Cyberpunk 2077. It was hated on release but it really has made a comeback after 2.0 was released.
I think cyberpunk really puts so many triple A titles to shame when it comes to the quality of the characters and quests.
Try rimworld! You don't need any of the dlcs for the first couple of successful runs. Just the base game takes you to I would say 85-90% of the experience (ideology is a good upgrade for later). Side effects include, playing too long into the night, dreaming about the game during your sleep and day dreaming about it during whatever else you doing until you get back to playing.
I love indie games - here's my favorites list!
Terraria
Deep rock galactic
Factorio
Dwarf Fortress
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (free and open source - check it out!)
Stardew Valley
Starbound
Rimworld (I much prefer dwarf fortress, but I found this first and got a few hundred hours in it too)
Battlebit remastered
Just to jump onto this comment: Factorio just released a major expansion this week.
In a similar vibe, Satisfactory just left early access a few weeks ago.
On Android (and probably other systems), Death Road to Canada is fun, funny, challenging, and comes with no BS.
Dave the Diver and Dredge come to mind.
Seconded. Just beat dredge the other day and MAN, what a different kind of gameplay, but I found it really interesting.
I just finished Carrion recently that was amazing.
Ooh I notice nobody has mentioned Wasteland 3 - it totally slipped under my radar, it is a fastastic RPG, with a fun story and good combat! :) It's what I'd love fallout to be :)
OldSchool RuneScape restored my faith in the industry. RuneScape was ruined by microtransactions, but Jagex grew an enormous pair of balls and released an older version of the game and started fresh without any of the bullshit.
To this day it's my favorite RPG. I could write a truly ridiculous amount about why I love it, but I recommend just playing it for yourself.
Horizon Zero Dawn is my all time favorite game (a remastered version is coming out next week so might be a great time to jump in). Celeste is a 2D platformer and also really great. Been having fun with Zelda ToTK and Astrobot as well.
I loved HZD so much on PS4, it is a great world, really good sci-fi story and awesome character progression. It feels so good to easily take down machines that you struggle with at the beginning, it never gets old to tear off parts and weapons to use against them. The DLC for it was a great addition.
Needless to say I jumped into Horizon Forbidden West as soon as it was released, and it did not live up to my expectations! The second go around everything feels so forced, I gave up midway through.
Solid recommendations throughout this thread…
Balatro - Even if roguelike isn't your thing, try it
Alan Wake 1/2 & Control- if you love creepy atmosphere
Superliminal - unique 1st person puzzle, think portal vibe
Bastion - 1st game from Supergiant, best smash-em-up I've ever played
Anything Supergiant for that matter
Second for Alan Wake/Control Universe games. Quantum Break is fun too and also by Remedy, and more action adventure.
Bastion is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, both art-wise and theme-wise. The entire end of the game was just chills and tears for me.
Don't forget that soundtrack too.
I will never be able to!
Here are 6 good games I wholeheartedly recommend:
Hollow Knight is a total work of art.
The first title that jumps to my mind, especially when you contextualize it around "restoring faith", is Satisfactory. It's been a very entertaining and challenging game, but also the development team has been exactly what one (typically) wants from a dev team. They've been very transparent about issues, their process, etc. Their interactions with the fan-base have been frequent and open throughout the years of development. Good game + good company. Worth consideration if you like a good factory builder.
Very down to earth people. Telling us they want to go outside in the summer so they won't be working for a bit was a bit of a stab at us basement dwellers
Animal Well and Outer Wilds come to mind.
If you haven't played it, "Stardew Valley" is, like, ruin-your-life good. And I think part of what makes it so faith assuring and life uplifting is that it was made by one dude who has continuously (for YEARS) released huge, free updates for the game. He's awesome. It feels good supporting him and recommending such a great game to people. :-)
I take it from your exasperation that you want a game to “just be good already”, from the very start. So I’ll exclude anything that takes too much thought or investment to start having a good time.
I was going to immediately mention Hollow Knight but I see someone already did. Second thought: Tunic. It's been a long time since a game hit me as hard as those two.
For pure fun addictive gaming: Factorio is absolutely nuts. 2D survival craft platforming action: Terraria is still king.
For space empire building check out X4: Foundations, after almost 10 years under development it's absolutely amazing (but a huge timesink haha)
Oh and if you're into semi-hard-scifi basebuilding you could give Stationeers a look. Sunk quite some hours into that one.
The learning cliff of the X games is pretty intense but totally worth it. I made it through and just look at me now! I, err.. wasn't going to do anything better with those hundreds of hours anyway.
GreedFall. Old school RPG that flew completely under my radar. It has a 00s Bioware feel to it, before the dark times. The graphics aren't perfect, etc., but it's a really fun game with a decent story (so far).
Baldurs Gate. There is so much content. I’m 150 hours in the game, I play split screen coop with my wife. We each have our characters customized to how we like it. It’s AAA quality. Came at a AAA price, but it’s absolutely worth it.
And I say this as a FPS/simulation gamer. Totally different genre but they’ve made this game accessible to all. It’s the only game I’ve ever purchased at full price and my steam account is 12 years old.
I've recently gotten hooked on the Yakuza series. The whole series goes on an aggressive sale pretty regularly on Steam. I'd recommend starting with Yakuza 0.
The best thing about Yakuza is that it welcomes many different approaches so you can go have crazy absurd fun, intense cinematic story driven drama, mindless collectible and challenges...
I think it's perfect to rediscover what fun in videogame is.
Let’s go with A Monster’s Expedition Through Puzzling Exhibitions!
Humanity has died through hubris and climate change, and Human Englandland is all flooded. Now it’s the age of monsters! And one monster is touring the now-outdoors old Human Englandland museum, which is an archipelago cause flooding and such. All the bridges washed out, but there’s convenient trees! Let’s go see the museum.
Pushing logs from trees into adjacent water is the point of the game, but it has some of the simplest yet best mechanics about it that I’ve seen in a long time.
The last campfire, disco Elysium, hue
Stardew valley is just fantastic and still receiving free updates.
Grim dawn is an amazing diablo2 style arpg. The dual class system means it has huge replayability. Still getting updates and very reasonably priced dlcs.
Kenshi is a unique gaming experience. If you can get past the jankiness it's an amazing open world squad game with no story or objectives as such. The story of your characters emerges from the things that happen as you play. Like getting enslaved etc.
I mainly like PvP games and I am really enjoying Valve’s Deadlock
Baldurs Gate 3
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