List of Shame 2026: "Plenty Spendy Sick"

Another new year, another unsuccessful attempt to curb my video game expenditures while so many previous acquisitions sit on my shelf (or, well, a digital void) untouched. I've recently introduced a PS5 to my console assortment—though time will tell if I play anything on it besides Astro Bot and a bunch of PS4 games—so I'm gonna be too maxed out on buyer's remorse for the first few months of 2026 to add anything new, at least. I've increased the scope of the shame list this year in part because certain industry trends have, let's just say, eroded my faith that there'll be a whole lot in the way of big new releases to get excited about.

Normally, I toss together fifty entries across two groups: the former being those backlog items I own and should probably get around to before I drop dead of any number of now competing ailments while the latter being the real important sounding games that I've yet to fork out for, including many from the previous year. This time I've expanded the scope twofold, with a quarter-hundo each dedicated to: [B]acklog items; 2025 [W]ishlist items; pre-2025 [H]istorical wishlist items; and much older games I intend to replay sometime soon for the sake of (though it's really just an excuse) [R]etroAchievements. Any, or ideally all, of these will eventually be converted to [C]s—those I've [C]ompleted since the year began—and placed at the end of the list. Well, that's always the goal, though I seem to get further and further away from accomplishing it every year. I'm sure doubling the target amount will help a great deal.