I can’t binge games like I used to

In this week’s newsletter: Work, life and parenting mean I can’t dive into massive games like I used to, but then I found a hack to making the time I need

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I miss very few things about being a teenager, but I do miss all the time I had back then to play video games. I got great joy out of binge-playing into the small hours, an opportunity I almost never get now as a busy adult. Aside from covering games for work it feels as if I barely get time to play at all, which explains my affection for games that can be polished off in a couple of evenings, rather than the gigantic, absorbing role-playing games I used to crave. I have pretty much made peace with this. My days of 100-hour epics and/or live-service online games are behind me. They’ll be back eventually, when my kids are bigger.

But it’s been more than two years since Elden Ring came out – a game in my favourite genre, by my favourite director – and I suddenly got very fed up about the fact that I’d barely played it. I’ve picked away at the game on PS5, but never got out of the (admittedly vast) starting area of Limgrave. I kept hoping that my partner might take the kids away for a weekend, or that I might manage to take a week’s holiday during term time, so that I could return to my teenage habits and play it by myself for hours on end. But it’s been two years. If I want to play this game – or any massive game – I’ve got to try to fit it into the life that I actually have, with the job and the two small kids and every other responsibility that gets in the way.