Gaming

So your staple games seem to be focused on gameplay (or you're at the part where the story is done) while the games you think you want to play are story heavy with gameplay locked behind looking at cutscenes and listening intently to dialogue. If the first actual playing happens after only 30 minutes, you might not have the energy to sit through that. Maybe look into indie games that get quickly to the gameplay. You'll probably find that it's not that hard to play new games if they're built for playing instead of mass appeal and story

You're defaulting to your "comfort setting" which is a normal human thing.

Playing new games takes mental and emotional energy. There are also a lot more unknowns, which is a significant mental load. Our brains are naturally a bit aversive to this, especially if you're feeling low-energy.

When you play the same old games you've enjoyed for over a decade, it's a way for your brain to "veg out" as it were. The amount of thinking is minimal, and there's no emotional suspense--you know exactly what's coming.

So the answer has more to do with your mental and emotional energy levels. If your life is otherwise taxing in those areas, it's perfectly fine to unwind with some comfort games at the end of a long day. If you find yourself feeling like this all the time, you might be dealing with depression or chronic exhaustion. And those are too complex to answer without more info.

Hope that helps!

I’m exactly the same. Dark Souls 1 & 3, Elden Ring, Sekiro, Oblivion, Skyrim, and Hitman probably make up >95% of my playtime in recent years. I just replay them over and over again. I’ll occasionally replay other games I used to play one time, but I very rarely will try out a new game, and if I do I almost always default back to one of my staples after a couple hours.

That other comment talking about it due to exhaustion is definitely the reason for me I think. The last ~2.5 years I’ve had a lot more responsibilities at work, and now I’ve got a baby at home, so on the rare occasion I actually have energy to play a game, it’s gonna be something I know I’ll have fun with. It’s going to be even worse soon I suspect due to work. I applied for a manager job and feel pretty confident I’m gonna get it, but of course that means I’ll likely have even less energy after work to play games. Oh well. Such is life.

the heart wants what it wants.

I think it's normal to have comfort games.

There's no shame in not finishing something if you got enough out of it. Maybe a little bit of guilt because you paid for it, but you can always go back and finish it later.

Maybe it's a good idea to stop adding to the backlog knowing that you're not as likely to finish new ones. At least until the backlog is clear. Maybe you find more comfort games in the backlog and have even less time for new ones.

Yup.

Warframe as well. And Star Trek Online, if only for the ships. Gonna go back to Neverwinter for a spell.
Might hop and jump into the Fallout series, with New Vegas coming to mind.
Even Mount and Blade has me ride from time to time.

Old, but comfortable.

I don't know what it is about these games that draws me to them. Is it the longevity, the fact that they will probably never end and will theoretically still be around in 10 years? Is it just because I honestly prefer them?

The two groups of games you mentioned are built different.

The staple games are designed around long-term dopamine drip feeds. That's how they hook you and keep you coming back. The backlog games arguably have something similar in the form of progression systems and story beats, but they're more finite by design.

If you're looking to keep both in your life, I'd suggest aiming to split your time between them. So if you have four hours available, you could play Control for two and Warframe for two if you want to have your comfort food to look forward to, or the other way around if you need to zone out first.

I'm exactly the same.

For the holiday season, I take a list of games my friends and I like to play together, and put them into a spin wheel to help us pick something in these indecisive times. It's a bit of a different situation to playing alone, but maybe someone should put such a mechanism in front of your steam library to kind of give you a little nudge towards something else for a bit.

oh man I need to play the system shock 2 remake with them.

I feel this too. I always default to vanilla WoW, BG3, or Stardew Valley even though I have hundreds of hours into them.

If I’m not sure about a game, I try to find a long play online somewhere. If at any point I find myself wishing I could take the controller and play that part myself, then it’s probably a game I should buy.

Start watching someone else pay the games in your backlog and see if any of them make you want to play them for yourself.