It can’t have escaped your attention that 2020 is going to be a pretty hectic year for video games. The release schedule for the first half of the year is already jam packed, and there are still plenty more AAA titles and indies coming at some point in 2020 that don’t have solid release dates yet.
Between February and May, we’ll have seen Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Gods & Monsters, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Watch Dogs: Legion, Animal Crossing New Horizon, Cyberpunk 2077, and Marvel’s Avengers. Yikes.
That’s seven major releases in four short months, and that doesn’t even take into account the fact that The Last of Us Part II, Ghosts of Tsushima, Dying Light 2, and Bayonetta 3 are all likely to be arriving in the same period, while the second half of the year will see a new generation of console hardware arrive, with Xbox Scarlett bringing out Halo Infinite as a launch title. Mercy me.
With so much hardware and software tumbling out next year like a horde of drunks attempting to escape a burning kebab shop, I dared to point out that 2020 might just be the biggest year for video games to date.
My colleagues were quick to slap me down, pointing out that 1997, 2007, and 2017 were all massive years for gaming. Why did these years represent such massive periods for releases? Why are they all ten years apart? Is there really an objective “best” year for video games? Did they even have “video games” in 1997?
I’ll be answering none of these questions and less, because I stand by what I said about 2020. New hardware and arguably the most anticipated releases of the generation in the form of The Last of Us Part II and Cyberpunk 2077 make it a banner year, dammit.
With that in mind, as I questioned towards the end of my last article discussing the bountiful game harvest that is 2020, how on Earth are we supposed to find the time and money to keep on top of what is quickly shaping up to be an incredibly demanding release schedule?
It’s going to be tough balancing the massive open world of Cyberpunk 2077 with the fast paced cinematic action of Marvel’s Avengers while also maintaining my idyllic island community in Animal Crossing, and tougher still to do all that while maintaining a social life and enough money to eat and pay rent.
What follows then, is my advice for dealing with the 2020 video game deluge in a fashion that is both socially and economically responsible.* Read on, and you too will head into next year armed with the ability to both have your cake and eat it.
*Under no circumstances should you actually follow any of this advice.
Quit Your Job
As we’ve established, there are a lot of games coming in 2020, most of them massively ambitious titles that will undoubtedly demand a lot of time from us. Sadly, the majority of us don’t have an awful lot of free time, as we have jobs. Nasty things, jobs.
Fortunately, I have a fairly elegant solution that will get you out of work commitments and free up your time so you can spend all of April merrily plowing through Cyberpunk 2077 with minimal distractions: Quit your job. Simple, yet effective.
Now, the only downside to this plan is that no job means no more money coming in, which means unless you’ve saved up a tidy nest egg, you’ll struggle to afford the games you so badly crave. You’ll also have a hard time with paying rent and feeding yourself, but those are secondary concerns. The good news is that I have three further tips for you, should you choose to sack off the workhouse.
Sell An Organ (Non Vital)
I think this one is fairly self explanatory. I have no idea how you go about kicking off a process like this, so I’m just gonna quickly nip to Google and see if it can help me out – wait here.
Okay I’m gonna level with you, Google really doesn’t want to tell me how to sell an organ, so you’re on your own with this one. My best guess; either try and flog a kidney on eBay or wonder up and down dark alleys until you spot a friendly looking bloke and a bathtub full of ice.
Rob A Bank (Non Violently)
If you come up empty with the whole organ plan, then I guess you’ve got no choice other than to rob a bank. If you insist on doing this, I suggest you do it in a completely non-violent manner, because weapons are for cowards, and if you’re really polite to the people at the bank when you rob them they might slip you an extra tenner or something.
Idk, I’ve never robbed bank.
Sadly, this one is high risk, high reward. You could end up set for life, but you could also get arrested and go to jail, where the only game you’ll be playing is “don’t get shivved.” That one’s not quite up there with Final Fantasy VII Remake, to be honest, though the marketing message is a lot clearer. z
Wait Patiently For A Rich Distant Relative To Die
Of all the ways I can think to make money in lieu of going back to your job (out of the question), this is perhaps the safest, but also the most unlikely. In this scenario, you simply sit around and wait for a hitherto unknown distant relative to die, at which point you’ll discover they’ve left you the majority of their Earthly possessions, and a massive chunk of cash.
It happens in sitcoms all the time, so I remain hopeful that one day I’ll receive a call to inform me that great uncle Monty has died and left me £50,000 plus his castle in Devon. Obviously, the downside is that if you do have a rich distant relative, they might not have the consideration to die in 2020. Selfish imaginary pricks.
Cut Yourself Off From Friends And Family
Let’s assume you’ve quit your job and have secured the necessary capital from selling an organ/robbing a bank/uncle Monty. Well done! The only thing standing between you and ten hour sessions of Dying Light 2 now is your social life – fortunately there are plenty of ways to efficiently cut yourself off from friends and family.
I would suggest that the quickest way is to gather everyone you love together for a big party. At the end of the night, just as everyone’s adoration for you has reached its zenith, propose a toast. During said toast, simply let out a stream of hateful drunken bile. Really let the bastards have it. Tear into your gran in front of everyone for a full ten minutes before people either start attacking you, leave in disgust, or both.
It’ll be an ugly scene, but on the bright side there won’t be many people in a rush to invite you to any more family dinners or nights out, freeing you up to focus on what really matters in 2020: video games.
Watch Let’s Plays On YouTube And Have A Cry
There’s every chance you don’t have the stomach to follow any of the above advice. Or maybe you’re just sane and realise that doing any of the above is either massively illegal, self destructive, or both. Good on you either way for not robbing a bank or shouting at your gran, I guess.
So, in the instance that you find yourself without the time or funds to play all the games in 2020 that you want to play, with no easy way of obtaining either, I suggest as a last resort you simply watch Let’s Plays on YouTube and have a good cry.
It’s not the ideal outcome, but there are some positives to this scenario. For a start, it’d be a lot easier to watch YouTube at work than it would be to play a AAA release for a few solid hours without your boss noticing. The crying should also come pretty naturally, too.
Not quitting your job also means you’ll still have money coming in, which means you can at least get a few of the games you want to pick up next year, even if you can’t afford all of them right away. But that’s okay, sometimes we do have to make hard choices in life, because despite what all the aspirational TV shows, movies, and pop songs of the past few years have tried to tell us, we can’t actually have it all.
In reality, as long as you start putting some money aside now, maybe book a few tactical holiday days, mix in one or two sickies, and explain to your loved ones that you’ll be unreachable for long periods of 2020, you should be absolutely fine.
The most important thing is to remember to just enjoy all the great games that are coming out, yeah? Yeah.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.