Gaming Resolutions to Challenge Yourself With In 2020

When I think of the purpose of new year resolutions, ultimately, they’re to better yourself. Not necessarily for the sake of productivity, they push you toward who you want to be. That’s what makes them so difficult too. The resolutions we assign ourselves are tasks we actually care about, making it so much easier to backslide. It’s easy to give yourself an insane to-do list, but you won’t succeed if you set the bar unrealistically.

Were not talking about normal resolutions, though. There are many different resolutions to speak about as gamers. Every year more and more games are released. On top of this, it’s the new decade of gaming with next-gen consoles coming. It’s time to buckle down and get to work. I’ve created a list of reasonable resolutions to have some fun and stay on top of what’s to come. Here’s a list of gaming resolutions to challenge yourself within 2020!

Play Older Titles

Source: Polygon

This is actually my personal number one resolution for 2020. If you look at Devil May Cry V and compare it to the earlier titles in the franchise, obviously, it looks graphically incredible compared to Devil May Cry 4 (DMC4). There is only a decade time difference in between. Not only that, DMC4 looked great for its time! Newer generations will probably have no interest in playing early 2000’s games, let alone ‘90s games. Masterpieces like Final Fantasy 6 will always be remembered, but very few will ever play it in the future. It would be hard to jump into that if you grew up with hyperrealism in games. This is only going to get harder and harder. There are so many older games I’ve always wanted to experience. Ten years from now, it’s highly improbable I’ll still have this urge to check them out. This will most likely be the last decade to truly enjoy the masterpieces we missed before they become the legends they are. So let’s break out those PlayStations and Super Nintendos!

Source: League of Legends

Here’s a pretty cliche new year’s resolution. Cliche because it works for everything, especially gaming. You know how you’ve always wanted to play that one game sitting in your library, but instead, you click another round on the game you play every day. Fortnite, League of Legends, Overwatch, etc. Then when you finally finish, somehow, your hair got longer. Not just these, I have a lot of friends that play a single-player story game, get deep into the lore, and end up replaying that one title endlessly. Thankfully, this is probably the only resolution on this list I’m good at, in fact, I probably have the opposite problem. Though I still know the feeling, I also know that sweet feeling of finding the next addiction. Look around, check out new genres!

Get a Platinum

Source: GamesRadar

Who doesn’t love seeing that one final achievement pop? Even if you don’t really care about achievements, you can’t say they’re not satisfying at all. It’s the definition of overcoming a challenge literally pre-set for you. Sure, some are ridiculous, like beating a game on six different difficulties in under a small time frame. Some people pull it off, but us sane people will simply move on to the next. It doesn’t have to be every game, just choose some you think you would want to 100%. Also, it’s a great way of showing your love to the developers. Every year I try to challenge myself to get at least one full completion, whether it be on Steam, PlayStation, or Xbox.

Clean Up Your Trash

Source: VentureBeat

Every week Epic Games gives out a free game. PlayStation Plus and Xbox Games with Gold has the same service monthly. Gamepass also has over a hundred games at all times. Every time a Steam sale rolls around, I usually pick up a few games. These are just some of the ways I’ve been getting games by convenience for the last decade, not counting my regular purchasing of games through the years. My point is, we as gamers are living in the golden age of attaining video games. This leads to libraries of hundreds and hundreds of titles; most we’ll probably not end up playing. So this resolution is about accepting this fact and organizing your shelves. Put some games into folders, what you actually want to play, and those you probably won’t. Maybe make a schedule or order. I have so many different games on random platforms that I used a google doc to make a master list.

Have Some Patience

You know when you want to play a pretty pricey game but don’t want to spend that much money? It’s time to wait for a sale. The world of tech is too large not to have anything else you want to play. Play something you’ve been meaning to or grab a cheaper second choice until a sale comes around. Or if you’re like me, say goodbye to food for a week and buy it anyway.

Many games announced for 2020 will not be released until the latter half of the year. If you get that insatiable craving of not being able to wait, look up the developer and play one of their past games. Also, enjoy when you see a delay, it means a developer chose to polish their game instead of rush it out. There are a lot of examples that I could use for this category because the hardest part about being a nerd is waiting. This is more of a reflection to note about rather than a resolution, but it works.

Backlog

Source: Kotaku

Of course, the ultimate test of time, getting through those backlogs. I know many who have given up on even attempting. As you go back to play the games you missed, more will release; it’s inevitable. Every person who plays video games has some sort of backlog. To not have one is to say your not interested in anything. To keep this a plausible resolution, I’ve decided to get through at least one backlogged game a month for the whole year. This way, I can play whatever’s released and slowly clear up this unending list. Be ready for an update article in 2030 detailing my failure.

There are many more ways I want to challenge myself this year, but these are the ones I’m going to force myself to follow. I’m excited to see what the year holds for us! Tell us if you will add any of these to your resolutions or are already attempting them! Let us know what yours are in the comments below!

Feel free to check out some of our other articles like our Witcher review. As always, thanks for reading Culture of Gaming!