New Year Gaming Resolution

Now that 2025 is here the classic conversation of New Year resolutions constantly come up. Ranging from this year will be the year that you will finally have the upper body strength of Kratos, or increase your social levels like Joker, we all have aims for this next year that we are trying to achieve. What about for gaming though? That is why I have written my New Year Gaming Resolutions, something where I can look back at the end of the year and see if I achieved or failed my gaming plans for 2025.

RESOLUTION 1 - FINISH EVERY TOMB RAIDER GAME

This is something I have wanted to do for a long time. Tomb Raider: Chronicles was the first video game I truly remember playing so I really connect my love of video games to Tomb Raider. My favourite genre is story adventure games and my favourite game of all time is Uncharted 2 so I still feel that the Tomb Raiders games have a heavy influence on the games I like. I have played a lot of the tomb raiders games (my favourite at the moment probably being legend on the psp) but I am still missing a few, most notibly 2 and 3. Now that the first set of remastered versions are released and next set being released in Febrauary it really is the perfect time to get back into the franchise. So the plan is to play and finish (not 100%, im not that kind of gamer) every Tomb Raider in release order. I am really excited for it.

RESOLUTION 2 - STAY DEDICATED TO A LIVE SERVICE / MMO GAME

This may be a weird one for most people but I do get really jealous when my friends talk about their addiction to live service games. A lot of my friends are into Genshin Impact and while I was addicted for a few months, I eventually dropped and forgot the game. Now everytime I speak to them they are always preparing for a big event or expansion and teaming up to help level up for it. I cant help but feel like I'm missing out because of this. I have played many MMO and Gatcha games and while I deeply love games like FF14, I never feel like I will catch up enough to be excited for new updates. That is why this year I want to find and truly invest into an MMO / live service game and expreience all the things I feel like I am missing out on. I am addicted to POE2 at the moment but not sure if the seasonal style is what I am looking for, we will see.

RESOLUTION 3 - FINISH A CASTLEVANIA STYLE GAME

I have downloaded and deleted this sort of style game from my console and pc hundreds of times without playing it. I always like the visual style of these games but I just can't seem to get around to playing them. Last year I finally tried playing any sort of metroidvania when I played Hollow Knight and it is easily one of my favourite games now, I am hoping to have a similar enouncter with a Castlevania style game. Now I say castlevania style as currently Bloodstained is available on gamepass and apparently that is the spiritual successor of Castlevania so I will count that if I play it. Not a hard resolution but enjoyable.

RESOLUTION 4 - HAVE MORE REALISTIC TIME TO PLAY SCALE

This is something that happens with everyone when getting older. As I am leaning a lot more closer to my 30s than 20s now, you find the time to play games decreases. I love gaming and would be more than happy to spend a whole weekend just on my sofa playing online or an epic single player expierence, but I also like socializing, spending time with my friends and family, and going to the beer garden during the summer. With the mixture of that and then normal adult things such as food shopping, exercising and other commitments, time for gaming becomes less and less. However while my time becomes less, the amount of time to finish a game becomes more with most games being open world 50+ hours beasts to finish. I am single and have no young family of my own and I already find these games exhausting so I can imagine what a husband and dad feels like when seeing these games. Thats why this year I am not going to keep buying these type of games and more keep playing the few I have and try more shorter story experiences instead. Basically only 1-2 JRPG this year instead of buying 5.

RESOLUTION 5 - MAKE A GAMING MUSIC SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

This one is easy. One of my favourite things about gaming is it's music. Music just heightens everything about gaming and makes it better, Halo 3 when One Final Effort starts playing, basically the whole Gris soundtrack, Guardians Of The Galaxy when your ultimate ability triggers a fun song during a fight, Undertale absolutely legendary MEGALOVANIA, Basically music makes games better. Thats why I want to make a true video game music playlist of all great songs that I can enjoy. Easy and fun resolution.

So that's my resolutions for 2025. The big one is the Tomb Raider franchise but at least each game is not 100 hours long. I know resolution 2 and 4 kind of contradict each other but I am willing to spend time on a MMO that I can leave for a week or two and come back where as with a 60+ hour story game I would be totally lost. 

Anyway let me know what your resolutions for 2025 are and most importantly always enjoy playing!