Is it unhinged to be nostalgic for the end of the world? There I was, a grown adult, teary-eyed over a $70 remake of a PS3 game I’ve already played six times—The Last of Us Part I. Did I buy it? ABSOLUTELY. Did I have the money? Who cares! It’s 2026, and we’re all just one bad decision away from bankruptcy anyway. And you know what? I’d do it again. As Joel’s gruff voice echoed through my headphones, I was instantly transported back to the grimy, fungal apocalypse where a gruff man and a sassy teen stole my entire heart. I didn’t just play the remake—I mainlined it like emotional heroin.
But friends, that was merely the opening act of my self-inflicted weekend game-a-thon. You see, I possess a curse: I am a gaming hydra. Chop off one backlog head, and three more hissing titles take its place. I stared at my library—a digital monument to hubris—and decided to play EVERYTHING. At once. My goal? To cram 14 different games into 48 hours, destroying my sleep schedule, my sanity, and possibly my relationship with the sun.
💥 The Nostalgia Nuclear Meltdown
I didn’t just stop at Last of Us. Oh no. Some dark force compelled me to boot up Final Fantasy XII. The Zodiac Age, naturally, because I’m a classy mess. Why? I still don’t know. Maybe I wanted to see Penelo, the tiny dancer girl, absolutely obliterate a T-Rex with a longsword the size of a surfboard. I gave her the Knight job, which is tactically blasphemous but comedically genius. My roommate walked in, saw this 5-foot-nothing angel hacking away at a dinosaur, and slowly backed out of the room. No regrets.
From one nostalgia spiral to another, I plunged into Yakuza 5. I had actually finished it before, but the siren song of Kiryu’s stoic face and the absurdity of Haruka’s idol career dragged me back. I spent two hours just managing a ramen shop. TWO HOURS. In real time. I’m not even sorry. The itch to jump into Yakuza 6 is now unbearable, a constant phantom pain in my thumbs.
🌈 The Wholesome (and Chaotic) Oasis
Of course, I couldn’t survive on grim apocalypses and crime drama alone. I needed oxygen. That came in the form of I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, a point-and-click RPG that is so aggressively queer, colorful, and life-affirming my heart grew three sizes. I’m not exaggerating when I say I fell in love with a plant guy in a garden. His name is—actually, I don’t remember his name because I was too busy swooning over his photosynthesis-based charm and the alt-science geek’s quiet brother. This game is a warm hug, and I aggressively hugged it right in between shooting Clickers.
Meanwhile, Cult of the Lamb and Stray sat on my SSD, UNFINISHED. They’ve been there since 2022. I said I’d finish them three weekends ago, then two weekends ago, then this weekend. I booted up Stray, walked my feline avatar around a neon alley for 15 minutes, took 47 screenshots, and closed the game. Cult of the Lamb got even worse treatment: I redecorated my cult’s shrine, sacrificed a follower for fun, and then remembered I was supposed to be an adult. So I launched The Ascent.
🤖 The Cyberpunk and Strategy Abyss
Speaking of questionable decisions, my partner agreed to co-op The Ascent with me from scratch. We’re indentured slaves in the neon-lit, garbage-choked arcology of Veles, doing dirty work for a shady yCorp operative named Kira. The game promised smoother multiplayer after years of patches, and it delivered—right until a bug launched my character into low orbit during a firefight. We laughed so hard we cried. Good times.
Then the strategy monster woke up. Total War: Warhammer 3 has been squatting on my hard drive like a great, hungry beast, waiting to devour my life. I’d resisted it since launch because I knew it would turn me into a twilight creature. This weekend, I buckled. I spent Saturday night—and most of Sunday morning—commanding the Warriors of Chaos, painting the map in shades of doom. The sun rose, and I didn’t notice. My coffee went cold, and I didn’t care. I just needed one more settlement.
And yet, that wasn’t the deepest hole. SONGS OF SYX consumed me. Imagine Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld had a baby, then injected it with Total War’s army mechanics and a soundtrack that makes you weep. This city-state simulator is a time vampire. I blinked at 9 a.m., and suddenly it was 7 p.m., and my city of 10,000 bug-people and dwarves was trading grain while my actual dinner burned to charcoal. I haven’t been this obsessed with a management sim since… ever.
🧩 The Mishmash Graveyard
Oh, you thought I stopped there? Fool! I dabbled. I tinkered. I launched Cyberpunk 2077, drove around Night City for 20 minutes, and remember how breathtaking it looked in 2026 with all the updates. I revisited The Outer Worlds DLC for a single side quest, just to hear my crew’s snarky banter. I booted up Triangle Strategy and stared at a dialog tree for 10 minutes, paralyzed by choice. Then, in a fugue state, I played three rounds of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with my roommates, screaming about blue shells while my longsword-wielding Penelo memories collided with plant-guy romance. No longswords in Mario Kart, sadly—but I petition Nintendo to add them immediately.
I also finished Immortality. Yes, the game I couldn’t talk about back in ’22. I had claimed I’d finish it, and I DID, years later. It’s a masterpiece of FMV weirdness that twisted my brain into a pretzel. I’m counting that as a win, even though the victory was technically from a prior decade.
💀 The Aftermath
By Sunday midnight, I was a husk. My eyes were pixels. My brain was a soup of turn-based tactics, real-time battles, emotional storytelling, and one very persistent fungal zombie. I didn’t finish a single new game—except Immortality, vintage style—but I devoured slices of fourteen. My backlog laughed at me. My backlog grew stronger. Yet I emerged feeling like a gaming god, a chaotic curator of experiences. Would I do it again next weekend? With a fresh batch of titles from 2026’s incredible lineup? You bet your last $70 remake I will. Just don’t ask me to choose a favorite; my plant boyfriend gets jealous.