Time flies and the backlog is still there… Once again it is time to strap in and make an effort to defeat that behemoth of a pile with games we haven’t gotten around to playing yet. A great way of making it just a little bit more managable is to join this challenge! Keeping a score and having the support of fellow backloggers from our great community makes it easier and a lot more fun.
Our challenge is to finish as many games as possible from the backlog and not adding too many new games to it, bringing the total number of games down.
This friendly competition is a great opportunity to discover games old and new, get inspired by each others completions and talk about great, and bad, games. Hopefully making a dent in the backlog, but most importantly having fun. I hope you’ll join!
Rules:
- Each game successfully completed from your backlog gives you a point (+1).
- Each newly purchased game detracts a point (-1) .
- The competitor with the highest score by December 15th, 2026 will become the XboxEra 2026 Backlog Challenge Champion.
- Games on Xbox Game Pass or any other subscription service are worth zero points aside from the following exemptions:
- The game is already part of your backlog, in which case it is treated normally
- You purchase a copy of the game at which point it becomes a -1 until beaten
- Any games received as a gift from your friends/family/dog or won in a giveaway do not count against you, as you did not make the conscious decision yourself to add it to your backlog.
- Length does not matter. Regardless of whether the game is a couple of hours long, or a 100+ hour RPG, it’ll be worth +/- 1 point. Additionally, feel free to play multiple games at once.
- As for DLC, significant DLC will be worth +/-0 .5 points for each individual DLC. You can complete multiple DLC for one title. Since not all DLC is created equal, we’ll leave it up to the council (the competitors) to decide whether a DLC should count for points.
- Expansion passes that are purchased count as -0.5 per DLC.
- Games about to be delisted are “free” to purchase.
- Grace period: December 15th through December 31st every year, any purchases made will not count against you for the next competition. However, this also means that any games completed during this period won’t count either.
- These rules aren’t perfect, so if needed, we can modify them as we go. If you have an issue with any of the rules, feel free to bring them up.
How To Play:
- Sign up by commenting below! The contest will begin on January 1st, 2026, but challengers can still join afterwards.
- Once you’ve beaten a game or bought a game, comment the name of the game and system, then give yourself or remove a point. Scores will then be tallied on our leaderboard.
- We run on an honor system. This is meant to be a fun competition, so come on, don’t cheat.
- A game doesn’t need to be 100% completed to have it count. But if the game has a story, then at minimum it should consist of beating the main campaign and seeing the credits roll.
- Have fun!
The current reigning Backlog Champion is @Knottian . Can they be dethroned this year? Sign up below and give it a go!
- @ Mort
- @SheepDip
- @Widey85
- @Searsy82
- @Knottian
- @APOPHIS1989
- @Staffy
- @SilentJay76
- @Zip
- @ACyberRazorCut
- @CallMeCraig
- @ MasterLeePhD
- @ Dankey_Kang
