I was having a big argument with someone last night. They were defending all the "progression" bullshit and I was just yelling "BACK IN MY DAY THE ROCKET LAUNCHER AND QUAD DAMAGE WEREN'T TIME GATED AND IT WAS BETTER" over and over again.

It's all bullshit now. You used to be able to just jump in to a server with a community you liked, play a few rounds, chat with your friends. No one was keeping score, no one was grinding to unlock anything, the game wasn't shoving advertisements in your face every twelve seconds. Instead of having to spend several minutes in matchmaking between every round the game just loaded the next round, in the same server, with the same people.

Nothing was "unlocked" because the concept was bad and anti-competitive and would give some players mechanical advantages so why would any game ever do something like that? You could just use whatever you wanted.

Bllelegh

One of the annoying things about playing MP games is seeing the racist usernames and getting misgendered constantly. Like the communities always just suck

currently playing through control, I'm loving the atmosphere and the story so far but I'll be honest, getting tired of all the combat 😅 kinda wish there was more puzzle solving or more moments of downtime, considering some of the fights are just frustrating

but I'm a sucker for all things spooky government conspiracy so I'm still playing, albeit with modified difficulty so the combat goes by a bit quicker haha

no clue if its up your alley, but I'll always take a chance like this to plug Outer Wilds, some of the best written gaming I've ever had a chance to play honestly, albeit not quite as direct in its narrative focus as something like Control

In case you haven't tried them, "semi-realistic" multiplayer shooters are a good middle ground. Games like Rising Storm 2 or Hell Let Loose (haven't tried that one, but it looks good).

They have no esport interest, so people only play them to have fun, and the people playing are usually older. They have a lot of depth to them too, since the gameplay can be very asymmetrical.

As far as singleplayer game recommendations, try Prey (2017). I bounced off it at first, then came back later and it became one of my favorite games of all time.

If you like control, have you played Alan wake and Alan wake 2? They’re in the same universe.

I really like factory games. Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program, Modded Minecraft, and Mindustry all are basically endless entertainment because you can always keep expanding. There's also Factorio which is the OG but I can't recommend it because I haven't played it.

I also enjoy roguelikes when I don't have the time to sit down and play a factory game for hours. Noita, Hades, Slay the Spire, One Step From Eden, and Enter the Gungeon are my favorites but there's essentially an endless number of roguelikes, each with very different mechanics and varying levels of difficulty. Some you can play for thousands of hours looking for secrets to trying to create the perfect build, like Noita, but generally they're all a lot of fun even if you don't play them to that extent.

Another genre that I think doesn't get a lot of attention outside of Rimworld are management sim games. There's Dwarf Fortress, which kinda has a reputation for being incredibly deep with simulation mechanics that make every fortress come alive. You can really get lost in the game just trying to get a very efficient fortress that makes your dwarves happy, but it's also open for you to do anything you like, so you could try taking over the world in 10 years or making a giant soap factory complex. There's another pretty notable game in the genre, Amazing Cultivation Simulator, that is a little tough to get into because it's a Chinese game focused on Wuxia fiction, with a lot of references to Chinese culture. However, once you get over the initial difficulty spike, and read a couple guides, it's also a lot of fun. You can make a sect of dragon slaying demigods, pushing your characters' power level to infinity with a thousand different mechanics, each one a little more esoteric than the last.

Edit: Just saw you said you don't really like management games like Cities Skylines, but you really love Planet Coaster because you like placing the bushes one by one. If so, I think you might actually enjoy Satisfactory the most out of all the games I listed. It's incredibly relaxing and therapeutic to connect conveyor belts. You also said you liked narrative stuff and enjoyed Control. You might enjoy Bioshock, they're pretty classic games and despite some pretty questionable parts in Infinite, they have solid narratives that a lot of people enjoy.

We need more games that are mp co-op - just not against other people. Serious Sam on insane difficulty with a bunch of friends is damn good fun.

Just throwing some titles out here, if you want a take on any in particular, I'd be happy to provide. These aren't really niche tho

The Dishonored series (and Deathloop)
The new Wolfensteins
Citizen Sleeper
The Pale Beyond
Return of the Obra Dinn
Pentiment
Norco

if you do want to play a multiplayer shooter wait around for an actual new one (tribes 3 in a couple years maybe) so that everyone is on a more level playing field and you'll want to play a bunch. when you have a foundation you can maintain it playing 1-2 times a week for a few hours, just ignore all that "season pass" shit.

Alan Wake 2 is just as much of a sequel to Control as it is to Alan Wake. Its weird and goofy and creepy as fuck, though some of the goals can be confusing. Highly recommended, my personal GotY, behind BG3 of course.

Speaking of BG3 is near perfect.

Depends on what you like? I don't have a lot of obscure or niche games, but I've got plenty of good ones!

If you want an excellent narrative experience, we got stuff like Disco Elysium :evrart:. And, I'm not much of an RPG guy, but Earthbound and Mother 3 are my personal reccomendations for a slightly odd, sometimes bizarre adventure of trying to defeat the ultimate evil, and capitalism. :pigmask-parodied: Something more, fps oriented we got Fallout New Vegas, a bit clunky but it works well and has a butt-load of quests and narratives.

If you're more management minded, maybe something like Cities: Skylines (It has a sequel I haven't played yet) for cities, and lately I've been playing Rimworld which is focused more on creating schedules for individual people and designing a base smooth enough to survive/escape the planet. The Tropico series is good too, Tropico 4 is the best one IMO, a little dated but it is fun to try to get everything to click together in a game where nearly everything is working against you.

There is also the matter of Paradox grand-"strategy" games, of which I am an addict of. EU4 is good in itself (with all the DLC, so say goodbye to your moolah unless it's a sale) but also has an excellent fantasy mod called Anbennar, which is chock-full of content. But games like these have a large learning curve, not a hard one (pressing buttons on screens/map) but a long one (a bajillion things to keep track of).

The Total War series is a bit hard for me to recommend nowadays, as in my opinion, the newer titles lack what made the older ones special. But if you want to play some large-scale battles in rts with turn-based management of your realm? I'd say play Shogun 2, especially the standalone dlc Fall of the Samurai for some firearm focused action with sharpshooters and naval bombardments. Of the old-older titles, Medieval 2 is also really good, very charming, but has a very clunky control scheme that still befuddles me after 250+ hours. And my personal favorites, based purely off nostalgia and my undying love for the early-modern period, Empire and Napoleon are a fun time. Empire, albeit buggy, holds a special place in my heart. (Darthmod recommended after a few hours of gameplay for AI and graphical improvements + quite a few more units to mess around with.)

Also, don't forget Subnautica, a sure-fire way to make you afraid of the ocean as you explore an alien world, with both it's wonders and terrors. Of course, Minecraft is good for this also, Caves and Cliffs update made exploration so much fun. Another exploration and survival game I nearly forgot to mention is Project Zomboid, a zombie survival game (shocking), it is isometric where you have to manage your characters stats such as food, water, boredom and happiness while avoiding being bitten by the titular zomboids. It is fully customizable, so if the default gamemodes prove too easy or hard, you can simply change it.

Now, if you want to completely relax while doing some puzzling, Dorfromantik is a hit, a little hexagon-based matching game where you create a nice landscape as the game goes on. On the more intense side however, there's Teardown, which is a resource intensive game simulating a near entirely destructible physics based world. The thing doing the destruction? You, as you try to complete unique challenges, often timed ones, creating optimal routes to steal paintings by simply creating your own route through some richoids bedroom with a pipe bomb.

And for shooters... look up Cruelty Squad, there's actually a niche game for you. :john-cruelty: :cruelty-handler:

So, there you have it, my honest list of actually-good singleplayer games. I could write more, but that's a lot of Bideo James to get through. And some of them, especially the Paradox grand-strategy games, should be "loaned from random strangers on the internet" at first to make sure you actually like them (Cause DLC is expensive as hell.).

What genres do you normally play? Plenty singleplayer games that are amazing.

You haven't played BG3? Play that.

I feel the same way. I used to play lots of COD, Rocket League and eventually Fortnite, and I was burnt out because I never cared to devote enough time to actually get really good. Now I play primarily single player games. It's sad in a way because games were the only thing keeping me in touch with my high school inner circle, but games are supposed to be fun