I'm a few days late to the typical end of the year reflection posts, but I figured I'd post my Steam Year in Review and do some reflecting/looking forward to 2025 in gaming. I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the end of the year summation posts/features. My Spotify Wrapped actually turned out to be semi-normal this year despite the fact that quite a bit of my use is to put on lo-fi/instrumental background music in my classroom. I know that many parents typically gripe that their Spotify Wrapped is not a good reflection because their kids like to listen to Disney songs on loop. No one else uses my Steam account, so it's a true reflection of what I played. Here's the link: Elore_07's Year in Review.
My #1 was a tie between the amazing Against the Storm (a strategy game with some new/intriguing gameplay features that make it different than your 4X or RTS games--you can read my full review here) and my personal favorite silly management game Two Point Hospital. I generally lean toward RPG's so this was a departure from my general preferences. I guess I just like managing things.
Unsurprisingly, I was below the average of 15% playtime in "new" titles. Yeah, I just don't play a ton of "new" games--that's doubly true of triple A's. I just don't feel like shelling out $70 to play the latest and greatest--if I do truly want to play a new title, I'll wait a few months until the bugs/issues get ironed out and it eventually goes on sale. This is apparently a bit of a trend--the New York Times wrote an article (you can watch the video here) about how uber-graphics is turning into an expensive and unsustainable aspect of gaming. I think most gamers just can't afford all the latest and greatest and that gaming (if your goal is to play the newest titles) is an expensive hobby. Even if you're on console, which is arguably cheaper (*let me stress arguably) than PC gaming, you're going to need a newer console that will probably run you over $500 (plus the cost of games, controllers, etc.). As my titles show, I (and I think many other gamers) would prefer to re-play the games I enjoy. I added the "Phantom Liberty" DLC to Cyberpunk 2077 and spent time re-experiencing/experiencing it; I decided to revisit Fallout 4 (because have I really seen everything it has to offer?); I re-played the Ori games because it had been a minute. Generally, if I am going to buy something "new" it's more likely to be an indie like Balatro. I would agree with the New York Times reporter--I'd rather a game be enjoyable and something that I want to play than it have the most amazing graphics.
Looking Forward to 2025
There's also plenty in gaming to be looking forward to. The biggest hubbub in gaming seems to be around the 2025 release of Grand Theft Auto VI. I'm a GTA fan and have played every game since the PlayStation original (which I only slightly played on my brothers PS). I don't think PC gamers have much to look forward to on the GTA front--Rockstar has said nothing about a PC version at release and their typical pattern is to release on consoles first and then eventually release a PC version. I think we could be in for the long haul on that front. I'll do my best to avoid spoilers and hope that it's not a 5 or 6 year wait.
I was pleasantly surprised by the release of The Witcher IV trailer last month--it sort of seemed to come out of the blue--all I had seen prior to it were vague articles about how it was in full production. There's a 2025 date at the end of the video, but I don't have high hopes there either. CD Projekt has a history of delaying full releases (*I mean...most of the time, when they should, with the glaring exception of Cyberpunk) and making a credible effort at releasing games in a mostly good state. So, I don't expect to see it next year either. There's already been some typical online grousing about the fact that Ciri is the protagonist in the upcoming game. It makes me l-o-l a bit because when The Witcher 3 ended there seemed to be a lot of players stating that they thought the next game should feature Ciri. Sure, there are some legitimate lore/story road bumps to navigate, but her being the next protagonist feels like a good choice to me. We've had three games of Geralt, so it's time for something new (it seems like a lot of games do three games and then switch main characters) and Ciri's abilities and story offers up the chance to give it a bit of new life. I do expect to see CD Projekt sprinkling out more gameplay/trailer tidbits throughout the year to keep us interested.
On the hardware front, the 5000 series cards from NVIDIA will undoubtedly drop at some point. Personally, I'm not in the market for a graphics card that will likely cost well over $1k at the low end and $2k on the high. I'm curious at whether the prices of 4000 series cards will drop though. I've been slightly thinking about a new build and it would be nice to see lower GPU prices (and, I'm mildly contemplating an AMD card--I ran nothing but AMD GPU's prior to my current NVIDIA GPU and had a mostly good experience. I also think ray tracing is a bit overrated and not worth the cost/hype. Plus, it seems like higher VRAM is becoming more important and NVIDIA GPU's are a bit lacking in that department).
One game I am hyped for is Two Point Museum. The Two Point games are a personal favorite of mine and I love the relaxing, silly, but fun to play vibes. There's a March release date and I'm very much looking forward to having it be the top game on my 2025 Year in Review.
Happy New Year to my fellow gamers! I hope you find something you love to play in 2025 whether that's an indie or a fancy schmancy triple A title.
