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New Year’s gaming resolutions we’re definitely going to stick to

Like the frost on the cars and ground this morning – and the inside of my single-glazed windows in my flat! – a new year has arrived. It’s a time to take stock and look ahead and think what might be, and then run back into bed and hide under the duvet covers and refuse to come out. It’s a time to plan and to begin aspirational journals you’ll put down and forget about and never find again. A time to tackle the gaming backlog you keep talking about, fully in the knowledge you’ll probably double it this year. It’s fresh-slate time, promise time, all done in the hope you’ll look back next year and discover you did something you intended to do. So, what do you want to do, from a gaming perspective?

Here, we look back at our gaming resolutions from last year to see how we did, and then we set some anew. Are you brave enough to commit yours to writing?

Jessica

I wanted to pay more attention to indie games last year, and while I certainly played more of them than I did in 2023, I apparently had a secret ambition to start more massive RPGs than ever before. It was hard to squeeze in time for those indie horrors and puzzlers when games like Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Metaphor: Refantazio, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard were all stealing 100-hour playtimes from me.

13 horror games we’re looking forward to being scared by this year.Watch on YouTube

This year, I want to dial back the inventory management and take a bit of a breather, immersing myself in more peaceful landscapes. Spending so much time exploring Infinity Nikki‘s cutesy, fairytale-esque world has made me realise that whether it’s a four-hour indie, or another 100-hour monstrosity, the time I spend feeling relaxed in one game is far more valuable than trying to work my way through a list – even if I am still looking forward to playing those games eventually.

Is this my way of giving myself a pass to just play Infinity Nikki this year? Maybe. But as long as it keeps its silly, mellow vibes that keep me feeling happy, I don’t really mind if I’m missing out on the latest Game of the Year contender.

Tom

My new year’s resolution is to become less of a completionist. I think it’s becoming a problem. When I play games, I like to finish everything I can before moving on to the next area. I’m playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle right now, for example, and I’m really keen to get out of the Vatican and back to the jungles and deserts that await. But I can’t. Something inside me is making me hunt down photos of cats, and finish side quests and eat all of the biscotti I can get before I go. And that’s great – it’s a sign I’m enjoying a game that I want to be completionist – but the longer I linger, the more frustrating it can get that I’m not somewhere else already.

As I look to February and a likely 100 hours sneaking around feudal Japan in Assassin’s Creed Shadows – a game that will probably be stuffed to the brim with distractions and collectibles, and whatever the feudal Japanese equivalent of biscotti is – it’s a resolution worth making, I think. Ignore your bulging quest log, stop scouring for that last little thing. It’s time to move on and get to more of the good stuff.

Marie

My resolution for last year was to complete the main story of at least three games I’ve not completed yet. Did I reach that goal? Technically no I didn’t, but I’ll give myself credit for coming close with two stories completed.

This year I’ll be less strict, and less ambitious, with my resolution. I’d like to find myself returning to games that have previously brought me joy, specifically time-management or life simulators like The Sims 4. I spend most of my time on consoles with bigger games, mainly live services and RPGs, so it’d be nice to get back to the kind of PC gaming I used to love in games like The Sims and Rollercoaster Tycoon. There’s something I find infinitely relaxing about managing the smaller details in those games (my parks are usually free with very expensive merchandise…).

Does this count as a resolution if it’s so vague? I’d like to think so.

Chris

This year I’d like to play more games with other people. Specifically with my friends (my partner couldn’t give two hoots about gaming and frankly I love that – it’s nice to have our own hobbies!). But as my old group of friends has got older and busier and more spread out, gaming has been the best way to keep in touch with them. I fell out of the habit a bit in 2024 with all the usual, cloying tendrils of modern life getting in the way. This year, I’m going to reserve a little window of time, even if it’s every other week, to check in with mates and play something together. That something will probably be one of the games we’ve been playing together, over and over, since we were spotty little teenagers, rather than anything new or exciting. But that’s kind of the point.

Victoria

Last year I resolved to play The Sims more honestly, with no cheats greasing my hypothetical wheels to the top. Did I manage it? Well, not exactly. I tried. Hand on heart I really did. But the allure of spamming that money code is just too dang strong. I like being rich in The Sims, with all the hot tubs and space rockets that come with it. I don’t like waiting for my characters to come home from work, for them to then watch shows on a crap TV which is always at risk of breaking. So while things started off well enough, I soon gave into temptation and deployed the motherlode code. I have no regrets.

Nine open world games we’re excited about that are coming in 2025.Watch on YouTube

As for this year, I am actually still a tad undecided. Since starting at Eurogamer, I have broadened my video game horizons tenfold, and in the last couple of years I have played more indies and other games than I ever would have. Last year, my personal Game of the Year was actually I Am Your Beast, and there is no way I would have given it even a glance a few years ago. But I absolutely loved it.

So I guess I’ll do a similar thing again: resolve to keep trying games that may not initially sound like my cup of tea. Perhaps like last year, I will be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Katharine

I made a resolution last year to finally play GTA 5. Did I play GTA 5 last year? Did I heck. There’s probably not much point in trying to do so now ahead of GTA 6 coming out if I’m being honest, but the GTA series as a whole has always been a bit of a blindspot for me, as have Rockstar games more generally. I just never quite have the time to dedicate myself to them properly, you know!? Maybe I’ll resolve to finally play Red Dead Redemption 2 instead this year – the setting and tone of it is much more appealing to me as a concept than GTA, and I’ve always admired the horses in it as well. Honestly, nobody does horses quite like RDR2 does.

Bertie

I did it; I can’t believe I actually stuck to a resolution. Last year I said I’d start streaming and I did. I joined a Dungeons & Dragons group called Chaotic Questers and began streaming roughly once a week on Twitch. We even went to a castle on the Scottish border for a weekend, to record there, which was fun, especially when our car broke down for good on the way back. It’s been quite an adventure getting to know and understand the world of streaming from the inside, and it has increased my respect tenfold for the people who do it. Standing beside the M6 near a gang of cows – they were threatening, actually – while waiting for the RAC to appear was quite an experience too.

Oh, and while I didn’t manage to start my own personal video game stream, my partner did, so that’s probably worth half a point? I also didn’t manage to run a tabletop RPG, though D&D formed a central part of my gaming year. I’m still reading TTRPG books, though, and tinkering away on my own campaign, so I came close. Another half-point?

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This year, I’m being more specific. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it but I’ve never properly played through a From Software game. I’ve dabbled in them – in Demon’s Souls (the original!) and Dark Souls and Bloodborne and Elden Ring – but I’ve never persevered for fear of being too aggravated by a game late at night. But I realise – Path of Exile 2 helped me realise – that I actually relish a combat challenge, so this year I’m seeking to change things. I promise to beat five bosses in Elden Ring, and you can hold me to that. And I’m phrasing it that way so I don’t baulk at the prospect of beating the entire game, though that is my eventual goal, of course. I’m determined to do this – so determined I’m going to start tonight before my determination wanders, which it has an annoying habit of doing.

That’s it. Nice and simple. Beyond that, I’m going to challenge myself to play games in genres I don’t normally, but that’s a much more vague thing to pin down.

Lottie

I’ve been playing RuneScape for more than half my life, which makes it my most successful relationship outside of my family. Considering this, you’d expect I’d have long maxed out my character’s levels. Well this isn’t the case. See, I’ve been sitting at Level 88 Herblore for the last seven years. In fact I don’t think I’ve gained more than 10,000 XP in the skill during this time.

The issue is I just detest training Herblore. Outside of mini-games, the process is so tedious. Get herb, clean herb (yes, you have to clean it first), get second ingredient, buy vials, fill vials with water, put ingredients in, most likely empty vials so you can do the process over and over again. It just takes forever.

Yet, that Level 88 has been burning a hole in my eyes over the past year so, in the grand year of 2025, I shall attempt to reach Level 89 Herblore despite the pain. (And no. I won’t use XP lamps. Don’t bring such nonsense into my house.)

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Bizarre GTA 6 leak appears to come from inside Rockstar’s own office

Images that look to have been taken inside Rockstar’s San Diego office have been posted online, showing a computer screen with what appears to be GTA 6 running. As a video game leak, the purported image of GTA 6 itself is essentially meaningless – it simply shows main character Lucia standing next to a wall and some crates. What’s more, the image appears to date from the summer of 2021, three and a half years ago. What’s unusual here is that the image has been taken within the bowels of Rockstar’s own offices, and posted online by someone who seems happy enough to live with the consequences. The photo and two accompanying video clips, which show a brief glimpse at more of the office surroundings, were first posted to reddit by user JustLovett0 around 17 hours ago. “Someone I am close to took it when they worked at the Rockstar office for a few months,” they wrote of the image, on a post titled “a photo from mid-2021. I think it’s been long enough I can post this.” What’s shown of the office itself looks relatively generic, though it’s clearly the Rockstar San Diego building based on the shape of the windows and frontage that can be seen outside. Desks nearby house PlayStation and Xbox developer kits, one of which is labelled with a code beginning “SAND”, presumably a reference to San Diego. When asked whether their friend was worried about being traced, JustLovett0 wrote: “He is super far from Rockstar now, doesn’t work there or in any related field. I’m not worried but I’ll probably delete the post soon enough. “Hopefully there’s no camera footage from 3.5ish years ago.” The post has since been removed, though has been reuploaded elsewhere on reddit. Eurogamer has contacted Rockstar for comment. Back in September 2022, a teenage hacker from the UK stole an enormous swathe of in-development GTA 6 footage and files. The now-notorious leak remains one of the most prominent in video game history. Its culprit was later arrested, though was ultimately deemed unfit to stand trial.

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Xbox Insiders can now use cloud streaming on their consoles to play “select” owned games

Microsoft is expanding its suite of cloud gaming features by introducing the ability for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream a “select” number of their owned games to Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One consoles, without needing to install them first. It’s available to Xbox Insiders now, and will launch for all users at a later date. Microsoft has been touting the ability to stream owned games since 2019, with the feature initially expected to launch alongside its Xbox Cloud Gaming platform the following year. Unfortunately, it missed that target by quite some margin, and then failed to hit its revised launch of 2022. In the end, it took another two years for the feature to finally arrive, but since November this year, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers have been able to stream their owned games – and not just those available on Game Pass – to a limited number of platforms. Initially, it was only possible to stream games through TVs and via browsers on supported devices such as tablets, smartphones, and Meta Quest headsets. At the time, Microsoft said it would be bringing the feature to Xbox consoles and the Xbox app on Windows, but not until next year. So it’s a pleasant surprise to see that, earlier than expected, the console rollout is now here – albeit only for Xbox Insiders at the moment. Stream Your Own Game trailer.Watch on YouTube Starting today, Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha rings can – provided they also have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription – preview the ability to stream their owned games to Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One consoles. Users that meet both criteria can start exploring the feature by going to My games & apps > Full library > Owned Games on their console, then looking for (or filtering for) the cloud badge on compatible games. After that, it’s simply a case of selecting a game then choosing ‘Play with Cloud Gaming’. Image credit: Xbox The catalogue of supported titles does, however, remain extremely limited, with only around 50 games currently compatible. The good news is it’s a fairly strong line-up, mixing new and old blockbuster titles with acclaimed indie games. Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Outlaws, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Warhammer 4K: Space Marine 2, Life is Strange: Double Exposure, Balatro, Hades, Animal Well, Dredge, Phasmophobia, and The Plucky Squire are some of the more notable games on the list – and Microsoft previously promised its “library of cloud-playable titles will continue to grow, as we work with our partners around the world”. If you’re not already part of the Xbox Insider Program, you can join up by downloading the Xbox Insider Hub for Xbox Series X/S & Xbox One or Windows PC. The full list of games currently compatible with Microsoft’s new cloud gaming feature can be found on its website.

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The world is ending but here’s a side quest – will RPGs ever solve their urgency problem?

Why is it that in a role-playing game where the stakes are usually ‘the end of the world’, the end of the world always has to wait for us to finish our sprawling to-do list first? There’s no way you’ve never encountered this. I came across it most recently in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which, after a thrilling end to Act One, effectively turned to me, the player, and said, hey why don’t you focus on some companion quests now instead, eh? The world was still ending, the danger hadn’t diminished or passed in any way, it’s just the game needed a pace change and for me to see some of the other cool stuff in it.

Egregious though it was, The Veilguard is far from the only BioWare game to have done it – I think, throwing my mind back across a dozen of them, they probably all have. The Reapers are going to destroy the galaxy! But don’t worry you’ve got time to go scan some planets if you want, first. BioWare games are far from the only RPGs to have done it either. In Baldur’s Gate 3, you have a tadpole in your eye for crying out loud, one that you know will turn you into a mind flayer probably pretty soon, and yet still you have time for, well, anything you want to do. In The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, you’re racing to find your daughter-of-sorts Ciri who’s being chased by a menace of legend, yet you’ve got plenty of time to become the bareknuckle boxing champion of the continent, or Gwent champion, if you so wish. This approach is so common in RPGs it’s like dwarves with Scottish accents; a better question to ask would be whether there’s an RPG that doesn’t do it – one that hurries you up instead?

I’m thinking. It’s tricky.

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Pentiment? It doesn’t quite fit the RPG template but it’s one of the only games I can think of that has a sense of passing time, and of either-or choices associated with it – you won’t be able to do everything so you will have to choose. It’s a game in which time feels like time – time that’s as inexorable and immovable as we know it be. Couldn’t a system like that work in a more fully fledged RPG?

I wonder whether anyone else is bothered by it, or whether we’ve become so accustomed to it now we just don’t see it. Perhaps it’s even become part of what we know and expect an RPG to be. What is a role-playing game after all – how do we qualify a game as one? Do we think of them as games we play roles in, to use the purest meaning, or do we think of them in terms of mechanical trappings like side quests and character progression? For me, it’s the latter, slightly ashamed as I am to admit it. But can you imagine an RPG without side quests – would it even be an RPG? It’s a label that’s come to mean certain things, and one of them, for better or worse, is being able to take our time and have the ‘end of world’ wait for us. Some games are reluctant to release us from their grips at all – just think of all the ways live service RPGs make continual demands on our time and attention.

I think you can trace all of this back to Dungeons & Dragons, like so much in RPGs, because it is, after all, the original one. That’s a game that very much revolves around the players – that presents them with a world and tries to guide them around it, but famously usually ends up with players going wildly off course and dungeon masters trying to keep up with them. Are our video game RPGs a legacy of this behaviour – pandering to players?

Is there another way? When, I wonder, was the last time someone sat down and questioned the trappings of an RPG and thought about mixing them up? What if we weren’t given an inexhaustible amount of time to see all areas of a game so we had to more mindfully plot our course through it – wouldn’t that make for more interesting subsequent playthroughs? Wouldn’t hurrying players – because of an impending ‘end of world’ event – help us better understand the urgency of it? Why is it we’ve settled for things the way they are?

Maybe this is their ultimate evolution – that’s a possibility, as bedgrudging as I am to entertain it. After all, one of the allures of RPGs is their being places we can escape to and submerge ourselves in, soak ourselves in, like warm baths, in an effort to forget our worries elsewhere. Adding a new tension to that mix might spoil it. Similarly, I know there’s an allure in wanting to scour a world and do everything in it, and knowing you will be able to – I can’t imagine starting a game knowing I couldn’t. It would feel very weird, but then, maybe that’s because no one’s tried.

What if? That’s all I’m asking. What if we haven’t completely nailed it? Just because we’ve done things this way for a long time doesn’t mean it’s the only way forward. There might be a game being made out there that’s about to come crashing down from proverbial outer space to rewrite the rules and show us that time and urgency can be just as compelling as an endless to-do list. Maybe it already exists and I just don’t know it yet (answers on a postcard in the comments if you do!). But I do know I’m ready for change. I want my time in games to matter again.