 2023 comes in. I want to actually finish more games. I’m not talking about doing every possible task within a game, collecting every item, or completing every side quest. I’m talking strictly about completing the main storyline of a game. Maybe with a few extra things on the side, but my intention is to be more willing to set those optional things aside in order to say that I’ve beaten a game. Because the reality is if it’s a really good game, I’m going to come back to it anyway. So there’s no need to hold progress hostage to a completionist mentality, unwilling to roll credits until I’ve seen or done everything possible. I also want to be more intentional in the way I choose the games I play, because I can’t even tell you how many times I sat down to play something and couldn’t settle on a title due to having too many options in front of me, ultimately going back to play a skirmish in Halo Wars or skip gaming entirely to watch YouTube or something instead.
To that end, I’ve compiled a list of games across multiple platforms that I want to complete in 2023. This list is a combination of games I already own, games I haven’t purchased yet, and some that aren’t even out yet. Some of them, like Ragnarok or Tears of the Kingdom, I really am looking forward to and will likely play through as soon as possible. Others, like Black Mesa, I’m interested in enough to finally sit down and dedicate some time to. Still others, such as Fallout 4, I’ve already invested enough time into that I really want to wrap it up just to finally remove it from the To Do list. (Seriously, I think I’ve got less than 5 hours to go in Fallout 4.) This isn’t a definitive list that I won’t add to or stray from periodically, but if I’m ever struggling to choose what to play, this is going to be where I start. I still expect to play some Halo Infinite multiplayer, and who knows how much extra time I’ll put into the new World of Warcraft expansion beyond the bare minimum. I am guessing that I won’t get to every title on this list, and even that I’ll probably leave some incomplete after a year’s time. With an average expected playtime of over 30 hours per title, it’s not exactly going to be a quick progression of one game after another. But I think by narrowing my primary choices down to these 45 titles, I’ll hopefully avoid the choice paralysis I ran into more than once in 2022. Forty-five games may sound like a lot (it is, I know!) but that number is culled from over 450 titles in my Xbox library, over 100 games on PC, and dozens more on PlayStation and Switch.
Now, how does this relate to finding Meaning In Games™? I’m still exploring what that even means, to be honest. I do believe that meaning can be found in games, as in any kind of art, but I’m less convinced than I once was that this is something that can be easily communicated or discovered. It’s a subjective thing that isn’t always going to be relevant to anyone but myself. And let’s be real, there are all kinds of analyses out there about games and what they mean to different people already. Is adding my voice to the mix going to do anything? Even so, my intention is to provide at least monthly updates here. It may be something as simple as what tidbits I’ve found to be meaningful in what I’m currently playing, or something more in-depth like how much I enjoy and appreciate the worldbuilding in something like Guardians of the Galaxy. However things shake out, being more intentional with the games I play and purchase – beyond just the restriction of one game in 2022 – will hopefully help me to become a more mindful consumer, which I think can only be a good thing in the end.