A new cycle, new commitments to keep, and, as we discovered upon revistiing last year’s gaming resolutions, new promises to ourselves that we inevitably break. It’s the New Year, and once the fog of celebrations has dissipated, it’s time to start setting goals and thinking about what it is we want to achieve in 2024 (in gaming, of course).

So join the DualShockers crew (Rob, Jack, Jeff, Matty S and Matty OD) as we reveal our worst gaming habits of 2023 that they want to kick, and new practices to put into place that will make us better, smarter, more mindful gamers (and therefore human beings) than we were in the preceding year.

Robert Zak – Lead Features Editor

Resolution: Play at least two new games each week

I can get a little tunnel-visioned in my gaming, and never has that been more apparent than in this year of big blockbuster releases. I get my mitts on a Baldur’s Gate 3 or an Alan Wake 2, and that’s all I can talk and think about for weeks. Meanwhile, the world keeps turning, cool new games keep popping up, but I keep missing out on them.

Weirdly, my resolution this year is kinda addressing a successful resolution from last year (which was to play more triple-A games). I need to balance that out, and make sure I make time to try new (or old, but played for the first time) games. I’ve got Game Pass, I’m an emulation mastermind, I really have no excuse. Two new games a week, or I’m not worthy of my title on the site.

Matthew O’Dwyer – Evergreen Editor

Resolution: Play Fallout: New Vegas and Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind to completion

In 2002, I remember standing in the middle of Circuit City with my best friend holding a copy of Morrowind. I told him, with no firsthand knowledge, that he would love the game. I’d read about it many times and felt confident in my recommendation. I was right. Earlier this year, he called his Xbox Series X “The Morrowind Machine.”

I’ve platinumed Fallout 4 and Skyrim, but I never went back to experience the greats. I’ve started New Vegas several times, sure, but something else always got in the way. 2024 is going to be the year I play these games and (hopefully) join my oldest friend in his love of them. I’m already looking forward to asking him for advice and having long conversations about these classics. Oh, and maybe I’ll make my annual attempt to play Bloodborne for more than an hour. It’s going to be a great year.

Jack Coleman – Lead News Editor

Resolution: Replay the Dragon Age trilogy

It’s 2024, and you know what that (probably) means—Dragon Age Dreadwolf. Despite BioWare’s well-documented internal issues, I’m optimistic that Dreadwolf will be released next year. Naturally, this means I have to craft the optimal world state to import into the series’ newest instalment. Yes, I know Dragon Age Keep exists, but that’s not quite the same, is it? I’d much rather power through 200+ hours of content than use BioWare’s fantastic tool. I’ll have to conquer my usual habit of playing Origins and Awakening, only to completely drop the series afterwards.

I’ll also be maintaining my successful resolution from last year to play more triple-A releases. It’s gone very well for me this year, and hopefully, 2024 is a slower year, so I can keep it up. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any hope for me kicking my League of Legends habit.

Jeff Brooks – Evergreen Content Lead

Resolution: Play The Incredible 2023 Games I Missed

I’m finding it so hard to look ahead at 2024 without first having to look back on the incredible year that we’re just now finishing up. 2023 is going to go down in the history books as an all-timer for gamers, right up there with 1998 and 2007 for the best years in video games. So many incredible games came out at such an alarming pace that I regularly had to choose which ones I had the time to actually play, let alone finish, before moving on to the next. A bit of an exhausting year to be covering games, to be honest, but also easily the best in recent memory.

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For every year-defining title like Tears of the Kingdom, Alan Wake 2, and Baldur’s Gate 3, I had to pass by other great games like Darkest Dungeon 2, Sea of Stars, Dave the Diver, Pikmin 4…not to mention games that I loved playing but never actually finished, like Armored Core 6, Metroid Prime Remastered, and Hi-Fi Rush. I know I won’t be able to get to every missed 2023 game — 2024 is already shaping up to be packed full of incredible games — but I have to at least try!

Matthew Schomer – News & Features Editor

Resolution: See All There Is To See In Starfield

Look, I know it’s not Game of the Year material, but I made my bed. When Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 timed their console launches to drop on the exact same day a few months back, I made an effort to play both at once, but it was clear that fully immersing myself in both at the same time just wasn’t going to be an option (our Robert Zak attempted four major RPGs at once, and he just hasn’t been the same since). Besides that point, we’ve got two adult gamers in this house, and since my partner was more attached to BG3, I’ve had to limit my time with it, instead whiling away my days fast-traveling through the half-dozen loading screens of the Settled Systems.

But I’m not complaining — far from it. While folks like Vlad Mazanko are in love with concise narratives that only take a handful of hours to play through, I’m busy milking every red cent out of my $18-a-month Game Pass subscription and the access it grants me to 1,000 different celestial bodies and a future where the rest of planet Earth is just as bleak and desolate as my home state of Ohio (there’s a reason we produce more astronauts than anywhere else), and I’m going to try to see all there is to see among the stars.

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