Steam Weekend Gaming Rotation

Posted on March 23, 2026 by Aywren

When you have a large library of games, sometimes it’s hard to figure out what you want to play. This is a weekend ritual for Syn and I – always asking: “So what do you want to play this weekend?” We began tackling this question with what I call a weekend gaming rotation.

We have several co-op multiplayer games we like to play. Usually these are along the lines of survival crafting games, which means we’re investing a lot of time into them. As much as we enjoy them, some have fallen along the wayside for others.

I started this year by sitting down with Syn and going through our co-op games one by one, asking the honest question: “Are we going to pick this up again anytime soon?” If the answer was uncertain or probably not, I uninstalled the game. I also put it in a Steam category so that I know that these were the multiplayer games that we played before, and might come back to.

This is because despite the number of games we own, there still comes a time when we both are browsing Steam sales to see what’s new out there. I hope that organizing games like this allows me a folder to fall back on and encourages us to revisit games we haven’t in a while.

A Return to Palworld

It was during this reorganization back in January that we came to the conclusion there were two main games we were interested in focusing on: Enshrouded and Palworld.

We hadn’t played Palworld since early 2024, and the game had added a LOT to it since then. Though Syn had set up a dedicated server for our game back then, we’d set it aside (probably for Enshrouded) and I lost track of how many free patches had come and gone since then.

We decided to restart Palworld, despite having played it to level 40 the first time around. This turned out to be a good choice as the game and the progression had changed so much since 2024, and we’ve had a massively good time with it.

However, we didn’t want to focus too hard on one game as we knew that often meant we’d hit a burnout state with it. So, what we decided to do was to alternate weekends between making progress in Enshrouded and Palworld.

This was a good idea, too. This kept the games fairly fresh each weekend with time off between long play sessions. But it was never so much time away that we forgot what our goals were the previous time we played.

When other limited time game events popped up, such as American Truck Sim Valentine’s Event and No Man’s Sky latest expedition, we rotated those into the lineup for a weekend or two. So, when the question came up, “What do you want to play this weekend?” the answer was “Isn’t it an Enshrouded weekend?” or “I think this weekend is Palworld.”

A Good Rotation

This has worked really well for us and we’ve also been able to use it as a measuring stick of interest in a game. For example, lately, we’ve been less interested in Enshrouded. We’ve hit a point where a lot of the quests we have left are the kind that send you running across an entire biome to find things without any guidance, and that feels more like a hassle than fun.

So, when it came to an Enshrouded weekend, we poked at a few easier quests and got those done. But recognized neither of us were in the zone and switched off to Palworld. We’ve been very engrossed in Palworld, and I have now made it into the level 50s – progressing further than we did on our first play.

However, I have a feeling that we’ll need to add a new game into the mix from our co-op library somewhat soon. We don’t want to focus so hard on Palworld that we burn out on it. I’m nearing 200 hours played with 18 hours in the last two weeks alone.

What To Play Next?

I’m just not sure which game that will be. Of the games that are still installed…

We talked about restarting in Smalland now that the game has made a ton of changes since our last play, but I’m not sure if either of us has the energy for that.

We did start playing Salt 2 and enjoyed it for a chunk of hours one weekend. For some reason, it never grabbed us enough to make us return, even though I’d like to. It’s a possibility.

We got to end game on Planet Crafter and stalled out. However, I heard there’s a new update coming that might refresh the game for us.

We restarted on Ranch Simulator last year and had fun with it, but it gets a little monotonous once you’ve established a meat grinding empire. I’m not sure how close we are to calling it quits on this – I did want to see their new fishing skill.

We tried out Abiotic Factor, and even pushed to try it a second time, but something about it just never clicked for either of us even at nearly 6 hours in. I think we’ll probably try it again, but for now, it’s on the backburner again.

We’ve got our eyes on a few other games that are possibilities, but I’m trying not to buy new games unless I really must (or I find really good deals). I guess we’ll see!

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