What I’m Playing This Weekend: Post-Holiday Backlog Diving

Holiday gaming plans and festive game sessions make the final weekend of 2026 memorable for players and families alike.

Christmas is over, the wrapping paper has been composted (or maybe just shoved into a closet), and my stomach is still debating whether that third serving of eggnog was a wise life choice. I’m just a regular player, not a fancy games journalist, but I do keep a running list of what I want to fire up during the last weekend of the year. This time, I’ve been digging through some old holiday features and got bitten by the ‘what should I actually play?’ bug. So here’s my very unofficial, slightly chaotic plan for the final gaming session of 2026.

First up on the menu is a big helping of sheer terror. I’ve been meaning to revisit Alien: Isolation for what feels like forever, and there’s no better way to ring in a new year than by cowering inside a locker while a Xenomorph sniffs around for a late-night snack. My partner loves watching me get impaled, shredded, and generally turned into space station sushi, so this weekend I’ll be creeping through Sevastopol’s flickering corridors, trying very hard not to scream loud enough to annoy the neighbors. It’s the perfect palate cleanser after too many sweet holiday treats.

After I need a break from being hunted, I’ll switch gears to something a little less lethal: Destiny 2. The annual Dawning event always reels me back in, and with the current season’s challenges still sitting unfinished in my quest log, I’ve got a nice, cozy grind lined up. Snowball fights, baked goods for NPCs, and a loot chase that feels like winter comfort food. It’s not exactly new, but there’s something satisfying about cleaning up those final Dawning objectives before they vanish for another year. I’ll probably squeeze in some Marvel Snap matches between patrol zones, because apparently my brain can’t handle a single game for more than forty minutes.

Then comes the obligatory family duty segment. You see, my household contains a small human who received a pile of Nintendo goodies this holiday season, and as the resident grown-up, I am legally required to participate in every single one on command. That means Switch Sports, Mario Kart 8, and whatever oddball party game my kid decides is the greatest invention of all time. I’ll be swinging Joy-Cons around my living room like a caffeinated windmill, pretending my shoulder isn’t already sore from the first round of pretend tennis. I’m counting down the hours until bedtime, when I can reclaim the television and my dignity.

Now, the real time sink: open-world wanderlust. I recently fell back into Assassin’s Creed Valhalla after bouncing off it ages ago, and suddenly I can’t stop conquering England with Eivor and his merry band of axe enthusiasts. One minute I’m raiding a monastery, the next I’m stacking rocks just to hear a little chime. It’s a dangerous, beautiful trap. Meanwhile, The Witcher 3’s next-gen update keeps whispering my name. I made the classic mistake years ago of blasting through the main story and ignoring half the side quests, so now I’m determined to ride Roach through every forest, listen to the wind howl over Skellige, and actually finish a few monster contracts. Both games are massive enough to eat my entire weekend if I let them.

Of course, I can’t ignore my deep-seated need for both old-school punishment and co-op chaos. I’ve been chipping away at Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, which has taught me that a level one party can be wiped out by a single overly ambitious assassin at an inn if I don’t take the game seriously. It’s harsh, it’s unforgiving, and it’s weirdly comforting. Then, to balance all that turn-based pain, my partner and I are deep into It Takes Two. We’re roughly sixty percent of the way through, which means sixty percent of the way toward laughing, arguing, and accidentally sabotaging each other’s jumps. Co-op is the ultimate test of a relationship, and so far we’re both still speaking.

Finally, there are the wildcards. I started Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s campaign over the holiday break, and I have plenty of thoughts about all the gritty military boom-boom. I’m curious how it stacks up to the newer Modern Warfare II, but mostly I’m here for the spectacle. Meanwhile, Saints Row keeps pulling me back to finish the post-campaign content. It’s loud, ridiculous, and buggy in ways that somehow make it more endearing. If I have any energy left after all this, I might just stare at my library and play nothing, which is a classic final-weekend move.

So that’s my messy, overstuffed, slightly overcooked gaming menu for the end of 2026. What are you firing up this weekend?