A Healthy Approach to a Game Backlog

 

If you've spent any amount of time viewing game discussion online, you might have heard people talking about their backlog. The concept is simple, a person's backlog represents the different games they haven't tried yet but want to play at some point or another. The way people describe their backlog however makes the concept seem similar to this formidable beast they're contending with. An unending list of games to play that’s constantly added on to, a mountain that one can never hope to conquer. While there are a lot of games releasing on a constant basis, I don’t think this means that the backlog can or should be an ever expanding list. There are plenty of ways to go about having a backlog that are manageable and more healthy than the way I often see people describe it online. So today, let’s delve into those ideas for a bit, on how to maintain a healthy relationship with your backlog.

Lots of Games Out There, How Do We Manage Them All?

One practice that I recommend is making a 1-year list. Rather than just trying to cram through as much of your backlog as possible, it could be better for yourself if you instead make a list of games that you intend to tackle in the current year and consider that list alone as your backlog. This gives you an opportunity to look at the year ahead of you and decide accordingly how you want to spend your time. Maybe you can decide to play certain games during certain quarters of the year, or you can make a list of each season and play games based on which season of the year you think the aesthetic of the game best fits into. You can get surprisingly creative with this type of approach, and you can also determine which games you are currently most interested in trying and place priority on those rather than chasing after every game your slightly interested in and finishing none of them.

Obviously though, interests shift and sometimes you find yourself wanting to play something else or just not liking what you're currently focusing on. And that’s okay. We’ve got all eyes on different things and what we’re the most interested in changes with time and our current circumstances. Whatever list you create shouldn’t be some monolith that you follow without question. Feel free to fine tune and edit the list as you see fit, so long as you keep in mind to not bloat the list and get ahead of yourself. Whatever you decide to create should be for fun. While the 1-year list isn't some catch all solution, it could work for those who like to plan ahead.

Another good practice would be to learn to distinguish between what games you want to play and what games you intend to play. These two ideas may sound similar on paper, but I think intent is the key difference here. There are likely dozens upon dozens of games that have caught your interest, and that’s fine. Exploring different games and genres can do nothing but help you discover new sides of yourself and your tastes. But just because you have a lot of games you want to play doesn’t automatically mean you have to consider all of those games as being a part of your backlog. By placing every single game you're even remotely interested in under the “backlog”, you create a surplus issue for yourself. Yeah you have a lot to play, but likely so much to play that you end up stunlocked by decision paralysis from the sheer amount of options. Taking a look at all the games that have caught your eye and actually trying to mark out what speaks to you the most could allow you to more accurately have a “backlog” of games you’ll actually play that isn’t needlessly bloated. To provide a personal example, Dark Souls III has been a game I’ve been slowly gaining an interest in trying, to the point where when making a list of games I wanted to play this year I put it there:

This List Was Made Dec. 2025

But with how the year has played out so far I don’t actually see myself picking up the game any time soon for various reasons. So I wouldn’t really consider the game as being a part of my backlog. There are plenty of cases like this for me and many others, having a set of games that you know you’d like to play but likely won’t for various reasons. In those cases, you don't really have to consider them a part of your backlog. Why stress over what's out of reach at the moment?

The most important practice to follow however, is to not keep yourself beholden or restricted to your backlog. There are thousands of games out there, with that number increasing exponentially each year. There’s simply no way you’ll ever be able to truly experience absolutely everything in the medium in a single lifetime. Anyone who rushes to do so will inevitably end up burnt out or unable to truly take in their experience. A backlog shouldn’t be some checklist to fill out, but a general guideline of your interests at the current moment. This was touched upon a bit earlier, but as time goes on and what you have interest in/access to changes then your backlog will likely change with it. I showed off that list of games I wanted to try this year that I made at the end of 2025, but if I were to make that list more accurate to what I'm interested in right now it'd look a lot more like this:

The Games That I'd Currently Consider to be My "Backlog"

Some of the games were removed because I already completed them, though others I just don't have the means to access or I'm just not interested in playing them as much anymore. Even the above list can change again based on what I complete or end up removing for one reason or another. Being willing to shift gears can do wonders for yourself. Maybe you want to go back and replay an old favorite, or you just aren’t getting invested in what you thought you'd like. This isn’t a competition, so be flexible and pace yourself adequately. 

Game backlogs are always interesting to look at and discuss. It can be fun to see just what list of games someone is interested in trying at some point or another. You never know when a game on your backlog could end up a lifelong favorite. Just remember that game backlogs shouldn’t ever turn into a second job. There are multiple ways to approach a backlog even beyond what was discussed today. Gaming is an incredibly fun hobby, and it’d be a shame if it was ruined for someone because they got too caught up in their backlog to stop and take in the scenery.