Last year, I set myself a challenge: to play a game that I’ve never played before from my Steam Backlog every month. And I succeeded… sort of! I tried games and genres that I’ve never played before. But what did I learn from it? And would I recommend it?
Year of Gaming 2025
I’ve bought a lot of games over the years. When a game that I’m vaguely interested in pops up at an 80% discount in a Steam sale (or is free on the Epic Store), I’d be crazy not to buy it, right? And I’m sure I’ll get around to playing them eventually, right? Right!?
Well, this year, I finally decided that it was time to get around to it. I pretty much banned myself from buying any new games and set myself a challenge: each month, I would start a new game from my to-do list. I would play that game as much as I could, until I either finished it or ran out of time, then write up my thoughts by the end of the month before moving on to the next one.
The games I played were:
- January – Star Trek: Resurgence
- February – Viewfinder
- March – Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)
- April – Streets of Rage 4
- May – Marvel’s Midnight Suns
- June – Hi-fi Rush
- July – Demo Roundup*
- August – Hardspace Shipbreaker
- September – Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
- October – Tales of Kenzera: Zau
- November – Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock
- December – Deliver Us Mars
* – I couldn’t get into the game I was supposed to be playing that month, but I got to play some fun demos instead.
I also did a second demo roundup during Steam’s Next Fest in October.
Follow Up
There were a few that I wasn’t able to complete during the month, so I ended up writing first-impressions posts. But I did go on to complete two of those games:
Midnight Suns
I carried on playing Midnight Suns through June and July, and even bought all of the DLC when the bundle was on sale. I managed to complete the main game, and I enjoyed it. The story and characters are interesting, and even Deadpool is not as annoying as he could have been! The gameplay might have gotten a little stale towards the end, but the extra enemies and mission types from the DLC helped keep things varied.
After being initially unsure about this game, I can highly recommend it to tactics fans and Marvel fans.
Hi-Fi Rush
Again, I carried on dipping in and out of this game over the following months. I completed it and even had a play around with some of the endgame content. As I said in the review, it’s an enjoyable, well-crafted game with an amazing soundtrack.
I’m glad to see that the rights to the game have reverted to the original developer, under new publisher Krafton. I’m still angry at Microsoft and Bethesda for the way they treated Tango Gameworks, but I have no qualms recommending this game wholeheartedly, now that the game is back in their hands!
Reflections
Arguably, I didn’t complete the challenge. You could say that I didn’t give The Ascent a fair chance, and that reviewing three demos instead was a cop out. But I did play a whole load of new games, which was ultimately the point, and I published a blog post every month, so I’m counting it as a win!
I also learned something from this. I didn’t just play games from my backlog, but I pushed myself to play games and genres that I wouldn’t normally play. And the main lesson is… somewhat anticlimactically… that there’s a reason that I don’t normally play these sorts of games! But that’s OK. I’ve learned a bit more about myself, and maybe I’ll think about it a bit more carefully before I bulk buy a load of heavily discounted games in future sales. Everyone is different, after all! Not every game engaged or absorbed me, but I would say that around half of them did, which isn’t bad going!
Final Thoughts
So, all-in-all, I’m glad I did the challenge, and I feel like my life is richer for it. I’ve discovered some new favourites and cleared some of my backlog.
I’ve still got more than a dozen games installed and on my to-do list. But I’ve got a lot coming up this year, so I probably won’t force myself to do anything. But I hope I can continue to try out some things I’ve been missing out on and maybe clear a few more of that to-do list!
(Or, more realistically, I will probably start Baldur’s Gate 3, and that’ll swallow up all my free time instead!)
So that’s it from the challenge for now. It was fun, and I might do it again when things aren’t so busy! Check out my other Game Reviews and Gaming-related rants. Thanks for reading. Take care of yourselves!