I had been pondering a new challenge idea and thought about trying to play a game from each year you were born but I was conflicted about this because some members would end up having to play more games than others and some may not feel comfortable revealing the year they were born.
Then @shinespark showed an interest in doing the Millennium Challenge and that seemed like a happy medium!
Rules
Play a game published each year starting from the year 2000 and make your way to the current year of 2026. You do not have to play in chronological order but you’re more than welcome to if you’d like an additional challenge (or maybe from newest to oldest)! If you’d like any recommendations of what games to play, you are welcome to ask here in the thread as well. Best of luck whittling down those backlogs and happy gaming!
Thoughts on remasters/ports and the release date. Does the original release date count, or does the port or remaster release date count? Or can we choose either?
Ooh very interesting challenge for 2026. Imma add a bit of my own sauce and include a personal rule to finish each game I add in each year.
Also, a similar question to BMO’s, what about expanded editions of games? Like the newest version of the Stanley Parable (deluxe edition) released on 2022, but the original in 2013, which one counts?
Added in several candidates that are closest candidates to clearing the year, for reasons like: Being up on my bucket list, are quick to play through, are in small categories to clear away ie. (Subject to change in time, obviously)
2000 Ground Control Anthology
2001 Max Payne / Grand Theft Auto III
2002 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
2003 Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon / Prince of Persia: Sands of Time / Max Payne 2
2004 Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
2005 Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
2006 LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
2007 Crysis
2008 The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut / Precipice of Darkness, Episode Two
2009 King’s Bounty: Armored Princess / Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Director’s Cut
2010 The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
2011 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim / Alice: Madness Returns
2012 LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes / Game of Thrones: The Roleplaying Game
2013 Zeno Clash 2
2014 Legend of Grimrock 2
2015 Jotun: Valhalla Edition
2016 Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
2017 This Strange Realm of Mine
2018 The Forest / My Big Sister / Ghost of a Tale
2019 Age of Empires: Definitive Edition / Children of Morta / Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
2020 Hades / Half-Life: Alyx / Songs For A Hero
2021 Sable / Pedro’s Adventures In Spanish
2022 Dome Keeper
2023 Deliver Us Mars / Sifu / Bramble: The Mountain King
2024 Just a To the Moon Series Beach Episode / Songs of Conquest / Inkulinati
2025 Claire Obscur: Expedition 33/ Beholder: Conductor / Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
I’ve made a little bit of progress but haven’t completed anything yet.
Digimon World
I started this game and it is incredibly grindy. I didn’t make it past the first area before my Digimon died and it became an egg, which led me to looking up the life cycle of Digimon and apparently they only live 15-20 days and I was on Day 6 and getting my ass handed to me. The realization of min-maxing stats while in a constant state of time constraint has me questioning if I want to restart my file or give up entirely.
Puyo Pop
While I find the campaign pretty difficult, save scumming takes the frustration out of it and I find the challenge refreshing. It probably isn’t actually that hard but I’m just not the best at strategically placing things. I’ll consider this one completed when I finish the campaign and explore the other game modes.
Bejeweled 2
I consider this one completed at this point. It’s an “endless” game. There’s no achievements. There’s no campaign. There’s a few different game modes. Simple pick up and drop fun.
Monster Hunter Freedom
I put this game on the list because it’s like the ported remastered whatever version of the first game but I have no idea how I’m going to be able to play it. Downloaded a PSP emulator but unsure if I can get it to run. May have to swap it out for something else.
Oh, I think I will try this do this challenge, it sounds fun! If I complete it, it’ll be my first on Grouvee. Still deciding on a game for each year but I’ll update as the year goes on. = game completed and = currently playing, with games I’m planning to play being unmarked. (PATCH NOTES 2/03/2026: = ~loved it~)
2000 - Dark Cloud
2001 - The Best Game Of All Time, Final Fantasy X
2002 - Ratchet & Clank
2003 - Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (this was actually called Locked & Loaded in Australia lol)
2004 - Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (They made three of these in three years???)
2005 - Chibi-Robo!
2006 - Bullet Witch
2007 - Super Mario Galaxy
2008 - 428: Shibuya Scramble
2009 - Torchlight
2010 - Final Fantasy XIII
2011 - Final Fantasy XIII-2
2012 - DRACU-RIOT!
2013 - Rain
2014 - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
2015 - Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward
2016 - Rabi-Ribi
2017 - Gravity Rush 2
2018 - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
2019 - Ciconia When They Cry: Phase 1 - For You, the Replaceable Ones
2020 - Summer Pockets: Reflection Blue
2021 - Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
2022 - CozyTyper
2023 - Diablo IV
2024 - Pools
2025 - Tokyo Xtreme Racer
2026 - Romeo Is A Dead Man
Hopefully I got all the release dates right. Oh jeez that’s a lot of games… I better get to work!!!
I started Silent Hill 3. I’m following a guide as I play it cause I’m a coward. I’ve made it to the 3rd level out of 14 according to the guide after about an hour or so. Hoping I’ll have this completed by the end of February.
I’ve also been making more progress on Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Still just slowly working on getting my island to a “finished” state. And making money. Hopefully I don’t forget about getting turnips tomorrow. They’re my big money maker right now.
Been slowly chipping away at my challenge, three down and twenty-three to go. I’ve changed some of the games around with the whims of my mood, but a good amount of it is the same.
I haven’t had the energy to write full-on reviews lately (I did do a little write-up on Rain though), but I’ll post them here if I end up doing some! In the meantime, some short thoughts on what I’ve played through so far:
CozyTyper is very cute! When I was trying out games for practicing typing, this one was my favourite. Simple and effective with lots of content to work through. Kind of ended up leading me to playing a bunch of different utility games I’ve been having fun with. It some weird issues with different typefaces which could really use patching for ease of typing, but otherwise this is my go-to for practice.
As polarizing as I have to imagine the reviews are after having played it, Romeo is a Dead Man blew my head up. There’s no way for me to be impartial with how much of a fan I am of Grasshopper. I loved everything about it, even, or especially the (many) imperfections and idiosyncracies this group of developers is known for. Something about the entirety of the experience spoke to my soul. It almost certainly is not gonna be the game for a lot of people, but I feel very happy it’s the game for me! Not only pretty much guaranteed to be my game of the year, but one of my favourite games, period. Grasshopper’s best since No More Heroes I reckon.
Romeo took all of my focus for a while there, but it’s time to get back to the backlog. Between Kemono Teatime, GRIS and Sorry We’re Closed trying to work on games on the shorter, <10hrs side!
I haven’t heard of CozyTyper and it looks cute! I added it to my wishlist. :))
I haven’t made any decent progress because ACNH has been taking up my game time! Which technically is progress because it’s on my list but I feel like I’m falling behind on the Grouvee Game Club games because of it. Ah well. What a problem to have!
Going slowly here, with other things keeping me busy. But also, I’m determined to give year positions to games that I have only given a fair chance playing enough to experience its fundamentals. (none of those that have been dropped before I could get the groove on, in a matter of speaking)
2000 - Ground Control Anthology
2001 - Max Payne / Grand Theft Auto III
2002 - Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
2003 - Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon / Prince of Persia: Sands of Time / Max Payne 2
2004 - Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
2005 - Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
2006 - LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
2007 - Crysis
2008 - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut / Precipice of Darkness, Episode Two
2009 - King’s Bounty: Armored Princess / Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Director’s Cut
Bejeweled 2
= currently playing, with games I’m planning to play being unmarked. (PATCH NOTES 2/03/2026: