🍪 A Few Completely Reasonable Wishes for 2026

Hello there, tired devs, hopeful players, burned-but-still-online publishers, and everyone pretending they’re “just checking one thing” before midnight. It’s December 31. No scoops today. No panic refreshes. Just a deep breath before 2026 loads.

2025 was… a lot. Layoffs. Restructures. Studios vanishing overnight. Games shipping, then un-shipping. And somehow, through all of it, people kept making games anyway.

So before the calendar flips, we’ve got a few wishes. Some serious. Some selfish. Some extremely overdue.

First things first: a calmer industry

We don’t need a miracle year. We’re not asking for perfection. We’re just asking for fewer surprises that start with “great performance” and end with people losing their jobs.

In 2026, we’d love an industry that plans like it remembers the last three years happened. Fewer studios hiring like growth is infinite. Fewer layoffs framed as “optimization.” More stability. More respect for the people actually doing the work.

🦊 Kiki: I’m not asking for paradise. I’m just asking for a year where success doesn’t immediately trigger a panic button.

🍪 Chip quietly exhales.

Let us finally play the games we’ve been waiting for

We would like to formally request that 2026 be the year we:

Actually play GTA 6
Stop analyzing trailers frame by frame like it’s an unsolved crime
And discover that yes, it was worth the wait (No more Metroid Prime Beyond disappointments please)

Big world. Sharp satire. Systems that don’t feel like a second job. That’s it. No more riddles.

🦊 Kiki: I love discourse, but I’d really like to move past “GTA 6 speculation” as a personality trait.

🍪 Chip puts on sunglasses. Vice City energy.

Please. One good Resident Evil movie

Just one.

Not a universe. Not five timelines. Not a reboot of a reboot that forgets what survival horror is. Just a Resident Evil movie that’s tense, scary, and understands why people liked the games in the first place.

🦊 Kiki: At this point, I don’t need lore. I need atmosphere. And maybe fewer explosions.

🍪 Chip screams silently from off-screen.

Fewer live services that vanish politely after six months

In 2026, we hope studios stop launching games that feel like:

“Trust us, it’ll be good later.”

Let’s ship things that work on day one. Or at least feel like they exist for reasons beyond a cosmetics shop. If your roadmap is longer than your launch pitch, maybe pause.

🦊 Kiki: If I need a calendar to know when the fun starts, something went wrong.

🍪 Chip points at a graveyard of sunset announcements.

Mid-size games deserve love again

Not everything needs to be indie. Not everything needs to chase a billion players. We’d love 2026 to be the year mid-size games thrive without apology. Solid ideas. Real budgets. Teams that can breathe and still take risks.

🦊 Kiki: Turns out making “reasonable” games is actually pretty smart.

🍪 Chip claps politely, then overclaps.

Better AI conversations. Fewer buzzwords.

AI isn’t going away. Fine. But in 2026, we’d love fewer magic promises and more honest conversations. Clear disclosure. Smart use. No pretending tools replace leadership, planning, or taste.

🦊 Kiki: Tools are neutral. The decisions people make with them… not so much.

🍪 Chip stares intensely at a “powered by AI” sticker.

And maybe, just maybe, a little joy again

More weird games. More risks that don’t immediately get sanded down. More projects that feel like someone cared deeply instead of optimizing the fun out of them.

If 2026 gives us fewer layoffs, better planning, and at least one game that surprises everyone for the right reasons, we’ll take it.