I'm bored and desperately search for a proper game
from LordWiggle@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world on 23 Apr 11:07
https://lemmy.world/post/28600909
from LordWiggle@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world on 23 Apr 11:07
https://lemmy.world/post/28600909
So, I’ve spent over 2 hours on Steam searching for a nice game to play. But it’s all junk, as far as I’m fed with Steam recommendations. I liked ksp2 1, cities skylines 1, age of empires 2, baldurs gate 3 a lot, I just finished Divinity original sin 2. I like rpgs and management / factory games like workers and resources, satisfactory etc. I’m having a lot of fun with split fiction when I play with a friend, but I need a proper singplayer game. Anything I could get which isn’t a total ripoff due to lack of gameplay or it being a bug simulator or dlc purchase mania?
EDIT: I’m a bit overwhelmed by all reactions. Thank you all so much! I have a lot of amazing recommendations to check out!
threaded - newest
Have you considered Rimworld or 4x games? Stellaris, in particular, might be up your alley.
+1 to RimWorld suggestion.
++++1 for Rimworld. The first time I really committed to learning to play that game, I lost almost 100 hours in ~3 weeks (which is a ton for me, since I have kids and a job… I lost a lot of sleep). The best part of Rimworld, is if there’s a vanilla mechanic you don’t like or wish was fleshed out more, there’s a 98% chance someone has made a mod for it.
But yeah, it isn’t for the faint of heart. It definitely has a learning curve and it isn’t super easy to just pick up and play for small amounts here and there. It’s a game that you really need at least 1-2 hours per session.
I’d recommend watching a quick start tutorial video before you start playing, as that’ll also give you an idea on whether or not you’ll like it.
I almost religiously play games without modding, but Rimworld is the major exception - it is simply too good to ignore.
It’s fairly playable without mods these days, I’d recommend new players at least try that to find out what they’d want to tweak before diving in. But yeah at 3k+ hours on steam it’s definitely one of the games that’s given a bunch for me. Very moddable but I’d suggest trying to keep your list light (not that that really stops me), use rimpy for mod management and grab the performance mods like rocketman and performance fish.
I like Stellaris quite a bit, but I should note that OP mentioned how he didn’t like spending money on DLC. Stellaris follows the typical Paradox approach of creating a lot of DLC to expand and extend the game and its gameplay as long as people are interested in buying it, and winding up with a large game that’ll cost you a lot if you want all the DLC. It may be worthwhile, but if one wants to get all the DLC, it’s gonna add a fair bit to the price.
(checks Steam)
The base game is $40. Buying every available piece of DLC (and it looks like they’re still coming out with more stuff) is another $429.
That being said, I’ve also got a lot of hours of gameplay out of Stellaris, so that does bring the cost-per-hour down quite a lot. But it depends on how much someone is going to play the thing.
I played Stellaris, also HOI4 but those games were hard to learn, even harder to master.
I’ll go check Rimworld, thanks!
Hmm, how about mindustry (its open source and free outside of steam)? It’s like factorio with tower defense. Note: after playing for few hours you might get access to many more stuff in game which might feel overwhelming
Nice thanks, will try!
Stardew if you want a comfy game to play Timberborn for colony sim
Timberborn I played, was nice but don’t feel like playing that anymore.
Stardew I’ve heard great stories about, but doesn’t look like something for me. But I’ll for sure check it out!
Yeah similar here, I could never get into stardew and I played timberborn a while ago but haven’t felt like picking it up again since
Railway Empire 2 hard to put down once you get going.
Wasteland 3 is awesome and akin to DOS2 and BG3!
Thanks, will check them out! Railway empire 2 doesn’t look like something I’d like but I have 2 hours to try before refund and if you say it’s good, I’ll go check it out :)
With Railway it’s the typical anticipation of strategy games that gets you. Just one more expansion of your network, one more resource to connect to a town, one more logistical puzzle to solve. It’s way more intricate (in a good way) than just managing the budget and I’ve sunk hours and hours into some of those missions to figure them out.
Aviassembly.
Its fun in the way that building airplanes in KSP is fun. The game is small, and the physics are simple, but for $10 its a good value.
I don’t see Bioware titles on the list. Dragon Age series for fantasy, Mass Effect for sci fi. Since BG3 is on the list, I wanted to mention in case you haven’t gotten to them yet.
I’ll second Dragon Age since it’s less action oriented than Mass Effect (which is great but OP seems more interested in strategy/management than shooting)
Mass Effect has a “tactical pause” feature though, but it feels less Baldur-like :)
I loved dragon age games and mass effect 1. Even 2, but 3 was shit.
Always gonna recommend Project Zomboid. Yeah it may look like the Sims (which oddly is where TIS got their art influence from), but it’s pretty darn unforgiving. Hell, I lost my last character without realizing how, chalking it up to some strange drug interaction (aka don’t drink and take sleeping pills, kids). Resource management, while not a direct focal point for PZ, is still important as you are watching every aspect of your character’s health and wellbeing.
The latest beta build 42 has incorporated some new mechanics and a nicer lighting system so things feel proper spooky when slinking around in the darkness. And don’t even get me started on the modding community. Infinite possibilities and a constant influx of new content, some which gets so popular it’s adding into the base gameplay. Look up Week One if you want more than just a zed simulator.
I also second Stardew if you are also looking to scratch that cozy gaming itch.
Also Barotrauma
It does have a sandbox aspect, but much as I want to like the game, I always find myself dropping it and playing Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead instead, which is a similar “zombie survival” genre game, but has vastly more stuff and game mechanics. The big selling point for Project Zomboid, in my book, is the far gentler learning curve and lower barrier to entry; it’s got an adorable tutorial racoon, and doesn’t hit you with too much at once, but…
The combat in Project Zomboid frustrates me. It’s very simple, not a lot going on, but because a zombie infection is incurable, a single mistake in timing can have catastrophic effects, so it requires no errors.
The character builds. Project Zomboid has a lot of perks and such. Cataclysm’s got vastly more, plus mutations, bionics, all that stuff.
I prefer the Cataclysm turn-based play to the Project Zomboid real-time play. I don’t have to wait in the real world for actions to complete, and I can stop and think about what my next move is.
To try to illustrate the game complexity difference, take firearms as an example. Project Zomboid has six handguns, four shotguns, and four rifles. Each has one type of ammunition. There are ten weapon mods, each of which can be placed on some of those weapons. There is a firearms skill.
Cataclysm has, to look at just one firearm class and caliber category, 41 rifle-class weapons chambered in .223 (and that’s by default, as chambering can be modified). Each of these can take something like six different classes of weapon mods (replacing the stock, sticking things on the barrel, adding secondary weapons like underbarrel grenade launchers or flamethrowers, etc), multiple fire modes. There are 18 sight mods alone, and it’s possible to have multiple sights on a weapon. Recoil is modeled. Firearms can fit in various types of back/ankle/hip holsters, and draw time and encumbrance is a factor; these also have volume and longest-dimension characteristics, so that a large revolver can’t fit in a small holdout holster. For those .223-caliber rifles alone, there are 13 types of ammunition, including handloads, tracer rounds, armor-piercing rounds, etc. There are 63 different calibers of weapons. Energy weapons, flamethrower/incendiary weapons, chemical weapons, explosive projectile weapons, flechette weapons, illumination rounds, EMP weapons. There are multiple-barrel weapons, including some with barrels in different calibers. You can load specialized ammunition in a specified order. Different types of reloading mechanisms (revolver, tube magazine, detachable magazine, belt) are modeled. Some weapons use compatible magazines, and high-capacity and drum magazines exist. Speedloaders for revolvers exist. Weapons can be installed mounted on vehicles (fired manually from a mount position, or with an automated weapons targeting system installed, set up to fire automatically). NPCs (friendly, and hostile) can be armed with them. Bore fouling is modeled. When you fire a weapon without hearing protection, you’re temporarily deafened to some degree. There are multiple stances one can take when firing those weapons. Some of the game’s martial arts forms permit use of firearms. There are firearm melee modifications, like bayonets. There are skills for different types of weapons. The game has all sorts of exotic real-world firearms (e.g. to pick a random one, the American-180, a submachine gun firing .22 rounds with a 180-round pan magazine); the game probably has more real-world firearms than any other video game out there; my current source tree says that there are 555 in total.
And that’s before getting into stuff like sandbox vehicle design and construction (land, water, air, amphibious), power generation and storage, nutrition (weight and its various effects on physical capabilities, body fat, vitamins, calcium intake), artifacts, magic (if you turn on some of the various magic or psionic mods), bionics, mutations, local weather systems, temperature (air and body; you can set up heaters and air conditioners in vehicles), vision in various spectra, monsters tracking scent/vision/noise, fires and building structural failures, brewing, the ability to recruit NPCs and create faction camps, quests, aliens, disease modeling, various types of parasites, fungal infections, various types of poisonings and envenomings, various types of lights, devices with removable batteries, internal-batteries, USB-style (UPS) charging and power that can run off static, vehicle, bionic, or power stations. Solar/wind/gasoline/diesel/jet fuel/nuclear power generation. Multi-fuel engines.
I will say that CDDA has piqued my interest, but I’m not a huge fan of turn based anything, although weirdly I will get into some of them. May have to give this a shot myself… once I have time.
I think I’ve been spoiled by the massive modding community with PZ, as I feel there’s always something that’s added that feel right within the game world. Sure, there are plenty of non-lore friendly mods, but stuff like adding all the classic consoles into the loot pile, or real world foods keep the immersion up quite well.
Cdda is a pretty steep learning curve but I keep coming back to it. One of the nice things about the project is that anyone can work on it, I’ve submitted a couple of minor fixes in the past. It changes pretty drastically over the months if you’re playing the latest build. It’s also a huge timesink when you actually get into it.
Project zomboid was a lot of fun, but single-player it gets boring after a while. I don’t feel like playing on a public server and I don’t have friends willing to play it.
You aren’t wrong about the SP getting boring at times. I’ll usually find myself kitted out after a week in game and bored and then asking “what next?”, and then I’ll either create a new character in that same world but on the other side of the map, and see how far they can get. Still waiting for mods like RV Interiors to be released, as they are holding out until a proper stable beta of B42 is released… so that could be some time. Granted I’ve also been using Week One as a baseline mod for PZ, as it revitalizes the baseline start to be more in line with “how does this apocalypse truly go down?”. Is it perfect, far from it, but it adds just enough plausibility to make you feel immersed even further. As for MP, I’m not a fan at all. I tend to play most all games SP, as I’m a very patient gamer and usually jump onto the MP bandwagon too late to feel included.
Yeah I feel the same about MP. Although I do like to play with friends, but that’s different than random people online. I believe I had a mod for rv interiors. Like, half a year ago or something.
You might enjoy Sid Meier’s Civilization games. I’m partial to Civ 6, but they’re pretty much all in the same vein of management games.
Played them, we’re fun but don’t feel like playing them anymore.
Oblivion remaster looks pretty good. Have you played through that game before?
Original is on GOG for 1/10th of the price too, tons of great mods to improve both graphics and gameplay.
www.nexusmods.com/games/oblivion/mods?sort=downlo…
A must have for me is the All Plus 5 mod so I don’t feel forced to power game my starting skills.
Nooo! Don’t do that. The initial leveling is my favorite part of every RPG. It really gets my dopamine receptors running.
It only changes it so that you get your +5 choices if you have even one skill up in the category.
Without it the best way to play is to choose your main skills as Minor Skills and skills that are easy to avoid leveling up (and preferably easy to level up when you want to) as Major Skills to always get 3x +5 every level up.
With it you can let your character have major skills that you actively use during gameplay without gimping yourself.
I played all elder scroll games (except online) and fallout games but Bethesda lost me. They scammed me with fallout 76 (I have the special edition with power armor helmet) and their games after Skyrim just flatline imo. Fallout 4 got fixed somewhat, but that’s it. They won’t get my money anymore. Screw Todd Howard.
If you’re saying that you liked the (unfinished, abandoned, poorly-rated) Kerbal Space Program 2, you might play the original, which is better-regarded.
On the “factory” side, maybe some colony simulators? Someone else mentioned Rimworld. That’s got a bit of DLC, but I think that even the base game has pretty good value for money. Oxygen Not Included is another colony sim that focuses more on the building/automation/physics side; I think that you’ll get a lot of hours out of that.
Dwarf Fortress is another colony sim, has a freely-available classic version or a commercial graphical build on Steam. Steep learning curve, but lots of mechanics to explore.
I like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, though it has a pretty punishing learning curve. Open-world roguelike. It touches on both the RPG (well, not much by way of plot, but in terms of building a character) and the factory (build buildings, faction camps with NPCs, and vehicles) side. You aren’t going to run out of gameplay complexity to explore any time soon on that. Open source and freely-available, though there’s also a commercial build on Steam.
I have not played Elin, the successor to Elona, but it might be worth a look too if you are looking for a game with both a sandbox aspect and RPG aspect.
Wups, that was a typo. I liked ksp1, 2 was a massive disappointment and shitshow and they scammed me out of my 40 euros.
A classic one would be to go for BG1 and BG2
Then either play the enhanced editions with EET or play the originals with Baldur’s Gate Trilogy to allow you to play all three games as a singular campaign (as well as running BG1 in the same engine as BG2 if you go for the originals)
I played them all already :)
Switching to management then, have you played Banished?
Have you played the mod Colonial Charter? Latest version is 1.76 and I found a GDrive download here:
www.gog.com/forum/banished/colonial_charter_mod
Mod makers site seems down.
I did play banished. I haven’t played the mod though, but kinda don’t want to play banished anymore. Is the mod really worth getting back into it?
Edit: I see I already am subscribed to the mod in the workshop so I have played it.
Depends on what parts of banished caught you. The mod lets you build much more visually pleasing cities by adding lots of different housing styles and so on. It also add many more production chains. Was many years since I played it and I think it was an earlier version of it.
Seems to still be up on the workshop too:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=84…
Maybe Frostpunk would be up your alley?
I liked 1, didn’t like 2 that much.
The first Witcher game is quite old but you could like the gameplay (it’s not action oriented, unlike the 2 following Witcher games)
It’s honestly not great looking but the story is great, and who knows, you might fall in love with a great franchise :)
I played all with er games but never finished any of them as it’s just not for me weirdly. I played elder scrolls games which were nice but the Witcher just doesn’t catches my attention.
Tropico 6 is on sale 65% off on GOG right now.
Yakuza Kiwami is a remaster of the original and is a beautiful and hilarious rpg
Subnautica is kinda a perfect mix of both RPG and management games
Seconding Yakuza. There's about 10 games in the series, all are pretty great to amazing. The older ones are all dirt cheap and often go on sale by 50%
Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami or Like a Dragon are all good starting points
Played them all already :)
Factorio. If you like satisfactory and w&r then cracktorio is right up your alley.
There is also a free demo on Steam.
store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/
If you enjoy the base game I would 100% recommend the expansion called Space Age with adds 4 more planets and space flight between them.
I played several factory games which is right up my alley. I know Factorio is the best of all by far, but I couldn’t get in to it somehow.
I couldn’t get into it either, but I loved mindustry (that someone else mentioned)
Check out Elin.
Basebuilding/dungeon crawling/pixel art/roguelike. Kinda like ADOM meets stardew, but weirder and more Japanese. Weirder how? Here’s the wiki entry on the chaos shape race, which you can play as.
VERY in depth systems in the game. Mutations, crafting, prayer, it’s a deep game.
Going Medieval is a pretty great building/management type game! It gets updated often with new content too
You build your castle and manage the sims in their daily jobs. There’s a great building system, farming, defense against raiders, mining, a good crafting pipeline. It’s a lot of fun
I have 247 hours on record. But because it’s really slow, I stopped playing it.
At the thrift store today I picked up an original disk copy of Prey (2006) and the thief trilogy.
Played them all but not a great fan
I remember enjoying Prey on release but never finishing it and being distracted by Q3A
Ksp2 was severely botched by Take2… but if you’re into the genre you might want to check out Juno.
In addition you might want to keep an eye out for KSA which is currently in early stages of development. As there’s no official website yet, I try to keep on top of any dev updates and nuggets of information so I can update the lemmy community.
The KSA team keeps showing off incredibly impressive demos. I have no doubt they will be able to achieve a worthy KSP successor.
Yeah I hope they do, ksp1 is a very important game. I’m still mildly concerned about their choice to avoid steam though.
Ksp2 was a typo, I meant ksp1. Juno I didn’t like that much, I can’t want for ksa release! Watching closely the development.
If you’re up for ARPGs, something like Titan Quest or Grim Dawn have many hours worth of gameplay.
Worth looking at as well is anything in the Monster Hunter series. World and Rise are both amazing along with their expansions and Wilds just recently released.
All of my recommendations are long-term games with many hours worth of playtime.
Thanks will look into them!
Expedition 33 is a turn based rpg with some slight action elements. Just came out to glowing reviews and might be worth checking out.
Story might not be to your liking though.
Based on your enjoyment of management and strategy, Paradox's grand strategy games might be something you enjoy. Same publisher as Cities Skylines. There are four main series of them, each with their own mechanics but enough broad-scale similarities that knowing one helps with the others. They are:
What distinguishes them from strategy games like Civ and Age of Empires is the greatly-reduced abstraction. There's no expectation of every starting point or playable country being balanced; if you start as Belgium in Hearts of Iron, you're going to have to do something clever to not get steamrolled by Germany. There's also no win condition beyond what you set for yourself. When I start a game of Crusader Kings, I'm not trying to win the game, I'm saying to myself "let's see if I can unite all of Britain and Ireland under a Gaelic ruler"
All Paradox games have quite a lot of DLC, but the base games are solid (often now including several of the earlier DLCs for free, in the case of older games) and they go on steep sales pretty often. If there's not a specific time period or mechanic that sways you towards one of the games, I recommend Crusader Kings 3 for the best new player experience
I played almost all of them. I like them, kinda, but they are games which are hard to master and I get frustrated when suddenly everything goes wrong and I can’t find out why. Like with HOI4, my logistics are perfect, my army hyper modern and trained, mixed infantry, special units and armor. Yet they fail battle against a few weak infantry. I spend hours and hours on YouTube tutorials but in the end it’s just a bit too much for me.
Have you tried Kingdom Come Deliverance 2? It’s really good and difficult. It’s a history simulator with a really kick ass story and the hero is just a guy. I really like it a lot.
Yeah but I’m stuck after 2 hours. I got into a battle through a quest I stumbled upon, but there’s an enemy I fail to win from. I seem to be unable to get out of the quest. I played 1, which was really nice although I didn’t completely finished it due to bugs.
I would suggest to load up an earlier save. The beginning is the hardest part of the game (like brutally hard combat sometimes) and if you don’t train Henry up (either find Tomcat or Captain Gnarly, they are trainers) you’ll just die. Or you can do what i did and just brute force the fight with save scumming. The combat is not intuitive until you practice for a bit.
Thanks, yeah I should give it another try! I really liked 1 up to the moment the game got stuck during a loading screen from the main quest.
One tip i would give you so you don’t get overly frustrated is if you see what appears to be a combat situation (anyone hanging out on the road or beside it at camps) save the game by exiting. This makes an exit save which will be overwritten by the next exit save but it doesn’t cost you a saviour schnapps to save. This way you aren’t drunk in combat nor are you limited to saving only via schnapps. If you do that right as you see a combat encounter you should be able to try it a few times and if you can’t win just run or sneak past them.
Thanks, I’ll try that. With 1 I added a mod so I could save any time. I don’t like the snapps mechanic.
This time I saw a guy in a tree with wolves under it. I easily killed the wolves, but then had to carry the guy really far. In the end I had to kill some guys at an emcampment so I could bring this dude to his place, but I couldn’t kill the more heavily armored camp leader. So I played an annoying side quest by slowly carrying a guy really far, then to end up being stuck. So rage quit haha
Lol Vostatek is great. If you can’t get Pepik back, try going at night and sneak in and kill the camp leader with a knife to the throat while he’s sleeping. If you’re lucky you can kill two or three before the others notice. Also at night they don’t wear armor or weapons except the guy on guard.
Alternatively you can just run in and grab Pepik and get back to Vostatek post haste. The mission is to get the horse, the guys are just extra loot.
KCD2 is a game which rewards you for thinking outside the box. Frontal assaults don’t work unless you’re a sword god and henry ain’t that in the early game.
Thanks I’ll try that!
Glad I could help.
I did it! Awesome!
:) The game just gets more awesome as you go so I’m excited for you. Audentes Fortuna Iuvat!
Dyson Sphere Program is a great factory game. Check it out.
256 hours on record. Loved it, don’t want to start a 3rd game.
I mean Oblivion Remastered just came out.
It’s weird replaying Oblivion but it looks like a modern game. All the original audio is there (along with a few new voices to break up the monotony of hearing the same handful of voices over and over again), and all the locations and gear, but it all feels different. Like it’s very familiar, but it’s still very different from what we remember. Leveling is a bit different this time around as you have seven or so points to divide among your attributes, rather than picking a couple that would get increased by random numbers. I’d recommend trying it if nothing else than to try out the new polished version yourself.
Although some of the jank has been removed from this version, like there are no more items duplication glitches, but the Bound Armor/Weapon glitch works.
Yeah but fuck Bethesda these days. I won’t give them my money. They screwed me too often with their money grab junk. I’ll wait for a cracked version.
Piracy is bad! But just so you know there are already people downloading a cracked version of the game illegally today! Can you believe it?!
Being scammed by Bethesda is bad. I buy indie games, I pirate triple A games to see if it’s worth my money. Usually it’s roughly 3 hours before I remove the junk. Fuck that, they don’t deserve my money. Empty shells, unbalanced bs, bug simulators, dlc hoarding, microtransactions. But if it’s actually good, I buy the game. I just have no more trust in big developers. Maybe except for Rockstar. Blizzard, Bethesda, Ubisoft, EA, they all suck. When they screw me over again and again, they deserve to be pirated. But even for free their games aren’t worth my time. Prove your product is worth it’s money and I’ll happily pay full price. Like Larian studios. Shut up and take my money.
I was being sarcastic, fuck big publishers and big tech (Bethesda is both now), pirate all their shit, and shit on the game online so other people don’t buy it.
Although I’ll admit I couldn’t wait, and bought the remaster as soon as I saw it. Oblivion is a special game for me, and this remaster definitely does not disappoint.
Ah, I expected as much after reading your comment a second time after I already replied.
I spent soooo much time playing Oblivion. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It was the first game I played on my first self-built pc, the pc my parents had was shit, only for work, no proper gpu. I must have spent at least over a thousand hours playing Oblivion.
But noooooo, Todd Howard won’t get my money!
I don’t know much about pirated games these days, other than that there’s a lot of junk out there. Malware etc. So far I have a great experience with fitgirl repacks so I’m going to wait for a fitgirl release.
I don’t want to pirate but I feel like I have no choice. I stopped downloading games because of Steam. I stopped downloading music because of Spotify. I stopped downloading movies and shows because of Netflix. I feel scammed on Steam, Spotify is a horrible nazi company and Netflix is so fragmented into other streaming platforms that it’s financially not viable to continue watching everything. So back comes the pirate hat. No one provides more service than piracy. I have more rights by pirating because I don’t have to sign any terms of service. Services just limit their customers while making them pay, while forcing them to give up their rights and ownership. Why would I pay for YouTube premium with less rights, freedom and functions than Grayjay or Vanced? I don’t want a car with functions locked behind a paywall and with ads, I’ll boycott the car brand. Fuck big tech.
That was my rant. Thanks for listening :)
Steam does many things well, but its recommendations system is one thing that, in my experience, really falls flat on its face (which surprises me, because they have enough information to do what I would think would be fantastic recommendations).
For finding games on Steam, I’ve had the most luck simply sorting by user rating (which is a pretty darn good metric of what I’ll like, in my experience), and then using the tags to look for games in a genre. There has been one or two times that it’s led me astray, but in general, an Overwhelmingly Positive game is something that I’ll get a ton of fun out of, and a low-ranked game will rarely be a lot of fun.
Sometimes I’ve had luck with looking at “similar games” to a game, which are shown on that game’s store page.
But the recommendations queue is just awful, in my experience.
I basically do the same, searching overwhelmingly positive games. But most I haven’t tried are poorly looking indie games or weird Asian games. I played several really good indie games, I’m not against that, but what I see generally doesn’t catch my interest. And I have over 600 games in Steam alone, so many good ones I already played.
Now it’s just a sea of junk, having to find a needle in a haystack. And user reviews aren’t a gold standard anymore. I’ve seen amazing reviews of mediocre games, as young people don’t have standards anymore as most games these days are empty of story, full of bugs or both.
The game dev community was outraged by bg3, warning people they shouldn’t see bg3 as a new standard. While back in the days when you still bought physical games in a store, it indeed was a standard to sell you a proper product for the price you pay.
These days I illegally download triple A games to check them first, if they are good I’ll buy them. I haven’t bought a triple A game for a long time. Often 2h of playtime for a refund on steam isn’t enough, when you want to see all the storyline videos and conversations. Not enough time to experience the gameplay.
Indie games I often buy immediately, they really put in effort to make something worth playing. Big companies however just put in effort to make it look really good to make a lot of pre-orders, then to abandon it after a few minor bug fixes while gameplay is poorly written and just a few hours. As long as you peek the interest for just over 2h so people aren’t eligible for a refund anymore. This is scamming people, I don’t understand why they keep getting away with it.
In 2024 almost 19.000 games were released on Steam. I have yet to find a single title from 2024 worth playing.
looks at my own Steam library, adds a shelf sorted by Release Date, looks for notable games
Satisfactory was released in 2024. It was in Early Access for some time before that. You mentioned that you liked it.
Ditto for Caves of Qud and Nova Drift, games that I’ve played quite a bit — 2024 release following time in Early Access.
Dominions 6 is a pretty involved fantasy strategy game. I haven’t played 6 much, but I’ve played the series a lot in the past, and each game is a pretty direct expansion of prior games. Not sure if that’s up your alley, though. The game turns can get pretty long late-game, as there’s a lot going on.
I liked Balatro, a roguelike deckbuilder, quite a bit.
Oh man, there’s so much. My top 10 from last year would be:
If Baldur’s Gate 3 is your speed, that game gives me countless hours of trying new ways to change the story and game.
Finished the game 7 times. Single player and couch coop with friends. I tried to never go for the same route :)
Even when the prompt is better (at all?) articulated, threads like these are a waste of time. People who respond barely read the prompt and OPs generally don’t even know what they are asking for. So obviously you should play a little cult classic indie game called Hollow Knight.
My suggestion is to instead put some time in to find an influencer/reviewer you like. Even if you don’t have a similar taste in games, a good reviewer will say WHY they do and don’t like something and you can make informed decisions from there.
Look into Drova - Forsaken Kin. It’s been great so far.
One of the best games I have played in recent years. Finally scratched an itch that Gothic left me with for years
Endless Sky. Open source and crowd developed. Its story lines, assets, and general size have only increased with age. Active Discord server as well (but it’s only single player, for now anyway).
Some further suggestions I haven’t seen mentioned in all these comments yet, surprisingly:
And maybe a little more casual, but still similar vein as city management:
Out of all of these, I think I’ve played Mini Motorways three times as much as the rest, combined. I dunno why, I just love it.
This thread is actually huge, so apologies if this has already been recommended, but take a look at Against the Storm. It’s an indie city-builder with a bit of a rogue-like spin. You can usually get it on fairly deep sales, and the rogue-like elements combined with some meta-progression gives it a real play length, even though a single city-building session is a ~45-60 minute experience.
I would like to recommend Dave the Diver, Inscryption and Curious Expedition (first one). All of them are superb indie games. It might not be the genres you’re asking for but I would still highly recommend them if you want to try something new.
I loved Dave the diver. Holy shit what an amazing game! I will check out the other titles, Thank you!
Seems like we have similar taste in games—I loved Dave the diver and can second Inscryption!
If you like Inscryption, check out other games by the same dev. They don’t have replayability, but they are unique experiences IMO.
I will scream from the mountaintops that The Hex is his best game. I loved Inscryption so much and thought there was no idea I’d like any of his older games better. Inscryption has better replayability for sure, but I think overall The Hex is a better game. I love it sooooo much and people just get turned off by the graphics, because they don’t understand that there’s a reason they look like that in the previews… and why they can’t show other things.
Anyone reading this, please go play The Hex.
Obligatory FromSoft lineup suggestion.
Not my cup of tea. I tried darksouls, sekiro and elden ring but is just not for me. Thanks though :)
Absolutely. For science and curiosity did you try them using a keyboard+mouse or a controller?
Darksouls and sekiro keyboard and mouse, elden ring controller
Kbam is very doable for souls games, the earlier pre-ds3 ones are slightly painful but for all of them it’s mainly about getting it set up right
Mindustry is basically Factorio with more focus on tower defense.
And there’s Shapez (and Shapez 2) for a more “pure” factory experience (operate on shapes and colors).
If you liked BG3 and Divinity 2, I’m obligated to mention the Pathfinder games: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. The graphics are a touch simple, but the writing is great and the detailed character building scratches an itch for me. As far as I’m concerned, Owlcat is currently the only real competition Larian has.
Added to my shopping list, thanks
I’ll go with some classics if you haven’t tried them yet. Planescape: torment is a really engaging crpg if you don’t mind old graphics and dig lots of lore and dialogue. Morrowind if you prefer first person for another old school rpg with lots of stuff to discover in a weird surreal environment. Dwarf fortress sounds like another older one you might be into too.
dwarf fortress?
Have you tried persona 5? Great jrpg I think the new clair obscur expedition 33 looks really good for single player too
Stellaris is a great realtime 4x strategy game. They have a lot of paid DLC, but you can pick and choose which modules you want. Some are purely cosmetic options while others make gameplay changes, and they go on sale pretty often. Worst comes to worst, you can usually find the DLC on key sites as well for pretty cheap. Paradox also started a subscription based service that gives you access to the DLCs, maybe you can subscribe for a month and try out which DLCs you like.
Project Zomboid is an incredibly hard resource management survival game. It is also very detailed, meaning you need to maintain everything about your character from their hydration, to their weight and fitness. Its a slow burner type game, but when the action picks up, it gets tense. Its also a “forever” game, in that theoretically, if your character never dies, the game never ends. The map is huge, big enough to feel different pretty much every time you play. Its also multiplayer, which is pretty fun.
Farming Simulator can be a fun, chill game to play. Its not as resource management intensive as a game like Project Zomboid, but it can be a good game to relax with.
Ragnarok Online is an older (2003) MMORPG that I recently discovered, and while I am not much of an MMO Enjoyer (I hate the “Disneyland” or theme park feeling most have where I have to wait in line at NPCs and bosses), Ragnarok Online’s player population is consistently low enough to not feel like that while also being high enough to feel like the game is not dead. Just don’t play on the official servers from the Steam client. Use a client that connects to private servers, the economy is really bad in the official servers.
King Arthur: Knights Tale is a pretty fun Strategy RPG. I haven’t been able to play that much of it, but what I have been able to play was pretty fun. Check it out, it might be interesting to you if you liked Divinity and games with combat like XCOM or Fire Emblem.
I started Ragnarok Online in 2003 and it is my favorite game of all time. Easily the best sandbox RPG I’ve ever played. I don’t think I’d actually still be here typing this if I never got into it. I met some incredible people. Thank you for mentioning it. I’ve been meaning to try Origins but I haven’t got around to it. I was very sad when they went F2P and added stupid F2P mechanics.
I wish I still had my old account, with my ice pick and my angeling robe on my GC Crusader!
I’m so happy to hear that you, not having nostalgia for it, enjoy it now! Sending love from a very RO oldhead.
Quick edit: to anyone else reading this, RO is a choose your own adventure hat-wearing chatroom and it’s CHARMING. also the soundtrack by SoundTEMP is fucking stellar. “Desert” and “Purity of your Smile” are so good.
Also my unknown-at-the-time queer ass really wanted to hold Moonlight Flower’s hand.
As far as management goes x4 foundations is an awesome space game! I have hundreds of hours in that game spent just messing around with an industrial empire, buying mining ships, setting trade routes, all that fun stuff. You don’t even have to fight anything if you don’t want to.
I played it too! Was a bit overwhelming at first but such a great game. I used to play Eve, X4 gave me a bit of the same feeling but without the toxic people haha
If you like something more complex, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is pretty good.
I actually like WOTR more in many ways to BG3. Especially when you start getting deeper into it.
BG3 is held back by 5e mechanics a lot unfortunately.
The Rock of Ages trilogy is fun
Stardew valley. Sea of stars. Kingdom come 2. The anno series. Metaphor re fantazio. The Case of the golden idol. Baldur’s Gate 1 &2 enhanced. Planescape torment. Against the storm. Star wars Galactic battlegrounds (it’s basically start wars age of empires 2, same engine). Civilization 5 or 6 (I prefer 5 but plenty of people prefer 6, and seems like no one prefers 7). Command and conquer (except 4). Crusader Kings. Europa universalis.
Thanks! Most I already know, I’ll check the rest. Man, do I miss generals zero hour. If only it had a working multi-player, preferably Lan. I’m a China infantry general master. Even with all the fixes people made I constantly get a “game has detected a mismatch”.
Whenever I read news articles about China I can hear “China will grow larger!”
Too lazy to check all responses but if you want a nice resource building game then Timberborn could be your jam.
I really liked it, played it a lot, but now I don’t feel like playing it anymore.
I feel that. I gave it a 6month break and went back for a new map. Some people like to re-engineer the entire map. I like the challenge of creating a thriving society and then get bored of them. The new sluse gates allow us to automate the water to the point where they are self sufficient.
I see no mention of Starsector, there should be mention of Starsector.
Try Starsector.
Not on steam, early 2000’s website, gameplay looks nice. This is a win for me. Thanks!
Dyson Sphere Program is great, never played satisfactory but I hear they are similar.
Satisfactory is nice, but first person with huge machines. So travel time is a downside for me. Dyson sphere program is much better in that aspect, I played 2 games, with both finishing the tech tree. I played the second game when the first combat implementations were added but I haven’t checked them out yet. I don’t feel like restarting again and my old saves are a mess to pick it back up (can’t remember what is where etc with all the planets). But it’s an amazing game!
STARSECTOR
fractalsoftworks.com
Edit: oh someone already said that
BALATRO
Often when I am sick of all the things I’ve been playing or feeling uninspired I go for a genre switch. To that end I will always recommend Neir: Replicant and Neir: Automata—I feel like a failure and a fool to have sat on them for so many years. Those are both games that feature very approachable gameplay with the whole deep story and cross genre mechanics that the split fiction devs seem to be good at (and are both single player), just be sure to continue playing after the first (and second and third, etc) credits roll.
Other random suggestions:
Bellwright is a really good colony sim / survival craft combo (although I’ve not played it single player so not sure how great it is in that mode).
Cyberpunk 2077 is just fucking great if you haven’t played that.
Disco Elysium if you’re really looking for some Get Stick Bugged content. (and a fantastic drunk cop RPG)
Just don’t buy Disco Elesium, the thieves that stole it don’t deserve that.
Have you tried Oxygen not included? I’m usually not into management games, but it pulled me in.
If you don’t mind Early access games, try “Escape the mad empire”. It’s a nice RPG with tactical pause and some nice looting in it.
Escape the mad empire
Outer Wilds
Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2.
Os there a specific genre of games you are looking for?
Try a different genre than you usually play.
Tetris Effect Connected
A Short Hike
Cult of the Lamb
What Remains of Edith Finch?
Balatro.
You think it’s simple until it’s suddenly 1 am and your brain is mush trying to remember what strategy you’re currently using -oops lost, ok one more run…
Soma.
If you’re in the mood to be hooked on a story. Scary stuff happens, and youll question life a few times.
Pathfinder.
Wrath of the Righteous is the only tabletop pc rpg you’ll need agian. Baldergate 3 is the tutorial mission for this monster game.
Rain World.
If you enjoy metroidvanias with new mechanics.
Tunic.
If you enjoy zelda and dark souls. Theres more to it than it looks. I couldn’t put this one down either.
Check out Dome Keeper. Mine resources to buy upgrades and protect your dome from waves of aliens. There are lots of game modes and modifiers to get different experiences each run.
Have you tried Against the Storm (based on your mentioning of RTS style games)
X4 foundations is a sandbox RPG in space where you do whatever you want.
I am a big fan, as you can see :D
Leaning more into the management style of games, might be worth checking out Two Points Hospital (spiritual sequel to Theme Hospital), and the more recently released Rwo Points Museum?
Project hospital is a fun hospital manager but it’s a lot more serious than two point or theme
I got no clue if this would count as something you’d be into, but I’ve been having fun with Skyblock Zero on Luanti.
Idon’t know how quickly you could finish it considering I play purposefully inefficiently, but it’s a space themed with a quest line to follow where the only limited resource is your time. Spawn on a voxel, keep clicking to gain resources, and build out from there. So far one of my only gripes is storage in the game is only drawers instead of chests, so I constantly have machines and my inventory filled.
Everyone’s recommending games but addressing steam recs, there’s Backloggd which is Letterbox for games. Sure there’ll probably be a similar overlap of games folks love that are not your jam but it’ll help you figure out what you like, find something new, and follow folks with similar tastes.
If you like rpgs and management I’d suggest Battle Brothers, a mercenary company management game. You basically travel the countryside fighting brigands and taking jobs from various cities all while building up your company with new recruits and equipment. It’s got a bit of a learning curve but once you get the basics down it’s oddly enthralling.
store.steampowered.com/app/…/Battle_Brothers/
Factorio. If you enjoyed Satisfactory you should check out the game that created the genre. They have an excellent demo and although it’s relatively expensive compared to similar games, it’s the best one and runs like an absolute dream even when things get huge where a lot of similar games slow down.
It seems like you like games with a lot of replayability, as well as games that make you think a bit. I’m a bit of the opposite (I like shorter, unique experiences), but I also like games that make me think. So here are a few that I’ve enjoyed that I think fit the bill:
That said, I want to echo what others have said and to recommend branching out. There are tons of great indie games that aren’t a total ripoff in a variety of genres, so look around for bundles or something to find something new to try.
You should try Shroom and Gloom
This one? It certainly looks interesting!
That’s the one!
I just restarted playing fallout 4. Can give that a shot if you can catch it on sale
Grim Dawn was pretty sick too if you like Diablo style games. I was pretty impressed
ITT all games dancing around Bannerlord but no one recommended it yet.
Try Shroom and Gloom! It’s a roguelike deck builder on itch.io, completely free if you want it to be. Very challenging and really fun
Dark Souls, no sense of management besides managing to not die, but it’s single player (with optional online interactions) and is good. Hard but satisfying when you get it. Lots to explore in the world.
Factorio. Aka cracktorio.
A Plague Tale: Requiem
Thank me later
Oblivion Remastered is really good.
Oh man, careful OP doesn’t post a two-page rant proclaiming how they’re emphatically anti-Bethesda
I love BGS games. For me, other than Starfield, the only issue with them is the dated graphics and gameplay, but the Oblivion remaster certainly fixes that! If anyone already loves classic oblivion, the ramaster is definitely for you, and if you loved Skyrim, but oblivion was too dated to get into it, the remaster is also for you. Not everyone likes bgs rpgs though
I wanted to recommend go, but you said single player… there’s always Katago to play against.
I guarantee you’ll never truly ‘beat’ the game!
Kenshi
If you like factory designing games, I can recommend anything by Zachtronics.
They’re all esoteric programming/automation type puzzle games, and they all have their own unique solitaire games built-in for whenever you get tired of the main game.
My personal favourites are SpaceChem - scifi molecule factories - and Opus Magnum - steampunk alchemical molecule factories. Something about the molecules just works for me, don’t know why. Plus the Opus Magnum solitaire game is really unique and fun, and it has a user-made level feature, so you can keep playing.
Last Call BBS is a collection of minigames they made as their final release before shutting up shop, so it’s a lot more casual than the others, but a lot of fun.
The Bioshock games are really fun in a very dark way. They are incredibly unique—I haven’t played anything else quite like them. Personally, I liked the first two better than the third one. The first two take place underwater, which sort of creeped me out from the get-go. The third is in a city in the sky.
Terraria.
Slay the spire is really fun and different than what you’ve listed.
It was the first rogue like deck building game. Fantastically done.
Not on steam, but Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is pretty good, and free.
I think you might like ‘Rogue Trader’, even if you don’t know anything about the 40K universe. Cool story, choices and fights.
Don’t worry too much about not knowing the background lore. The game contextualizes a lot in dialogues and even little mouseovers. But be careful, if you like SciFi, you might fall into the awesomely rich and grim rabbit hole, that is Warhammer 40K.
The Emperor protects.
Hardspace Shipbreaker.
Kenshi.
If you can get past the kind of… weird control scheme…
The game is basically a single player mmorpg.
You start off as an absolute weakling, and there is no … scaling, the way most other rpgs either generally have certain levelled enemies in certain areas, that you progress through linearly or unlock sequentially, or just an outright whole world spanning dynamic level matching kind of system.
You can be battling a small beast… and then a herd of very, very much more dangerous beasts, or slavers, will just happen to pass by, and royally fuck up your day.
Every character in the game, including you, plays by the same rules.
All major NPCs can be killed, the game is also full of varying factions with varying alignments towars other factions, and they will treat your character differently based on your race, the kinds of actio s you do, your reputation with other factions.
The storytelling is … a sandbox/emergent approach. Not in the sense of ‘there are no story lines or quests’… but in the sense of… a whole lot of stuff is out there, but you have to self direct yourself to go out and find it, or randomly encounter it.
Also, you can gain allies, make your own faction, and control a small army… and you can even build your own settlement, and economically interact with the rest of the world.
… Its… kind of hard to describe.
There really aren’t any other games quite like Kenshi.
Its got a good sized modding scene, and it incorperates at least some elemenrs of… every game you mentioned.
If you use a mod to up your max follower/faction member count… you can basically play the game as an RTS (with pause). Build a settlement, recruit followers (or enslave them), arm them, fees them, train them up, and go take over a city if you want.
… Or play basically solo, just you and your bonedog, maybe as a bounty hunter for hire, or a hashish smuggler, or get a pack animal and run a trade caravan.
Naturally we need to know which suggestions “won” ASAP
Shall I recommend WarZone-2100 ? It’s free
Horror/action: Dead Space.
FPS/time manipulation: Singularity.
Factory/combat(optional): Dyson Sphere Project
Singularity still stands up as it’s graphics are decent. Super cheap on GoG. Dead Space if you get the original would be cheap. HD remaster would be more. If you love factory games but have never played DSP god damn do I wish I was you. Recommend playing without combat enabled on first run to just enjoy how gorgeous the game is and to help with learning everything before throwing in combat management