Gaming plans for 2021

I usually console game, but I recently got back into PC gaming. This year has been pretty lame for gaming when looking at AAA games since Cyberpunk is so late in the year and most the other titles didn't deliver, so playing games off the beaten path on PC like GTFO, Star Citizen, Hades, etc. has been cool. I probably won't go PS5 until GoW comes out. For Series X, it needs to prove it's more powerful than my PC to get my interest.

I'm guessing a little bit less. First year after a console launch is generally pretty dry. I've been beating around 20-30 games a year and I can't really see too much in 2021 that would have me hit that mark.

2020 has been an amazing year for games, I think. You got huge games like Doom: Eternal, small games like Bloodstained 2, and everything in between. Plus since we've been stuck inside more, it's had me dabbling in more than usual.

So first half of the year will be a lot of catch up on this year's games. Then the back half will have Halo. And that's pretty much the plan right now. Which is fine, as the past few years have been jam-packed with incredible stuff. I could use a light year.

I don't yet know if I'm looking to play more, less, backlog only, or whatever else. The actual answer for me is that I just want to finish games that I start and play them consistently until complete.

I'm not going to hold hard and fast to that rule - if I can't stand a game, I will stop playing - but I have a whole lot of half-finished games I'd like to either actually finish or bin permanently.

Hopefully I will have a job next year, which would prevent me from beating as many games as I have this year. I'm at least going to try and stay focused on the games I'm playing at the moment and not on the games coming out in the future, which is something I've done in the past.

Best of luck on your quitting. I'm sure it will at least save you some money.

I'd like to get a PS5 at some point. That's probably the only "must have" for next year for me.

Other than that I hope to play less because I hope things open up and Covid gets controlled, letting me spend more time out of the house doing other things. I frankly hope to never play as much as I did this year ever again for that reason.

In terms of the mix of games, old and new, whatever, I don't have hard plans. I will continue to play both I suspect. I had a great time with old games and new games this year. I had fun marathoning stuff I knew I would like, such as Ratchet & Clank, playing hot new releases like Ghost of Tsushima, and trying stuff that was outside my normal comfort zone like Paper Mario: The Origami King. I am happy to play whatever appeals to me next and just enjoy gaming when I want to, but I'd like to have a broader base of hobbies, as I have in the past.

I’m actually the one person who answered that I’m quitting. I’m about to hit my forties and I have a wife and two kids. I’ve enjoyed my time gaming but for the past few years I have no time, and when I do I feel like I’d rather be doing something else. Cyberpunk is the last game coming up that I’m really interested in playing. Since the new consoles are out, it just seems like a good time to go ahead and finish out this hobby.

At age fifty, I have now switched to shorter and simpler games. That really my revelation for this year, I just want smaller shoter more compact experiences. I think I have played more android games in the last two months then I played in the prior nine. Quick small games are what I like now. I still want to get through God of War, Kawami II, and a few other big games I have in teh backlog. But I think next year, will be all about playing some smaller games. I might even put off buying a new console, which is something I had not thought I would do back in October.

My only ambition is to land a PS5, preferably in time for Gran Turismo 7. I've put a hole in my backlog and I'm looking to keep that up.

For me I'm considering investing in my PC. Though the PS5 seems cool I'm unlikely to get one any time soon. I'm ultimately thinking that PC might be the way to go into 2021.

For me the biggest constraints for gaming in the past few years have been having kids and this pandemic, which in combination this year meant I actually had less time to play games since juggling a job and childcare left very little time. Also in the Spring when the lockdown and stress started I found myself going to watching TV more since it's an easier investment mentally. So my expectation is that I'll have more time to play games. I also have a son that turns 4 next year which means he's starting to get into an age where we can try playing simple games together.

I do find it amusing though when people announce they are going to quit gaming. I understand the notion of not being interested in them or preferring to spend time and energy on other hobbies, but I don't imagine people say things like that for listening to music or watching TV. "As a TVer I am going on this forum to announce I am quitting TV. Now that I have reached the age of X I am quitting listening to music." Not trying to offend anybody, and I understand that some types of games can be more time-intensive than watching a 30 min TV show, .....though it doesn't have to be. I think the older I get the more it irks me about how people put this weird identity into playing video games vs other hobbies that involve sitting and looking at screens. :shrug:

@judoboy: Maybe i should have changed my poll to "How many years of gaming did you compress into 2020?" 1 Year, 3 Years, 5 years, or 10 Years, or More? My answer would be about 10 years. I put 100 hours into Persona 5 despite hating it. I chugged through multiple games. I stayed away from multiplayer because god forbid i'd have to deal with someone with a mic. I at most beat 3 or 4 games a year. I hadn't had the time or income and I'm glad i made the smart choice of not playing the Master Chief collection, Mass Effect, JRPGs, or "specializing" in Overwatch or Rainbow. I actually did something meaningful with my life. All my 2020 gaming was a poor substitute with what i'd rather be doing. Gaming used to be an "i'm also doing" activity but as the primary thing the vapidness and sameness of all these games that chase the same 3D simalcrum of real life means not only are we paying for skins in microtransactions all of our games are just "skins." It's all homogenized, look at the combat of AC:Valhalla cribbing Dark Souls. I'm not about caring anymore. I traded in a couple of games at a local gameshop and got about 30 blu-rays for movies that i hadn't seen for years. There's more relatable conversations and interesting and thought provoking going on in the DVD commentary of Despicable me than anything i'll get out of Cyberpunk 2077. It shouldn't take 7 years to say something. And what are they going to ultimately say? Robots are people too so what is humanity? I don't need to go on a dozen fetch quests to "learn" that.

I think i used to come to the internet because you might walk away with a new friend to reconcile with and *creek* (AOL door opening sound) means you can catch up. The one way conversation of podcasts is enough for me and i come online to workshop the conversations i might have in the off chance that anybody in my actual waking life cares about videogames, outside of the gamestop employee, they dont. Complaining about complaining well give your keyboard keys a rest. It wouldn't surprise me if Abby ultimately graduated from gaming. There's not much here.

@senorsucks2suck: fair enough, in truth my response was coming from seeing multiple threads lately around this topic. I hope you find what you're looking for, man. I truly do. Find some other ways to spend your time. Get some distance from the gaming industry. We're all just flying in space on this molten rock in a fathomless universe for about ~80 years so might as well do things that make you happy with that time. I get why people can get sucked into the culture and feel like they gotta keep up with the gaming zeitgeist, play that latest big game, finish their backlogs (which always sounds like a drudgery work task to me) etc... Games should serve us. Get busy having fun with video games or get busy doing something else.

I hope more. I've mostly played CoD this past year since picking it up in season 3 and Animal Crossing had me hooked at the start of Lockdown for a solid month but not many games really grabbed me but I appreciate smaller games just so I can feel some sense that I actually beat something.

If we're still going to be under lockdown, then I imagine I will be playing a ton of games next year. I've played about 30+ games this year and have a huge backlog to go through, so this is the perfect time I suppose.

Probably around the same as this year, by which I mean I'll get to the 5 or 6 new releases that I really want to play and be mulling around my backlog the rest of the time.

I suspect I'll still spend a lot of time messing around with Fuser, which is an absolute standout from this year, though probably not the game part and more just messing around in Freestyle and putting on dumb concerts for friends as we chat.

And if Final Fantasy XIV manages to keep to their schedule and put out the next expansion in 2021 then that'll be a chunk of my time dedicated to that.

Finish my backlog. I don’t see myself investing in a PS5 or Xbox Series X anytime soon, until 2022 at the earliest. I’m not worried either because I have a lot of cool stuff to play. By the time I’m caught up, both new systems will be considerably cheaper and have a big library to choose from. Cyberpunk really put the nail in the coffin for buying any new releases for a old console.