Let's talk about what's on the queue for me. I've finished up all main story content for Assassin's Creed Odyssey and I'm aiming for the plat, which shouldn't be too difficult since I've gotten the vast majority of the trophies already. For a little variety, I've decided to start up the game's first DLC, Legacy of the First Blade so I can play a good chunk of that in the meantime while I tidy up some of those trophies. I'm not sure how long that is, but the first release is broken up into three separate chapters so I imagine that'll take me some time.
Because I'm well over 100 hours into Odyssey now, I've started to really feel like I'm neglecting other games. In the meantime, new games are coming out all the time that I'd really like to check out. In the interest of chewing through my backlog (and also preserving my wallet), I want to abstain from buying anything new for awhile. This is despite the fact that Mortal Kombat 11 looks fun and so does the recently-released Katana Zero.
I've mentioned before that there are games I've purchased that I haven't really invested any time into at all. I typically don't even add them to my Backloggery unless I've invested enough effort into playing them that I feel confident I'd commit to finishing them. I guess this sort of defeats the purpose of clearing a backlog since it encourages the exact thing I'm trying to avoid: buying games that I don't play.
I think I have this dream of being able to play every new game that comes out so I can be part of the gaming zeitgeist. And that does sound fun, but let's be frank here, I'm not a games journalist and likely never will be. It's okay for me not to be in the know about every hot new release out there. I can still write about games that are older and appeal to me more directly and that's totally fine. I've bought a lot of mainstream games well after release for extremely discounted prices and it's never felt like I was really missing out. On the other hand, I've bought games for $60 that I didn't end up playing until much later, which doesn't feel great.
So, maybe what I'm saying here is that I'm going to commit to not buying any games until I've cleared my backlog. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that I have to complete every single unfinished game, because it's entirely possible I'll run into some I just legitimately do not care for. I'll still count that game as cleared if I've just taken enough steps to be able to fairly make that call. The other exception is that if a game comes out for a series that I really care about, I'm still going to buy it. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is still getting purchased on release day, for instance.
Do I own any games that I haven't played at all? I'm not sure I do, actually. There are games that I've played very little of, but I typically play everything shortly after I buy it, even if I'm not going to immediately commit to it. On my PS4, I have a folder of games sorted by current priority. Because it's the main game I'm playing right now, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is at the beginning of the list, followed by Bloodborne, Dishonored, and Yakuza 0. I really wanted to give Bloodborne another try after initially quitting out of frustration. I really want to understand that type of gameplay more because I've repeatedly attempted both Bloodborne and Dark Souls without much luck. I'm having a much better experience this time so far, so I'm going to try my best to stick with it.
Although I don't technically own Dishonored myself because it's linked to my girlfriend's PS4, I'm still counting it as part of my backlog because it's a game I've started and invested some time into. I wanted to try it initially because it came highly recommended from her and I knew it wasn't going to be yet another 100-hour open-world game. I also really like stealth and want to play more first-person games in general. I'm enjoying it so far and will commit to it full time once I finish Bloodorne. More likely, I'll finish it while playing Bloodborne during the breaks I take from that game due to its immensely frustrating difficulty.
Yakuza 0 is another in the long-running Japanese series of brawlers. I loved Yakuza Kiwami and reportedly 0 is even better. I dropped it initially because it was so similar to Kiwami in terms of gameplay that I wasn't ready to commit to it at the time. Some time has passed now and I really want to jump back in. There's every possibility this will take the place of Dishonored after I'm done with it when I'm taking those previously mentioned Bloodborne frustration breaks.
Those are my "short-term" plans, but I have a lot more games I still need to finish. I think my backlog is much more manageable than a lot of people because I do really prefer to finish the games I start, but because of that, the time investment needed to get through it does seem less surmountable. The first game that pops out at me is Tomb Raider, which I purchased around the same time I was playing Uncharted and The Last of Us. I've mentioned before that I make a lot of connections, so when I was playing Uncharted, I couldn't help but think that Tomb Raider's gameplay might feel similar. I also know that Horizon Zero Dawn was influenced in some ways by the rebooted series, so I wanted to experience that for the context.
There's also Nioh, which I purchased for full price around release day because previews had made it look incredible. I tried it and was floored by the game's preposterous difficulty and because I still hadn't accustomed myself to Souls style combat, I felt ill prepared to tackle it. If I can manage to clear Bloodborne, maybe I'll be in a better spot. Another game that I'm unsure even counts here is Nier Automata, which I have technically finished. However, I've only finished the game one time and received the first ending and I've been told by multiple people that the game only really crystallizes after you've played through the game a few times. The time investment and repetition inherent to that approach really turned me off so I haven't returned to it since.
In conclusion, games are fun and I'm excited to get back to some games that I've neglected. We'll see how well I stick to that goal.
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