Upcoming What Games Did You Play Over The Holidays? - Complete Guide

Well, it's officially 2026, and we're all back to work. The holiday break is over, all the decorations have been taken down (right?), and even the New Years hangover is a fading memory.

Surely, though, it's not too late for one last look back on that glorious bit of time off? Here at PC Gamer, we like to catch up on what games we all dug into over Christmas and New Years, before we fully accept the fresh grind of a new January.

So here's what we all got up to—but we'd also love to hear from you guys. What games did you play at the tail end of 2025? Let us know in the comments!

Robin Valentine, Senior Editor: I always head into the holiday break with grand plans of catching up on all the games I missed that year… but instead I usually end up replaying something from 10 years ago. When the nights are long and the wind is cold, there's just something so rejuvenating about bedding in with an old favourite.

So it was again in 2025, as I found myself on a whim starting up yet another new XCOM 2 Ironman campaign—with the War of the Chosen expansion and all the DLCs, naturally. It's not the sort of game you'd normally call 'cosy', but at this point all its brutal alien threats are like old friends of mine.

There is something a little bittersweet about it, though. It holds up wonderfully, easily still one of the best strategy games of all time. But playing through it again is a reminder of how far behind its many imitators still are, all these years later—and the fact that there's still no sign of an official sequel. Fingers crossed that Star Wars Zero Company turns out to be the new hope I've been waiting for.

I'm getting towards the end of my campaign now, with two of the Chosen dead and the Avatar Project crumbling. If I can kick Advent off Earth soon, I might even try and sneak in a playthrough of Chimera Squad too before January's over…

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Kara Phillips, Evergreen Writer: There's nothing quite like a countryside stroll over the winter break, but it's been bitterly cold where I live, so I thought I do it virtually this year instead. Herdling definitely scratched that itch, but also added the pressure of carting twelve beasts to the top of a mountain, all of which I quickly became very emotionally attached to.

Between trying to keep tabs on all of my Calicorns, force-feeding the ones that got injured mysterious blue berries, and praying that I didn't upset a

Source: PC Gamer