I started 2026 by getting the flu. :-( One side benefit: I couldn’t do much other than lay in bed, so I played through the entirety of Resident Evil 4 Remake. It’s been a loooong time since I finished a AAA game so quickly.

Most of the time I did so on the PlayStation Portal, which performed admirably. It’s amazing that you can stream a game at 1080p / 60fps so well that it feels just like playing on the PS5 itself. The fact that the Portal has all of the DualSense controller’s features really helps.

RE4 is one of the more out-there entries in the series, but as an action game, it is superbly designed. The level of control, customization, and mastery you can have is one big lesson in game design. I was taking notes the entire way. I don’t normally connect with big-budget action games that much, but Resident Evil is different, and this remake highlighted how satisfying the formula is (and also how far you can push it, design-wise).

One of my fun holiday tasks was to finally print out these community-made Nintendo Switch labels I have been wanting to add to my physical games. The prints aren’t perfect, but having actual spine artwork is deeply satisfying. (You can get them here.)

Physical Switch games are very charming, due to their small size and cute proportions, but staring at an unreadable swath of red was not pleasant; this trades that stark uniformity with some much-needed personality.

This past year was a big one for me personally, since we moved after 11 years in our previous home, and made a major lifestyle change by moving out of downtown for the first time in 23 years.

There’s a lot of identity that gets woven into where you live, especially in the city. Neighbourhoods have their own culture. It can be hard to break free of the habits and prejudices that come with those neighbourhoods; well, at least it was for me. As soon as we moved, though, the anxieties I had about changing where we lived seemed silly.

There is one particular note from the book Goodbye, Things that always sticks with me (paraphrasing):

There are things you love so much that they start to feel like they’re a part of you. They assemble themselves into a persona that you then have to maintain. Parting with those things means you’re freeing yourself from that particular consciousness.

For me, my neighbourhood was a big part of who I was. The effect of moving was like purging your home during a big spring cleaning; I felt lighter; free of expectations about who I was supposed to be. Moving has, thankfully, felt like the mid-life refresh I needed.

My carbon footprint has increased a lot, unfortunately, since we drive more now, and live in a detached dwelling. Until I can afford an electric vehicle, it will be hard to reverse this. We’re in our “harvest years” now, and likely for the next 10 or 20 years, we will be at our most consumptive; I want to enjoy life however I can, until health dictates certain changes in my life. I’m looking forward to more dinners with friends, small road trips to explore our province and country, and embracing my more extroverted side. Ironically, since moving to a “more remote” neighbourhood, we’ve seen more friends and had more social interaction in the past three months than we did in the past three years at our old place. I’m a lot happier here.

There’s a lot I hope to meaningfully re-evaluate about life and work, now that we’ve made this change in location. Life has been one way for the past 15 years or so, but lately it feels like I have been swimming upstream, as the nature of the industry I work in, and the patterns of the world around me, have evolved. I’m hoping that this openness to new perspectives lets me tackle some of those other issues too.

Since most of my social media time is spent talking about our games, I realized there wasn’t much reason for me to have my own personal social media presence. So I merged and/or transferred accounts and content, and now I am personally free of all major corporate social media!

I enjoy posting for our studio well enough, and there’s always something to talk about there, but it is a relief to not feel that unspoken pressure.

I hope it makes for a healthier 2026.