• Image: Playtonic*

Well folks, that’s another Christmas done for the year – we hope you’ve had a peaceful, relaxing time, whether you celebrate or not.

It’s been a pretty quiet week, understandably, but Nintendo managed to squeeze in a cheeky update for Donkey Kong Bananza on the Switch 2, so make sure to download that. Nintendo also hit us with yet another banging eShop sale in the US, so we collated all of the games that we think you should check out in one handy guide.

Bloober Team also teased its mysterious ‘Project M’ for Nintendo platforms, and it sounds like it’ll be one to keep an eye on if you’re a fan of Resident Evil, Limbo, Eternal Darkness, and more.

And finally, we’d like to once again acknowledge the passing of Vince Zampella at the age of 55. As the co-creator of Call of Duty, he was undeniably a huge talent in the games industry, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Jim Norman, Staff Writer

I’m still nursing a Linda McCartney-induced food coma after a week of glad tidings, so whatever I play this weekend, it’ll have to be something that keeps me very much curled up in my seat. There are another few areas of Metroid Prime 4 to see and Yooka-Replaylee is calling my name. Mmm, cosy.

Have a good one, everybody!

Gonçalo Lopes, Contributor

Pushing into the final chapters of Yakuza Kiwami 2 with the reminder that I will still have to tackle Goro Majima’s saga before I can consider this one cleared. Spending my final days of 2025 with Digital Eclipse’s Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection for a slice of nostalgia and knowledge and online co-op campaigns with my mates on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Still tackling ace pilot difficulty campaign on Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (one missile hit and game over), wondering with every mission failure, ‘Why am I doing this to myself?’ Is my ego writing checks my body can’t cash?

2025 was THE year of gaming for yours truly. I am quite looking forward to seeing what 2026 throws my way, but I am dreading the price of a hypothetical gaming PC upgrade… at least Switch 2 seems to continue to climb the industry ladder, can’t wait to see what new surprises Nintendo throws our way. Have a great New Year, everyone!

Kate Gray, Contributor

I don’t think I’ll be getting any games for Christmas, but I have bought my partner the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, in the hopes that he’ll want to watch me play Final Fantasy 6 (which he’s mentioned before!). I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game except half of the remake of Final Fantasy 7, which feels like it doesn’t really count in a lot of ways. I hear FF6 is good! Don’t tell me anything about it, though — I’ve somehow managed to avoid any FF spoilers for my entire life, and I’d like to keep it that way!

I’m also hoping to play through some of my Steam Deck backlog over the break, which includes a copy of Regency Solitaire that my friend got me, and Séance of Blake Manor. I’m looking forward to both.

Aaaand, if there’s any time between all that, I’m going to try to finish Hundred Line, and force my partner to play 1000XResist and 13 Sentinels. I think that’s a reasonable amount of video games to fit into 2 weeks, right? Yeah. Totally reasonable.

Gavin Lane, Editor

I fired up Skate Story a couple of days ago and immediately hit Bandcamp to download the Blood Cultures soundtrack. And then immediately went back to Bandcamp, slightly grumpier, to download another Blood Cultures album that has the first song you hear in the game. I’ve only played 20 minutes but I’m loving it so far. I really need to download T2D over Christmas, too - I am the ultimate target audience for that thing and I want to savour it. And Cast n Chill is an end-of-year arrival (one that Felix put on his top five games of the gear, no less!) that I’m eager to sit down with.

Alex Olney, Video Producer

My wife and I have a bit of a tradition when it comes to the time after Christmas but before New Year: we hibernate. We’ll pick a game, usually something fairly meaty like Stardew Valley or Skyrim, and just go to town on it for a few days straight.

We’ll break for dinner (plenty of leftovers), go for walks in the woods, and other stuff besides, but there could well be a 24-hour period where we do not leave the house or do anything of note beyond playing our chosen game. What’ll it be this year? Let’s just say that we’ve fallen dramatically behind on our time with No Man’s Sky recently.

Ollie Reynolds, Staff Writer

I don’t plan on playing much over the last remaining days of 2025, but I have recently started Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble again, so I’d like to dip into that one occasionally if I can find the time. It’s a weirdly relaxing game despite some of the deviously tricky stages, y’know?

Alana Hagues, Deputy Editor

I think we’ll be welcoming the New Year in with a whole bunch of Octopath Traveler 0, which I made the mistake of leaving Zach alone with for one morning and now we have all of the Battle-Tested and Forbidden Weapons, and have had them since level 50. So yeah, any sense of challenge in the main game has evaporated! What can you do about RPG fans, hey?

Otherwise, I’ll be checking out the new Fantasy Life i update and playing a little more Tiny Bookshop. Nothing crazy, it’s the holiday season, and we have a big 2026 ahead of us. See you next year!

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Well, that’s what we have planned for this weekend, but what about you? Let us know your picks in the following poll.