What are we all playing this holiday?

Adam: My holiday gaming will be as predictable as a meal of sprouts and turkey followed by crackers, booze and a blurry Boxing Day with the in-laws. If you were to guess what would Adam play over the holidays, you'd probably go with Civ VI, Stellaris, Crusader Kings II and Football Manager. You'd be right. It's important to introduce something strange into the mix though, and in an innovation on a par with "custard instead of gravy", I'm also playing Final Fantasy XV. It's like a shit version of The Witcher 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it's a perfect late night game that engages around half of my brain and then shows me funny photos of what I've been up to. And the food looks delicious.

Alec: I'm going away for Christmas and plan to have a PC-free time of it. (I see monitor bezels when I close my eyes). I couldn't entirely resist the siren calling of flashing pixels however, and will be taking a Vita with me, freshly hacked to run a dizzying array of emulators. Including a PSOne one, with the express intention of thus making it into a portable X-COM machine. Once I'm back, I'm going to check out Shadow Tactics, a game which several of us are increasingly feeling should have gotten a spot on the ol' advent calendar. STOP RELEASING GAMES IN DECEMBER PEOPLE.

Alice: I had been on course to 1001% The Binding of Isaac in time for its new expansion due on January 3rd but... oh, there's that whopping great new mod, Antibirth just out. Flip. Well, that then. I also fancy diving back into Devil Daggers (my current best is a disappointing 283 seconds, not even enough to see The Really Good Stuff) and plan to finish Virginia and Firewatch. Beyond that, yeesh, this year has so many great games I've barely touched. Might just go find fun places to swim along the coast.

Brendan: Between shivering and eating turkey with ten different type of potato in the Old Country and getting a flight back to the New Country where I will eat pizza in the sun, I'll probably be shooting punks in Overwatch. But I've also been meaning to try Astroneer, since everyone seems to like its purplish space and cartoony cosmonauts. Or maybe just Reigns on my phone for a week.

Graham: This Christmas if I play anything it will be Dishonored 2. I keep telling myself this, but the truth is that it might still not happen because I'm intimidated by what feels like a large time investment. More likely is that I'll keep pottering in Astroneer, which feels - if only because it's now familiar - like it rewards smaller investments of time more quickly than something big and narrative-led will.

John: Christmas used to be the best break, because it was when I could unabashedly play lots of games, old and new, and remind myself a bit of the normality of gaming. But now I've got a stupid idiot family, and that wonderful week of freedom is taken up by ghastly things like seeing them and spending time with them. Apparently, for some reason, my wife doesn't think it's reasonable for her to continue to take care of him during my usual work hours while I just goof off and have a nice relaxing time, because she is SELFISH AND MEAN. So yeah, holidays now mean less time for gaming that work time, so I have little hope of getting anything much played.

Philippa: These Christmas holidays I'm fairly certain I'll be playing a lot more Astroneer. It's a good game for filling in gaps of any length of time, plus I can listen to podcasts and TV shows while I potter around in space. In terms of other candidates for gaming, I''m not sure. There's a book I've started and which I'm really loving, I have a new bird identification guide so nature walks are calling me, and I want to spend time with friends and family I don't get to see very often so this is likely to be a thin year in terms of holiday gaming. Not like previous years where I was using stuff like Dota to keep in touch with people. Oh, actually, I might also bung in a few hidden object games to keep me occupied in the evenings! Now I think I'm good to go!