Despite all odds our planet has survived yet another uncertain yet victorious orbit around the sun and it’s The Year Of Our Gaming 2025. Each year provides an opportunity for a new start, even in gaming, so let’s swiftly rid ourselves of the troubles of 2024 and embrace a new beginning. Erase the memory of the Borderlands film. Gather up the shattered remnants of XDefiant. Clean the shroud of death from Concord, throw it in the dryer, fold it neatly, and store it high up on a shelf in the closet.
It’s 2025 now, so let’s at least feign that this year will be different, while simultaneously pretending that we’ll also be different as well. Establishing New Year’s Resolutions is a long-standing practice where we create a list of things we aim to transform about ourselves, make those adjustments, then swiftly regress back to our previous selves by about a week before the end of January. Or could this year actually be different? For real this time?
Let’s discover together. Do you have some gaming resolutions for 2025? We certainly do, and so do some members of our PG Gamer Forum. Here’s how we intend to alter our gaming practices in 2025. Feel free to share your own gaming resolutions in the comments below.
Engage with more finite games (for the sake of my sanity)
Lincoln Carpenter, News Writer: The difficulty with my beloved games is that I enjoy them far too much. I’m a Crusader Kings aficionado. A Dwarf Fortress enthusiast. A Caves of Qud fanatic. I adore games that are so rich in potential systemic interactions and organic narratives that you could, if inclined, play them endlessly—and I’m all too inclined. While I’m no less captivated by the tragic tales faced by my latest Mountain Hall project and the numerous mutations arising from my latest Qud character, I’m simply not experiencing enough of other games.
Not coincidentally, I’m also looking to immerse myself back into more drawing and creative writing during my own time this year, and nothing facilitates that quite like offering the brain a healthy assortment of stories and visuals. As challenging as it is to admit, I might benefit from more games that distinctly declare “Alright, champ, you’ve looked at enough, time to check something else out.” If I’m closing fewer weeks having dedicating most of my leisure time peering at a map of a disintegrating Holy Roman Empire, it’s likely for the best.
Maybe just one more effort to make Sardinia a global powerhouse first, though.
Dedicate more time to single player games
Jake Tucker, Editorial Director, PC Gaming Show: I’m unsure when it occurred, but over the past several years I’ve begun dedicating most of my gaming time to vast, perpetual games with my buddies. We fight for loot in Escape From Tarkov, bemoan vision and its shortcomings in Dota 2, or simply embark on centuries of Crusader Kings 3, collaborating to resurrect the Holy Roman Empire before we start anew and resolve to handle that whole Iranian intermezzo thing.
I’m not complaining; I’m a social being and I’ve created wonderful memories, but it has meant that I haven’t participated in many single player games over recent years, even stepping away from games I cherish (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I’m directing my attention toward you) after just a few hours because I’ve received a WhatsApp notification to join a few rounds of something. Inspired no doubt by the forthcoming releases of Judas and a fresh Doom, I’ll aim to make a change this year.
Experience Outer Wilds before my friend truly eliminates me
Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: It has been over three years since I came to an arrangement with a friend to play through Outer Wilds as long as they watched Arcane, considering we both couldn’t stop talking about either. Regrettably, dear reader, I must confess that I have not experienced Outer Wilds, despite acknowledging its significance in gaming. Aware of its groundhog-day, desolate, existential hope-ennui which perfectly aligns with my tastes. I even purchased the game, and streamed my initial session to this friend. I set it up on my new PC! Did I play it? No! Do I understand why? Also no! I have this unsettling feeling that my days are limited, hence I am determined to play this game before they actually confront me and take me out. If I fail to do so, my demise will be warranted.
Try a baseball video game
Morgan Park, Staff Writer: I’m a lifelong sport-avoider who decided to embrace baseball at 27. It has been an absolute blast (especially since the closest team to my front door is also the best one), but now it’s the offseason, and I find myself without an outlet for all this baseball excitement. I want to explore MLB: The Show, but it appears somewhat intense and lacks a PC version. Then there’s Super Mega Baseball, which senior editor Chris recommended, but it seems a bit too straightforward.
Perhaps I’ll experiment with a baseball management title like Out of the Park Baseball—at least that way, I won’t need to excel at baseball itself, I’ll just select an appealing team and simulate the matches. (If you have insights on baseball games, drop me a line and enlighten me!)
Delve into Final Fantasy 7 modding
Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: I’m quite particular about translation quality, and Final Fantasy 7’s isn’t satisfactory enough for me to persist with despite multiple attempts to complete it. This year, I plan to download the Shinra Archaeology…Cut, a modification that substitutes FF7’s cumbersome English text with something that won’t make me wish to tear out my eyes, and grant it another opportunity. I might explore some additional mods as well, because discovering just how drastically I can alter a game that others view as an unchangeable classic is part of what motivates me to engage with PC gaming.
Try being an MMO enthusiast
Chris Livingston, Senior Editor: For me, MMOs resemble children: I neither have kids, nor do I particularly like or wish to have them, yet at times, I find myself wishing to be someone who does. I really want to dive into an MMO this year: not just to plunge in and spend 50 hours fishing and then exit, as I did with New World, but truly commit for the long run. Perhaps it’ll be Dune: Awakening, which genuinely piques my interest (mainly for survival and base construction), or maybe I’ll finally give TESO a sincere chance, which I at least have a background in thanks to my excessive play of Skyrim and Oblivion. Old school Runescape? GW2? Somewhere out there lies an MMO I’d enjoy, I can sense it. I’d like to uncover it by 2025.
Become proficient at League of Legends
Kara Phillips, Evergreen Writer: Year after year, I find myself declaring I will ‘get good’ at a video game, and annually I dedicate a month, practicing for hours each day before ultimately giving up. This year, my target is League of Legends. I know how to play, and I enjoy doing so. However, I am by no means skilled enough to participate in games with friends without feeling ashamed of my lack of ability. Even if I don’t plummet into the lowest ranks by this time next year, I would at least like to feel sufficiently confident to join a game when invited, rather than concocting an excuse and hiding my Discord status, allowing me to continue farming minions unnoticed.
Engage with more unconventional indie games
Ted Litchfield, Associate Editor: I enjoy a bizarre, niche, Cruelty Squad-style FPS or an overly ambitious low-fi RPG, but I did not engage with nearly as many in 2024 as I had in prior years. Then, I finally booted up the retro RPG Skald: Against the Black Priory on my Steam Deck during the holidays, and it shot to near the peak of my personal game of the year list. I aspire to take risks on more games similar to Skald in 2025—unless I fall prey to the enticing pulls of Balatro and Path of Exile 2.
Learn to develop a game
Paul Broughton, Social Video Editor: I’ve been gaming for so long that I consistently find myself more frequently questioning: How do games function? Following a misguided attempt to create a 2D platformer that reached one extremely basic level and a 3D puzzle game that resulted in a collision detection crash on my PC, it’s about time to construct something seriously. Will it be good? No, probably not. But will it be enjoyable? The process should be, I hope.
Master using a controller, despite controllers being frustrating
Andy Chalk, NA News Lead: I made a commitment in 2022 to play Elden Ring using a controller, and I accomplished that halfway: I played (and loved) Elden Ring but abandoned the controller after, oh, roughly 20 minutes of aggravation and thumb cramps. Honestly, controllers are dreadful. They lack the speed, accuracy, and adaptability of a mouse and keyboard, they’re incredibly uncomfortable, and I loathe them purely on principle: I’m a PC gamer, damn it, and I shouldn’t have to tolerate inferior input systems simply because Nintendo whipped up a subpar thing 40 years ago and everyone showered it with money.
It’s a futile endeavor, but I will make an attempt.
Andy Chalk
However, I’ve never completely shaken the sense that I should at least become competent with one, because—well, I’m unsure why, and that’s a significant hurdle. But since I do possess one—a Logitech F310, acquired impulsively some years ago for use with Klaus, a game that suggests a controller despite being perfectly fine with mouse and keyboard—this will be the year I put in a genuine effort to understand it. It’s a futile endeavor, but I will make an attempt. That’s as high as I’m setting the benchmark for 2025.
From our forum contributors
ZedClampet: I wish to explore a new genre or two. I typically engage with survival and various simulation games, but I’d like to broaden that this year. I used to play a lot of cRPGs, so it’s possible I could return to those, but I’m seeking something with a bit more action that can challenge my sluggish intellect and reflexes, such as, perhaps, twin-stick games.
Alm: I have a cliché resolution, which is to acquire fewer new games and to tackle my backlog. Civ 7 is definitely on my radar to pick up.
mjs warlord: My resolution for the new year is to reduce my gaming hours and to try and recall where my bed is.
Johnway: Aim for purchasing fewer games. I need to trim down my Steam collection, which keeps increasing in size. It’s a losing struggle, to be honest, as I discover sales on games that are too tempting to resist; I end up acquiring them in bundles, or I receive them for free.
BeardyHat: Similar to Alm and Johnway, my goal is to spend less and play more of what I already own. My library has exceeded 1000 games at this point across Steam, GoG, and Epic, along with numerous retro console games I would also like to explore. So, if I could limit my spending to less than $100 for the entire year, that would be fantastic. I spent around $450 in 2024.
I would also like to strive to engage in more gaming with my children. I am primarily a solo gamer and have remained so for most of my gaming journey, so I wish to be more open to sharing gaming experiences with them, even if it’s only for 30 minutes at a time.
January’s Ghost: To be honest, I want to reduce the time I spend gaming. I have other pursuits I want to undertake that require more effort and concentration to make progress. While I enjoy gaming, it’s all too simple to allow it to dominate my leisure time.
Pifanjr: I aim to complete Baldur’s Gate 3. I was in act 1, but got sidetracked by Blightfall and then Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. I need to return to it before I forget too much.
I also wish to play more games alongside friends. I have a game of Crusader Kings 2 going with three buddies, and I want to ensure it doesn’t get overlooked, but I also aim to extend invitations for local multiplayer more often. We had a friend stay over during the holidays, and we played a variety of games together; I had forgotten how enjoyable it can be to game in the same vicinity.