Time to Loot Journal: January 2026

The holidays are over, the year begun -- time for a break.

Time to Loot got older. Work resumed for another year. My Steam library (and by extension backlog) got bigger. All the normal things! Oh- and I even completed the monthly gaming goal! That one… OK, perhaps a bit less normal.

The Christmas holidays coming to an end was every bit as painful as it is every year. But on the one hand, back into the swing of things now. On the other- I did take two extra annual leave days to wrap around a public holiday (Waitangi Day) to soften the blow.

A completely necessary action. Hah. I’ve also booked in a few leave days (generally around public holidays) for first half of the year. I’m telling you- it helps!

As for what I picked up in Jan (try not to judge too hard on how many still say ‘New’ *cough*):

Oh- and don’t judge either for the ones that don’t show new but still also don’t show up in the played list of games this month! That means, uh, I at least got as far as installing them!

Moving on!

Gaming Goals

January Goals

• Blue Prince: Get into the Antechamber.

I don’t want to say too much for fear of spoiling things for those yet to play Blue Prince for themselves — but above is my house layout the first time I successfully got into the Antechamber.

I will also say, that even on the run previous — Day 29 — it felt like achieving it was miles off, and who knows when I would achieve it.

Day 30 rolled around and pieces just started clicking. I knew from fairly early into the run it was a ‘good’ one, getting reroll dice and a keycard early.

I’ve been into Room 46 twice now — the first time it’s forced cutscene and end of run, so, make sure you’ve done anything else you want to in that run before you enter — the second time though, well… I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say at this point that the game is just getting started. I’ve heard it called the end of ‘Act 1’ by some people, despite there being no official act structure to the game.

I’m really glad I did it, and the remaining acts and puzzles do hold some interest — but I think it’s probably fair to say I’m done with Blue Prince for at least the forseeable future.

February Goals

• Wuthering Waves: Complete the 3.1 Main Story Quest

Alright, yes, I added and crossed it off in the same post. Normally I’d just not put in goals when I was late to posting the journal and so completed it already.

But I wanted a chance to at least say: 3.1 might be my favourite MSQ patch so far. I think storyline enders (i.e., the 2.7 patch for Rinascita) sort of sit in a league of their own, so I’m putting that one to the side. But outside of that the contenders for me would be 2.2 (Cartethyia’s story) or 2.5 (Phrolova’s story).

The lore. The feels. It has it all, and moved things along a surprisingly long way.

• Persona 5 Royal: Complete the next Palace.

So, when I picked this up again — I knew it’d been a while since I last played. But uh.. It had been over two years. I last played around 30ish hours in May 2023, then put it down til Jan 2026 and played another 30ish hours.

I think I’m near the end of what would’ve been the original Persona 5 game before the Royal content. I did look up what the unlock conditions were for the Royal semester as I didn’t want to miss it, and I think I’ve hit both mandatory requirements but may have missed one optional extra rep for yet more content.

I say ‘may’, because I do have a little more time before the cut off for it, I think.

In any event, I was tempted to say ‘Finish the game’, but there could be another 40ish hours for all I know!

Games Played January 2026

‘Finishing’ (I use the term loosely) Blue Prince definitely sparked a desire to play some other puzzle games, which showed up in January mostly through Monument Valley, although they are of quite a different nature and far less of a brain stretcher.

It’s funny though, Blue Prince teaches you to think in rather particular ways, and I found this carrying over to other games I was playing around it. Completely does not help in those other games, but it’s a hard habit to break for a little bit!

I also decided to take another look at Star Citizen. It has been years upon years since I last did (I think with the Alpha 2.x series of patches, it’s up to Alpha 4.6 now).

The vision of what Star Citizen wants to be is becoming more apparent, and I love that vision. But hoo boy. It is still so rough. Bugs galore and frustrations as a result abound.

Tell you what though, taking another look in despite the issues, has made me more hopeful that a game will eventually result out of the north of $900m funding they’ve secured over the years.

As for Arknights: Endfield. Eh. Despite the character aesthetic being a turn-off for me, I was curious how well the factory genre would be integrated. And you know what? It wasn’t bad.

I might even go so far as to say it was ‘good’, even. The simplifications made – e.g., none of the production chains, at least up through to the end of Valley IV – are particularly long. Each tier of gear starts from its own base material with little to no call for the previous tier of base materials.

Not exactly awesome if the factory genre is your main angle of interest — but as a compromise to fit into a gacha game, it works. And heck, they put in a research tree, expandable and upgradeable factory areas, so it isn’t like they dumbed it down to nothing.

The package as a whole though, I think, not for me. Combat and story in particular, as compared to Wuthering Waves, not quite up to scratch. And as I think I ultimately learned during my fling with Honkai: Star Rail, one gacha game at a time is enough for me!

Books Read January 2026

It was a Butcher centric month for me so far as reading went — and I loved both of them.

Jumping back into Twelve Months (The Dresden Files #18) reminded me just how long it has been though since the last book, as I remembered far less about the previous events even compared to my usual.

… Enough so, that I’m contemplating a re-read of the series. But the right time to do that would’ve been before reading the latest entry. Hah.

In any case, as I noted — I loved it. Remembering details as I went through references did little to diminish my enjoyment of the book. But let me tell you- after I read Cold Iron Task (The Unorthodox Chronicles #3) I thought maybe, maybe I’d end up anticipating the next release in that series more even than The Dresden Files.

Having now read both… I’m not sure! Safe to say, I want both! And certainly for the case of Jim Butcher, I hope the wait isn’t quite so long this next time around!