Next year I actually want more games willing to waste my time

GamesNext year I actually want more games willing to waste my timeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: ConcernedApe)

Stardew Valley player character standing outside of a green farm house with a heart over her head. Nearby, there�s a black and white dog, and the farm is full of flowers and greenery.

One of the best things I did in a game this year was spend ten minutes riding an oxcart from one city to another in Dragon’s Dogma 2 because its fast travel system is so limited (intentionally) as to functionally not exist. The second best thing was turning off the wayfinding settings, quest log, and minimap in Dragon Age: The Veilguard so I could spend a little time getting lost in its cities.

Those experiences aren’t the norm when most games want to make sure I can fast travel, complete quests, and manage my inventory nearly without conscious thought. I love when games waste my time, just a little bit, and I hope that 2025 brings me more games that are slightly inconvenient.

I’m not here to say that accessibility settings are bad (they aren’t) or that easy modes are ruining games (they also aren’t), but I am one of those curmudgeons who thinks we’re better off on the whole without minimaps and I have a special fondness for the mundanity of manually organizing items in my array of storage chests in every crafting survival game.

(Image credit: Capcom)

The Arisen sitting on a bench

The popular demand is that games should “respect the player’s time,” but anything can be taken too far: A game that’s 100% optimized for time respecting would automatically quit to desktop instead of letting me spend an hour doing menial daily quests. When games get so frictionless that clicking buttons solves all the problems for me, I check out. My live service game brain fog has conditioned me to click on those “new item” red dots in any interface without experiencing any satisfaction and now all my real joy comes from every little nod towards realism that breaks through that optimization malaise.

I’m always thrilled when a game doesn’t give me a hand quest log entry for the loose ends of every single one of its mysteries and instead hands me a set of custom map markers and a place to jot down notes of my own. Procedurally generated murder mystery gameShadows of Doubtwas particularly great at that. Sometimes clues and evidence are immediately obvious like fingerprints at a murder scene but other times I have to make a custom note on my conspiracy board noting down a name or address until I can find out where it fits into the big picture. The moment when I can finally draw a real piece of red string between my disparate jotted notes is more thrilling than a shootout with a perp.

(Image credit: ColePowered Games, Fireshine Games)

Shadows of Doubt case board with clues and red string pinned together

NPC schedules in life sims are another favourite of mine. Knowing just where to intercept a character to deliver them a gift gives me a warm fuzzy feeling harkening back to the first time I ever kept a game journal tracking the residents of Clock Town in Majora’s Mask.

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Fields of Mistria characters stand outside the general store in autumn

Less egregious but also disappointing was its gifting system. In past Dragon Age games there were all sorts of gift items to give your companions—some with obvious recipients and others less so—but in The Veilguard there’s only one gift per team member to give and a quest log entry that won’t allow you to give it to the wrong person. I sort of missed having to look up a gift guide.

I hope next year, even as some studios continue shaving the rough edges off their action-RPG mush and AI further invades, that some games will still be willing to waste my time.

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Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes a run at improving parkour, as Ubisoft strives to make the system less ‘like a gas pedal’Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11

Image for Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes a run at improving parkour, as Ubisoft strives to make the system less ‘like a gas pedal’

Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes a run at improving parkour, as Ubisoft strives to make the system less ‘like a gas pedal’

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