Total Playtime: Game-Themed 2026 Wellness Teams For Great Prosperity

Let game designers guide us
The Meowscular Chef from Monster Hunter Wilds.
The only thing keeping you from a body like this is commitment.

Total Playtime is a Patreon-supported podcast about videogames, hosted by Alice Bell, Jon Hicks, Brendan Caldwell and Nate Crowley. Jank has partnered with them and we'll be posting new episodes each week.

This week's episode is a Premium instalment for paying subscribers, which means we can abandon our already tenuous grasp on current events and succumb to the intoxication of high concept. This week: as the world lurches into self-improvement at the start of the year, which videogame characters would we choose to coach us into living better?

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Total Playtime: Game-Themed 2026 Wellness Teams For Great Prosperity
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You can see the picks of Brendy, Nate and myself below, and you can listen to the episode to hear our reasoning. Alice was away this week, but wished to make clear that she considered our answers poorly- thought-out and also that her choices would be Aloy off of Horizon Zero Dawn, Officer Dooley from The Darkside Detective, and that posh one off of Final Fantasy XV.

Fitness

Jonty: Ezio from Assassn's Creed

Brendy: Kiryu Kazuma from Yakuza

Nate: Schelemeus from Hades II

Motivation

Jonty: Skelly off from Hades

Brendy: Little Lion from Skin Deep GLaDOS from Portal

Nate: The Advisor from Total War Warhammer 3

Diet

Jonty: Agent 47 from Hitman

Brendy: The Meowscular Chef from Monster Hunter: World

Nate: Bancho from Dave The Diver

BONUS: Brendy wants Swansea from Mouthwashing as his sponsor, Nate would have Harry Kim from Disco Elysium, and Jonty would have Jackie from Cyberpunk 2077

Recommendations this week are Folding Ideas' video on the Jarhead sequels, the movie Hamnet, and Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.

Music by God Ribbon, and art by Marsh Davies.

Tagged with:
Podcast / Total Playtime
Jon Hicks

Jon Hicks

Jon is Editorial Director of GamesIndustry.biz. He has previously managed a lot of games websites and worked at a lot of live events. He contributes to Jank in his spare time and doesn't cover anything here that he's covered at work.