Elite dangerous. It is so vast and there’s so much going on that it doesn’t feel like a game, it’s a second reality. I’ve been playing for months and I still have a bunch of brand new things to try out and master, which are going to be super fun.
I’ve got a big expedition coming up soon too, if I play enough I’ll see another 0.01% of the wonders the galaxy has to offer.
It fulfils my childhood dreams of exploring space, and there’s just so much it’s hard to stop
The Last Caretaker
You play as the last functioning robot in a post-human flooded Earth with the goal to restart humanity by growing and sending them into orbit with a rocket.
You explore the entire world on a small barge going between massive abandoned platforms with the last remaining infrastructure that you need to utilize the send the rockets to orbit. You spend a lot of time recycling the leftover scrap into better equipment to protect and power you and your ship.
It subverts a lot of my least favorite tropes of factory and survival games and just has a great sense of discovery. My favorite game design choice is that almost all of your enemy interaction is offensive instead of defensive so you have the opportunity to prepare before going into a big fight and can easily retreat.
It admittedly has a long way to go in terms of performance and stability. One thing that was counterintuitive is that turning on all the raytracing options significantly improved performance for me. But the gameplay loop is like nothing else out there. There is also no multiplayer yet, although the developer has said it’s not off the table in the long run. They’ve also openly stated that there will never be paid DLC. All future content is included with the purchase of the game.
It has a demo and is definitely worth checking out.
I forgot this one. When released, it had some serious performance problems that got worse and worse as you explored the ocean. Dropped it and totally forgot about it.
Need to revisit, because it was good, long as it worked.
Palworld. Just need a few more materials to build the thing to unlock more things to collect materials for…
The Banner Saga series. I have had the first one in my library for perhaps a decade, tried to start it a few times and never got into it.
Until a week ago, that is, when I got past the slow start and oh my does it pick up from there! Currently nearing end of the second one and I’ve been devouring these games, outright unhealthily to be honest, but I’m going to let it take me, I think the third one ends the saga, so this has a natural end and I’ll let myself go wild until that.
It’s pretty amazing how much one can do with so little, kind of. When the story is good and writing too, and the art style works, it doesn’t need all that much in terms of technical fidelity to be amazing.
Edit: If anyone has suggestions for other games like this, I’d be more than happy to hear them. I hear king of dragonpass and its lineage is almost a perfect fit, and I remember trying one of the newer ones a decade or so ago and having a blast but never finished. Are there others?
Do you like the tactial RPG gameplay, or the story and elements around maintaining and building up your clan?
For example Final Fantasy Tactics has you building up a team as you progress through a story with tactial rpg combat, but not as much about management decisons about keeping your party alive.
There are also games like This war is mine, which has no tactical RPG elements, but is about making hard decisions trying to keep a group of people alive during war.
Oh yeah this war of mine is actually another one in this very same realm I believe, good catch! Been intending to play it, perhaps now’s the time finally
Valheim
Approximately Up
Once I start, it’s really hard to put down. My only gripe is that you never have enough signal cable. It limits all the cool stuff you could build.
This week I put another 20 or so hours into Vintage Story. Recently got back from a trip to Ireland and am now recreating the ruins and castles I saw in-game
Rimworld, always Rimworld
Try dwarf fortress if you haven’t yet
It is good advice, thank you. I hardly dare to. Several thousand hours has gone into Rimworld already
My own- working on an early access release for the first 2027 Steam Nextfest. Designing levels and balancing the movement mechanics has got me playing these levels dozens (sometimes hundreds) of times!
Deadlock, it’s become a proper addiction at this point
Just finished Big Walk, which was the most fun and unique co-op experience I’ve ever had. Also just finished onimusha which is like sekiro easy mode. And started the wow forever Beta. Good gaming this month. Also I started another Celeste play thru for reasons I myself do not fully understand.
I want my bottle, I don’t want my bottle.
I want my bottle, I don’t want my bottle.
Satisfactory. I’m a Factorio native, ~1k hours. It’s been really fun to see the drastically different approaches to things, in terms of designing a factory game. Factorio will always be my true love, but every time I play Satisfactory I find myself just oogling the beauty of the game. The sense of scale is overwhelming, the 3d aspect gets rid of a lot of restrictions that I’m accustomed to and makes building a factory feel more like art than I ever thought it could be.
Satisfactory is also a much younger game than Factorio, so I’m excited to see how it matures. I really love the early access update experience.
Life
