[COLUMN] GTFO, FOMO | by Marty Sliva (Patreon)

It seems like all of my friends are among the 8 million (and counting) folks who spent the weekend slaying beasts and turning their spoils into cool hats in Monster Hunter: Wilds. I know for certain that it’s hitting Second Wind hard as well. KC has already put 40+ hours into it and released a video with his thoughts, Yahtz and J are working on episodes of Fully Ramblomatic and Design Delve respectively, and it’s already been brought up in multiple meetings throughout this young week.

The game is the biggest release in Capcom’s storied history, and despite some shoddy PC optimization that hopefully gets fixed sooner rather than later, seems to be resonating with the audience as well. But I wouldn’t know, because despite contemplating picking up Monster Hunter and joining in the fun with my pals, I ended up spending the weekend playing 2013’s Pokemon X for the Nintendo 3DS, replaying 1995’s Chrono Trigger for the SNES on my personal Twitch channel, and rewatching the trailer for Warm Monkey before it drops on Steam later this week.

I think I might finally be at a place in my life where I’ve transcended the fear of missing out (FOMO), and am able to sit on the sidelines and just be happy that other people are happy. But man oh man, it wasn’t an easy road to get here.

Even before I worked in this industry, I always tried to keep up to date on whatever the big new game was at any given moment. I forced myself to try and enjoy whatever was at the center of monoculture, even if it felt like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. That feeling only expanded once this hobby became my livelihood, and I felt like it was expected of me to have an opinion on each and every big new game that came along, regardless of my past history with a given genre or franchise.

I think that mentality was born from being a big movie fan my whole life. I try to see at least one movie in theaters every week, and pride myself on watching every Academy Award nominee in every category, save for stuff like shorts and documentaries. While that may seem like a lot, it pales in comparison to someone like Darren, who’s whirlwind trip through the Cannes Film Festival last year left me mighty impressed.

But the difference is, a movie generally takes up 90-150 minutes of my life, save for the occasional outliers like The Brutalist or Master of Disguise – in the biz, we call those “the big two.” But a vast majority of games last far longer than that, with some like Monster Hunter not really starting until you’ve hit the first set of credits. Couple that with the fact that games are an active experience that requires your own feedback, and it’s just impossible to play everything, no matter how much you might want to be a part of the conversation.

That’s why I’ve learned to become comfortable with simply not being a part of certain conversations. There are enough people at Second Wind who know Monster Hunter or have a greater curiosity for it than I do, and I know they’ll serve the community well who want to hear informed thoughts on the new game. At the same time, I know I fill that same role on certain games as well, as the only person on staff who finished Metaphor: Re:Fantazio and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth last year. And while it occasionally bums me out that there are a few genres that go underserved here on the channel – looking at you 4X – there are plenty of other folks across the internet who are making rad videos, pods, and articles about those.

Still, brains are dumb, and I can’t help but feel a bit weird when a big game comes along that I just don’t vibe with. So far in 2025, I devoured Citizen Sleeper 2, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist. I put enough time into Eternal Strands and Avowed to understand what they were going for, but knowing that they weren’t for me at this given moment. But I didn’t even think about dabbling in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Just like Monster Hunter, it’s a thing that I can appreciate from a distance and that I’m happy for everyone who seems to be having a great time, but I know by now that forcing myself to try and like something just isn’t going to work.

The same thing happens every year with a handful of the biggest games. I just didn’t connect with Balatro and Helldivers 2 last year, and I got off the Baldur’s Gate 3 train before it even left the station in 2023. But again, there were enough folks out there who did play those games and could deliver those thoughtful takes on them, that there was no need for me to force myself into something I just didn’t have any interest in playing.

But just because I miss something at the time, that doesn’t mean I’ll miss it forever. One franchise that has been at the top of my backlog for ages now is the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy + X. It’s been literal generations since the first game dropped on Wii and I told myself that I would eventually make time to jump in. As a longtime lover of the team’s work on Xenogears and the Xenosaga trilogy, coupled with the widespread praise for the Chronicles games, I’m almost certain that they’d resonate with me. But at this point, I’ve promised myself that I’m finally going to jump in once I have Nintendo’s fancy new hardware in my hand, so hopefully that won’t be too much longer.

As I look forward to the release calendar for the first half of the year, I’m happy to note that a majority of the big games that have firm dates attached to them are ones that I’m deeply interested in playing. March has Split Fiction, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Wanderstop. April has South of Midnight, Promise Mascot Agency, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. And May sees my big angry DOOM boy returning for The Dark Ages.

Until then, I’m fine to sit the likes of Kingdom Come and Monster Hunter out, without the crippling FOMO I might’ve had a few years ago. Besides, who needs those games when you have the pair of 2000 Rockstar-developed Game Boy Color games Austin Powers: Oh, Behave! and Austin Powers: Welcome to My Underground Lair! to revisit? It’s for an upcoming video, honestly.