tphbrok.me

Choose your forever game

I was born in 1995, which means I spent a good chunk of time during my childhood playing games like GTA San Andreas and most games of the Pokémon franchise. A little later, I was introduced to similar open-world games like RuneScape (which has now become 'Old School RuneScape', which has made me feel very old) and MapleStory. Something about these open-world games was enthralling to me. To the main characters of these games, the tiny world that digitally fit in the palm of my hand was their entire world. And then there was I, controlling their every move from a world much bigger than theirs.

Being an adult with a child in 2026 doesn't provide that same perspective on games anymore. The wonder I felt as a kid playing a new game just isn't there anymore. I need more than a couple of hands to count the amount of games I bought, started, and left unfinished in the past 5-10 years, which just didn't happen when I was a kid. Shifting priorities and little left-over time are likely the reasons, which I think every similarly aged new parent can agree with. And besides that, which gaming adult has the time and patience (and probably motor skills) to learn new game mechanics and controls every few months? I surely don't!

Moreover, games are different nowadays. I know it takes some time for games to reach 'legacy status', like GTA San Andreas and Old School RuneScape have, but there are plenty of games that lost popularity as quickly as they gained, whereas the legacy ones never went away. If you browse any streaming platform, you'll see tons of mentions of old GTA or Pokémon titles still being played and vigourously watched. But when was the last time someone mentioned some random decade-old Call of Duty title still being considered 'THE game'? Or some arbitrary Need for Speed title released in the same decade?

What I consider to be a solution to my breed of gamers is choosing a forever game and sticking with it. I've seen this trend pop up on YouTube lately where gamers start their 'forever world' in Minecraft, with the intention of never ever creating a new world again. A good portion of these creators probably only do so because of how baity it sounds, but I do find this notion interesting.

But, but... how do I choose my forever game? And what about new cool games coming out in the future?

Choosing your forever game is probably quite easy for almost everyone. It's the same as being asked (by yourself or someone else) to make a decision on something, and more often than not, the answer pops into your head immediately. That's your gut speaking, and with choosing your forever game, I'd recommend trusting it. It doesn't need to be a single game (I personally have two forever games that I switch between), and it can even be a franchise, like only playing Assassin's Creed or FIFA.

And finally, if you're worried about missing out on cool new games coming out in the future, maybe playing a forever game isn't suited for you. Then again, you're (probably) an adult, and you get to make your own decisions.

Long story short, it's okay to not want to play the latest shiny new game, and to just stick to a handful of existing games or franchises. Do you really think the year 2030 will bring us a game that'll knock all of your current favourites and your forever game(s) out of the park? Probably not.