I’m sure everyone is all over this, but Dave the diver is so much fun. Little bit of rpg, little bit a farm sim, little bit a restaurant sim, throw in some action sequences
It’s a pretty popular one but I’m currently playing through Disco Elysium and it’s a masterpiece of thriller detective with very strong RPG integration. Highly recommend even if you don’t like either of those genres as long as you like a good story.
Subnatica. Exploration, farming, habitat building, and creepy at times. You will love it
I’m in the minority, I know, but I have mostly negative memories of playing Subnautica. I enjoyed exploring new areas, and the progression of the story, but the hours spent looking for one more resource so I could progress just made me mad. I don’t like save-scumming, but after
spoiler
losing my seamoth to a leviathan for the 3rd time, I said fuck it, and save-scummed regularly.
I had just finished playing Outer Wilds and my friends said “oh, then you would love Subnautica!” No, not the same kind of game at all. I say all of this so that anyone thinking of playing it has the right expectations: if you can’t find the one thing you’re looking for, I recommend just looking up a guide on where to find it. I don’t think the game funnels you to the correct areas well enough for you to find everything you need naturally.
When I think of Subnautica, I just remember having to drink water like every 5 minutes or so. I would have loved to explore, but I was busy getting basic resources all the time.
The game does have a freedom mode where you don’t need to worry about food or water.
That was another reason, yes. Apparently you’re supposed to find the parts to the water filtration system relatively early in the game, and it will regularly spit out large bottles of water that help a lot. I didn’t. So yeah, for 90% of the game I’m having to periodically chase Bladderfish for 5m so I can spend 2 minutes spam crafting a bunch of waters, so i can carry several around with me, taking up valuable space in my inventory.
Yeah, I really liked it but I wish the devs would’ve implemented one more skill mode at a slightly easier level. I was OK with losing whatever inventory I’d collected during the single trip if I died, but I really wanted the “sea moth doesn’t explode you just have to start from base again” mode. Especially since I lost one of them because I couldn’t figure out which key did the electric charge zap thing.
We’ve proven that we can find the blueprints and materials necessary to make the thing in the first place, so having to collect all that metal again (with limited inventory space) just felt like busy work.
How has no one mentioned Inscryption?
So, I really wanted to like Pyre. I love all the rest of Super Giant’s games, and I put maybe 10 hours into Pyre. But I think it was just too much Visual Novel for me. I wanted to spend more time playing the actual game (the rights?), but they only lasted maybe 5-10m and then it was back to reading and flying around.
But yeah, the art, sound, writing, and world are all beautiful. Just couldn’t get into a groove.
I haven’t seen anyone mention Kenshi, so I guess I will.
Kenshi is a post-apocalyptic, RPG, RTS, city-builder hybrid. You can play as one individual character, or you can build up a squad to roam an entire continent full of towns, people, and everything else that wants nothing more than to push your face into the dirt and watch you squirm. It’s an intensely brutal game, but one with an aesthetic that I can’t get enough of.
There are different races of playable characters (from humans, to hivers, to shek, and skeletons) all with their own different stat bonuses and handicaps. If you lose a limb, you can either find someone who sells prosthetics or just leave that character crippled for the rest of the game.
There’s kind of a story, but the game is mostly just you existing in this world and learning about it. There are plenty of different factions you can join or help out, and there will be consequences for choosing a side.
It’s also incredibly moddable, with the steam workshop having thousands of mods already.
