Hello and Happy New Year - is it okay to say that now? I'm not sure where the cut-off point is. Some people still have their Christmas trees up. We had ours out before New Year. Welcome back to What We've Been Playing! Or as I like to call this particular edition of it: What We Played Over Christmas, because it's been a couple of weeks since we've talked.
UPDATE: Sega has officially responded to the passing of David Rosen, saying it's "deeply saddened" to hear of the news.
It's a big year for gaming anniversaries. There are five massive series that turn 40 years old in 2026 - The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Dragon Quest, Kid Icarus, and Castlevania - whilst Sonic the Hedgehog turns 35, and Persona and Pokémon both turn 30. There's probably a lot of celebratory stuff coming over the next 12 months, but let's start with a franchise we know is getting some attention this year before anything else: Persona.
It's been another strange, difficult, and yet somehow also brilliant year for video games in 2025. Triple-A releases have been sparse again, compared to the boom times of old, with a great big GTA 6-shaped hole left in the final few months of the year. And yet once again, every gap left by the established order has been filled twice over with something brilliantly new.
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Paramount has another Sonic the Hedgehog film planned, seemingly a spin-off from the main series.
Sega and Creative Assembly have announced a 25th anniversary celebratory livestream will take place later this week for Total War, in which new projects will be revealed to the masses for the first time.
The Xbox business today is pretty unrecognizable from that of 20 years past, which on this week all that time ago was launching the Xbox 360. There's all the changes to the business, a different suite of executives at the top, and an entirely different first-party portfolio, of course - but when I think of the changes, one absence comes to the forefront of my mind: Japan.
Peter Moore is one executive who can probably claim to have done it all. Having recently fulfilled a lifelong dream of being CEO of Liverpool Football Club, this Liverpudlian businessman also spent decades working in video games, leading EA, helping Sega launch the Dreamcast and, of course, making a real contender of Microsoft's gaming business with the launch of Xbox 360. Whenever the Xbox 360 made a move, Moore was the person on stage announcing it, literally rolling up his sleeves to display Halo and Grand Theft Auto tattoos, taking the fight to Sony and PlayStation.
There are nine games leaving PS Plus next month as part of a regular refresh of the subscription's catalogue.
