In video games, resolutions are usually relegated until after the final boss fight. Seeing as you’ve just conquered 2023, there’s no better time to tidy up those frayed edges and craft some 2024 gaming resolutions. Below are our seven choices for the things we’d like to achieve or improve on in 2024’s virtual adventures. How close to your aspirations lie? Join us in laying down some less-than-rigid rules for the next 12 months of our favorite pastime.
1. Take a break from all-consuming open worlds
© Nintendo
In 2022, Elden Ring laid waste to our spare time (not to mention our health bar). Just as we escaped its clutches, Horizon Forbidden West struck, unleashing another expansive land upon us. Staggering into 2023, our calenders looked ahead with dread as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Starfield, and Spider-Man 2 flexed their gargantuan playspaces in the distance.
This year, we’re in need of a break. It’s not that we didn’t enjoy our time in the games above – every hour spent scouring Hyrule’s hills was a dream. But when a grand tapestry dominates the room, smaller works of art are easily overlooked. Games like Cobalt Core proved unexpected highlights of the year gone by, and in 2024, we want to make sure we’ve got the time spare to discover even more of them.
2. Get the most out of our Steam Deck
© Valve
Funded in large part by hundreds of skins and crates from our Counter-Strike inventory, a Steam Deck finally secure a place in our arsenal last year. And what a machine it has proven to be. Ideal for smaller experiences but also capable of loading up juggernauts like Baldur’s Gate 3. With that kind of power in our hands, it’s time we put Valve’s pocket(ish)-size PC to a proper use: clearing some of our Steam backlog.
The need to boot up the PC put a halter on our progress, with the couch’s comfy allure proving all too powerful most evenings. With the Steam Deck in hand, though, we’re ready to tackle PC experiences anywhere and everywhere in the home. An upgrade made all the more important by us having added several more games to our list during the Steam Winter Sale. Oops.
3. Don’t stress about finishing everything
We’re completionists at heart. Not platinum-trophy-grabbing, achievement-blitzing 100%-grade completionists, mind, but we always want to see a story through. It’s a level of stubborn-headedness that’s seen us rise time and time again to face grueling boss fights or bend our mind to conquer brain-twisting puzzles, and that’s great! But it’s also seen us stick with plenty of games that we shouldn’t have.
Sometimes we don’t have the energy. Sometimes an experience just isn’t for us. Sometimes a game is just plain bad. This year we’ll be ready to ditch a disappointing digital experience and move on to virtual pastures new, even if it means missing out on paying the big baddie back for that game-opening insult.
4. Stay social, both online and off
Over the course of 2023, our regular social gaming petered down to a weekly CS2 night and little else. Epic solo adventures and real-life obligations kept us away from our usual groups. But as the year came to a close, two saviors barged through the door to pour a truckful of social fuel onto the embers, forcing our us to gaze back to the flames of gaming friendship.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder reminded us just how many laughs local multiplayer can create, while Lethal Company let us see our best friends devoured by a monstrous sand worm. You really can’t ask for more than that. Gaming with your mates is great. So whether we’re climbing the ranks as a team in CS2, suffering the consequences of terrible co-op decisions in Baldur’s Gate 3, or cracking up/crying together in the latest online horror sensation, our aim is to keep the gang gaming together in 2024.
5. Hold out for the Switch 2
Just an hour’s worth of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was enough to have our beleaguered, OG Nintendo Switch wheezing. The 200 hours we racked up before finally facing Ganondorf saw the poor console overheat more than a dozen times, sometimes refusing to turn back on for tens of minutes afterwards. Somehow, though, it survived. But the old dog isn’t ready for retirement. Not just yet.
The Switch OLED is a gorgeous, tantalizing thing. But just as when eyeing up a street stall snack on the way to a restaurant, restraint is the order of the day. Or, er, year. Rumors are already swirling that a Switch sequel is on the way, and Nintendo’s major release calendar for 2024 is looking suspiciously slim. If our 2017 Switch can make it through just one more year, then so can we.
6. Give our game space the HX3D treatment
© HyperX
Everyone knows that RGB lights make you better at games. It’s just a fact. But there’s no reason that RGB keyboard profiles for our favorite games should be our only skill-boosting secret. Enter HX3D. HyperX’s colorful 3D-printed keycaps and headset toppers come in both practical and creative designs that are definitely (read: not at all) certified to make you play better.
There are sensible ability packs like the RPG and FPS bundles, or partnerships with favorite games like this Guild Wars 2 icon keycap. But for our money? You can’t beat Patty the Pumpkin’s gleeful, gourdy grin. Spooky season lives on forever in this household, and we need her on our keyboard. Headset adornments more your style? Check out the full range of HX3D headset toppers here.
7. Revisit a classic (made new)
© Nintendo
2024 is the year to return to an all-time favorite. And before you berate us for already having a glut of games piled high onto our plate: We’ve thought this through! This year will finally see Nintendo re-release Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, a beloved GameCube-era RPG. Packed with humor, memorable characters, and plenty of paper-based puns, it’s nigh-on certain to crack open a vat of nostalgic joy lurking deep down inside us. Crucially, it’ll allow us to enjoy something old and new in one! You can now feel free to applaud our genius.
What are your gaming new years resolutions for 2024? If they involve upgrading your gaming rig, then there’s no better place to find headsets, microphones, monitors, keyboards, mice, and more than on the HyperX store. Here’s to a great 2024, gamers.
