Building play-order collections for game series
Deciding to play through a series is easy. Deciding the order is where it stalls, because for most long-running series there is no single correct answer — release order, in-world chronology and 'what a new player should skip' are three different lists, and the internet will argue for all three.
A play-order collection is how you settle it once, write it down, and stop relitigating the decision every time you finish an entry.
Pick an ordering principle before you pick an order
Release order preserves the experience the developers built, including the technological leaps and the moments where a sequel answers its predecessor. It is almost always the right default for a first run through a series, and it ages badly only when the earliest entries are genuinely unplayable now.
Chronological order suits series where the story is the point and the entries were made out of sequence. It works best when the series was designed with a coherent timeline rather than having one retrofitted, which is rarer than fans tend to claim.
The third option — a curated path that skips entries — is the most useful and the least discussed. Most long series have two or three instalments that are safely skippable, and a marathon that acknowledges this is far more likely to be finished than one that dutifully includes every spin-off.
A branching graph beats a numbered list
Real play orders are not always linear. Two side entries might be interchangeable, a spin-off might be optional, and a prequel might work either before or after the entry it precedes. Flattening that into a single numbered list forces a false decision and hides the structure.
Laying the collection out as a graph — nodes for games, links for 'play this after that' — records the shape as it really is. Two unlinked nodes at the same depth mean genuinely interchangeable; an unlinked optional node reads as exactly that.
Keep the graph honest about status. Colour-coding the nodes by whether each game is finished, in progress, queued or not owned turns the collection into a progress view as well as a plan.
- Link only real dependencies — over-linking invents constraints
- Optional entries belong in the graph, unlinked, not deleted from it
- Include games you don't own yet and flag them, so gaps are visible
- Roll up total hours so you know what you're committing to
Include games you don't own
This is the detail that decides whether a play-order collection is useful. 'The Zelda games in chronological order' is a reading list, and a reading list that silently omits the four entries you have not bought is not the list you asked for.
A collection should be able to reference any game, with the ones you do not own flagged rather than hidden. That way the collection doubles as a shopping list, and the total-hours figure reflects the actual marathon rather than the portion you happen to have already.
Share it, and take a copy rather than a reference
Play orders are worth sharing — somebody has already thought hard about the best route through a series, and that work should not be repeated per person.
The subtlety is what 'adopting' someone else's list should mean. A live reference sounds tidier but is wrong in practice: if the author rearranges their order while you are eight games into it, your marathon rearranges itself underneath you. A deep copy — games, positions and links, all duplicated — means your edits stay yours and theirs stay theirs, which is the behaviour everyone actually expects.
A copy should also start private. Publishing someone else's list under your name is their call, not yours.